Synopses & Reviews
A moving portrait of the life and legendary career of one of the NFLandrsquo;s most beloved players Tiaina Baul andldquo;Juniorandrdquo; Seau is widely considered one of the best linebackers ever to play the game.and#160;A ten-time All-Pro and twelve-time Pro Bowl selection, Seau was picked for the NFLandrsquo;s andldquo;All-Decade Teamandrdquo; in the 1990andrsquo;s. His incredible career spanned two decades, during which time he played for the Chargers, Dolphins, and Patriots.and#160;A charismatic leader and competitor known for playing through injuries and leaving it all on the field, Seau started inand#160;almost 250 regular season games and electrified fans with his dynamic play.and#160;and#160;and#160;In 2012, at the age of forty-three, Seau committed suicide with a gunshot wound to the chest. News of his death sent shockwaves through the NFL. Later, studies concluded that Seau had been suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a type of brain damage. His tragic death opened the door to hundreds of inquiries about the trauma from NFL players and their families.and#160;and#160;Drawing on exclusive access to Seauandrsquo;s family and Seauandrsquo;s never-before-seen diaries and letters, veteran reporter Jim Trotter goes beyond the statistics to paint a moving portrait of a larger-than-life star whose towering achievements in the game came at a great cost.
Review
“Excellent...busts through pro footballs prevailing mythology...Nate Jackson gives us the game warts and all, but never in a drag-ass, woe-is-me way. A really fine book. Man can write.” < b=""> Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk <>
Review
“Simply the best book by a former player about life in the NFL that you will read. Maybe the best book period about life in the NFL that you will read.” < b=""> Stefan Fatsis, author of A Few Seconds of Panic: A Sportswriter Plays in the NFL <>
Review
“That screaming you hear coming across the sky? Its a wobbly spiral…Slow Getting Up is everything you want football memoirs to be but never are: hilarious, dirty, warm, human, honest, weird.” < b=""> Dwight Garner, < i=""> New York Times <> <>
Review
“Slow Getting Up tells the whole truth about the NFL. Painfully honest and remarkably funny, its far and away the best ‘insider book about pro sports since Jim Boutons Ball Four.” < b=""> Scott Raab, author of < i=""> The Whore of Akron <> <>
Review
“The book the world has been waiting for. “Ball Four” for the football world is here at last.” < b=""> Tom Junod, via Twitter <>
Review
“A tremendously authentic, inside-the-locker-room view is unveiled with Jacksons myriad stories, clever wit, skillful prose and perfect dose of sophomoric humor.” < b=""> < i=""> San Jose Mercury News <> <>
Review
“Fantastic.” < b=""> Jonathan Mahler, < i=""> Bloomberg <> <>
Review
“The best football memoir ever.” < b=""> < i=""> Rolling Stone <> <>
Review
“Excellent.” < b=""> < i=""> New Republic <> <>
Synopsis
Nate Jacksons
Slow Getting Up is an unvarnished and uncensored memoir of everyday life in the most popular sports league in America—and the most damaging to its players—the National Football League.
After playing college ball at a tiny Division III school, Jackson, a receiver, signed as a free agent with the San Francisco 49ers, before moving to the Denver Broncos. For six seasons in the NFL as a Bronco, he alternated between the practice squad and the active roster, eventually winning a starting spot—a short, tenuous career emblematic of the average pro player.
Drawing from his own experience, Jackson tells the little known story of the hundreds of everyday, "expendable" players whose lives are far different from their superstar colleagues.
From scouting combines to training camps, off-season parties to game-day routines, debilitating physical injuries—including degenerative brain conditions—to poor pensions and financial distress, he offers a funny, and shocking look at life in the NFL, and the young men who risk their health and even their lives to play the game.
Synopsis
One man's odyssey into the brutal hive of the national football league
This is not a celebrity tell-all of professional sports. Slow Getting Up is a survivor's real-time account of playing six seasons (twice as long as the average NFL career) for the San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos.
As an unsigned free agent who rose through the practice squad to the starting lineup, Nate Jackson is the talented embodiment of the everyday freak athlete in professional football, one of thousands whose names go unmentioned in the daily press. Through his story recounted here—from scouting combines to preseason cuts to byzantine film studies to glorious touchdown catches—even knowledgeable football fans will glean a new, starkly humanized understanding of the daily rigors and unceasing violence of quotidian life in the NFL.
Fast-paced, lyrical, and hilariously unvarnished, Slow Getting Up is an unforgettable look at the real lives of America's best twenty-year-old athletes putting their bodies and minds through hell.
Synopsis
From longtime NFL reporter and San Diego insider, a moving portrait of the life and legendary career of one of the NFLandrsquo;s most beloved players, felled by the tough guy culture and concussion crisis that pervades the sport.
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About the Author
Longtime NFL reporter JIM TROTTER covers football forandnbsp;ESPN.andnbsp; He started his career in San Diego, where he worked up the ladder from preps reporter to lead NFL writer at theandnbsp;San Diego Union-Tribune.andnbsp;andnbsp;He then joinedandnbsp;Sports Illustratedandnbsp;as a senior writer for more than a decade.andnbsp;andnbsp;Trotter has appeared on numerous national media outlets, including CNN, Fox News, ESPN, NFL Network, andandnbsp;The Jim Rome Show. He is also a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee.