The NBA's Greatest Season(?) and a journey from civil war to Kansas City
Reviews of 🏀 When The Game Was War and 🏈 The Nigerian Nightmare
Happy new year! Hope you all got some new sports books and some time to read over the holidays. A great year of books ahead and am already getting stuck into some of the 2024 list.
Plan for the year is to put this out most Wednesdays with two recent or upcoming books reviewed in each edition. Once a month I’ll have a different edition with either a ‘best of’ post on a particular topic or a list of upcoming books etc. Always happy to get feedback about what you’d like to see here. Happy reading!
Some new or recent releases to check out:
⚽ The Africa Cup of Nations: The History of an Underappreciated Tournament by Ben Jackson. Very much looking forward to reading this while watching AFCON this month.
Front Office Fantasies: The Rise of Managerial Sports Media by Branden Buehler - a look at how we have all become fascinated with the behind-the-scenes management of sports clubs often more-so than what happens on the pitch.
🎾 Naomi Osaka: Her Journey to Finding Her Power and Her Voice by Ben Rothenberg. Ben has been promoting the book really well on twitter making the case that whether you are a fan of Osaka or not the book should be of interest to any tennis fan.
⚽ Winner Stays On: England with the FA Cup for a Compass by R M Clark
🏃🏿♀️🏅 The Tigerbelles: Olympic Legends from Tennessee State by Aime Alley Card. Story of the 1960 Tennessee State University all-black women’s track team, which found Olympic glory at the 1960 games in Rome.
This week’s reviews:
🏀 When the Game was War: The NBA's Greatest Season by Rich Cohen
When a book looks back at particular sporting year or season and is written by someone who wasn’t actively involved in the events, there’s a very good chance that the year covered just happened to be when the writer was either a kid of around 10 years old in the early stages of acquiring a lifelong love of sport or a young adult of 19 or so newly enjoying the freedoms of early adulthood. Ask anyone their favourite soccer World Cup and the same test usually works too - its either one they attended or the one closest to their 10th or 19th birthday.
Rich Cohen, a writer of great sports books, including on the 1985 Chicago Bears, was 19 and a diehard NBA fan during the 1987/88 season. This was the era of the Magic Johnson Lakers, the Larry Bird Celtics, the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons of Isaih Thomas, and the not yet dominant Michael Jordan Bulls. Cohen recaps the season by focusing on four games between the teams and the Playoffs which culminated in a Lakers v Pistons final series. The book also serves as a mini biography of each of the four superstars - players whom arguably no modern player other than LeBron James comes close to in terms of status and legacy with the average sports fan.
As well as making the case that the 87/88 season, which represented the end of the Magic/Kareem Showtime era, was the NBA’s greatest, Cohen is also eager to redeem Isiah Thomas’ reputation from the villain caricatured in The Last Dance, Jordan’s self-serving but still sensationally enjoyable Netflix documentary. He makes a convincing case that Thomas deserves a much greater legacy than merely as a foil to Jordan.
Cohen’s enjoyment in re-living the games shines through the book which make it a pleasure to read. While the era and players have been pretty well documented in other books and documentaries, Cohen put in the hard yards and spoke to many of the main protagonists to get their reflections. It’s very much a fun era of the sport to revisit.
🏈 The Nigerian Nightmare: My Journey Out of Africa to the Kansas City Chiefs and Beyond by Christian Okoye with Greg Hanlon
There is something remarkably appealing to a fan about phenomenal athletes who take up a new sport much later than normal and become elite performers. It shouldn’t be possible but when rare physical gifts are combined with the right kind of mentality it can happen. Christian Okoye’s story is very much in that vein - an athlete who grew up during Nigeria’s civil war, Okoye' made it to America on a university track scholarship as was a discuss thrower. He was persuaded to try football, and after his Olympic dream was crushed largely due to administrative failings in Nigeria, he set his sights on the NFL. He would go on to have a 6 year career as a running back for the Kansas City Chiefs, including being selected as an All Pro, before injuries destroyed his body and ended his career.
As well as being that rare late adopter, Okoye was also one of those rare athletes that for a time appeared invincible. Like Jonah Lomu in rugby, at his very peak he seemed untackleable and destined to go down as an all-time great. Perhaps inevitably, injuries ultimately took their toll and cut his career short.
Okoye comes across as a fascinating and thoughtful character. His life has been remarkable - early tragedy and trauma overcome through talent and determination but his success and style of play on the football field has left him in significant pain and fearful for what years of tackles may ultimately mean for his mental wellbeing as he ages. The book is interesting, well written and not afraid to express an opinion. Player’s autobiographies are typically my least favourite sports books but when done well, with a good co-writer and a commitment to be open they can work well as this one does.
Thanks for reading. Let me know your thoughts, opinions, any improvements I can make etc. Catch me on Twitter. More books next week!
I agree with you that player autobiographies are my least favorite books and I often avoid them. Scottie Pippen’s is a good example. But Okoye may be worth the read if he is as open as you say. Also looking forward to Rex Chapman’s book this spring as he has been very open about his drug issues in the past.