Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Football Is...: What the game does to us, for us, through us

Football Is...: What the game does to us, for us, through us

Humphrey, Shawn

Paperback

Young Adult Nonfiction

ISBN13: 9798291668177
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Aug 7 2025
Pages: 232
Weight: 0.60
Height: 0.53 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English

Nineteen boys circle around like it's a schoolyard showdown. The air is thick with Fight Club energy-raw, visceral, violent. They're raucously cheering as one by one, their brothers step forward. I'm hollering commands. They're lifting, driving, flipping the one-man sled. I'm barking: Next!

One of my slimmer defensive backs steps forward-he lifts, drives, but cannot flip the sled. Disappointment clouds his face. I know that look-he needs this. So I holler No, do it again!

I stand right next to him, whisper into the earhole of his helmet: You're going to do this. He takes position. I run alongside him, hollering Attack! Attack! Attack! He struggles, strains, then plants the sled into the grass! I'm fully, completely, caught up in the primality of the moment, slapping his back plate yelling: That's it! That's it! That's it!

As the boys run for water, the professor in me cuts through the adrenaline, wondering: What is it about this game-of clashes and hits-that becomes a place of nourishment?

Football Is... explores what the game does to us, for us, and through us.

It's a poetic, fiercely honest collection of 40 personal essays and 10 game-day speeches drawn from a lifetime of playing, coaching, and returning to the game after decades in academia. Written by a former Division III captain and current high school coach, this book isn't about X's and O's or chasing championships-it's about the inner transformation football demands.

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