
Tropic of Football
Description
Alles über E-Books | Antworten auf Fragen rund um E-Books, Kopierschutz und Dateiformate finden Sie in unserem Info- & Hilfebereich.
"Everything that's rousing and distressing about block-and-tackle football is encompassed in Tropic of Football. . . illuminating."
-Newsday
How a tiny Pacific archipelago is producing more players-from Troy Polamalu to Marcus Mariota-for the NFL than anywhere else in the world, by an award-winning sports historian
Football is at a crossroads, its future imperiled by the very physicality that drives its popularity. Its grass roots-high school and youth travel program-are withering. But players from the small South Pacific American territory of Samoa are bucking that trend, quietly becoming the most disproportionately overrepresented culture in the sport.
Jesse Sapolu, Junior Seau, Troy Polamalu, and Marcus Mariota are among the star players to emerge from the Samoan islands, and more of their brethren suit up every season. The very thing that makes them so good at football-their extraordinary internalization of discipline and warrior self-image-makes them especially vulnerable to its pitfalls, including concussions and brain injuries.
Award-winning sports historian Rob Ruck travels to the South Seas to unravel American Samoa's complex ties with the United States. He finds an island blighted by obesity, where boys train on fields blistered with volcanic pebbles wearing helmets that should have been discarded long ago, incurring far more neurological damage than their stateside counterparts and haunted by Junior Seau, who committed suicide after a vaunted twenty-year NFL career, unable to live with the demons that resulted from chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Tropic of Football is a gripping, bittersweet history of what may be football's last frontier.
More details
Person
Content
- Intro
- Introduction
- 1 God's Sweetest Work
- 2 The War and America Come to Samoa
- 3 Hawai'i : The North Shore
- 4 Al Lolotai , Charlie Ane, and Bob Apisa
- 5 American Samoa in the 1960s
- 6 Jesse Sapolu, Dick Tomey, and Fa'a Samoa
- 7 Fa'a Kalifonia : Oceanside, California
- 8 Kalifonia Dreaming
- 9 Back in Hawai'i: Where Football Still Matters
- 10 David and Goliath
- 11 The Samoan Paradox
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Glossary
- Notes
- Index
System requirements
File format: ePUB
Copy protection: Watermark-DRM (Digital Rights Management)
System requirements:
- Computer (Windows; MacOS X; Linux): Use a reading software that can process the file format ePUB: e.g., Adobe Digital Editions or FBReader – both free (see eBook Help).
- Tablet/Smartphone (Android; iOS): Before downloading, install the free app Adobe Digital Editions (see eBook Help).
- E-reader: Bookeen, Kobo, Pocketbook, Sony, Tolino and many more (not Kindle).
The file format ePUB works well for novels and non-fiction books – i.e., „flowing” text without complex layout. On an e-reader or smartphone, line and page breaks automatically adjust to fit the small displays.
This eBook uses Watermark-DRM, a „soft” copy protection. This means that there are no technical restrictions to prevent illegal distribution. However, there is a personalised watermark embedded in the eBook that can be used to identify the purchaser of the eBook in the event of misuse and to provide evidence for legal purposes.
For more information, see our eBook Help page.