Kevin

It should have been a book!

Revisado: 02-28-25

This is a great intro to youth sports for anyone who isn't involved. It almost felt like a treatment for a future book. I hope it is. there is so much more to this culture.

The authors love for his daughter and his willingness to sacrifice so much of his life for her pursuits is all the more heartbreaking knowing what happened to her. Do yourself a favor and Google the author and his daughter before reading. you'll find that the book isn't meant to be touching, but it turns out to be very much so.

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Where is the rest of it?

Revisado: 12-08-24

I am a huge Selleck fan. I was really looking forward to this book. He spends the first half of the book leading up to Magnum, and the second half of the book on Magnum. He then dedicates a few minutes to Blue Bloods and that is it. If you want to hear about his career post Magnum, you are out of luck. He got into painstaking detail on every acting class and audition from the early 70s, but we don't get a word on Quigley, Las Vegas, Jesse Stone, or Friends. I love Blue Bloods, and to only get 10 minutes on it after countless hours go episode by episode on Magnum was a bit heartbreaking. I hope there is a part 2!

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Great stories!

Revisado: 05-12-24

It is great to see that these stories are being told and that this material is being covered. there is so much more to tell, and I hope this is the first of many books.

Having been to more than 50 pro Beach events including the 96 Olympics, I always take great offense to the idea that that quarterfinal match in '96 was the greatest match ever played. It wasn't. Not even close. It was a very important match. The bad blood ran very deep. It may have been one of the more passionate matches. but as far as greatest... no way. I listened to the whole thing, but it was very tempting to fast forward through the recap of that 96 match. without the visual, it doesn't make for good listening. It's also completely unnecessary in telling this story. I would much rather have had more stories from the history of beach volleyball then all of the time dedicated to that one match.

I also have to mention that listening to the narrator mispronounce Tim Hovland's name over and over again with like nails on a chalkboard.

That all said, it is still a must listen for any volleyball fan. It's an important book. The stories must be preserved and retold.

I grew up at Southern California beaches in the '70s and early '80s watching these guys practice. The game was different. The rules were different. The court was different. Everything was different. This book does a good job of capturing those differences. The book captures what made the game so great. It also gets into how the changes to make it more TV friendly have made it less entertaining. Never was volleyball more exciting then when a great team went down 12 to 2 in a side out scoring game to 15 and watching them work their way back to win the match. With rally score, that type of suspense and energy no longer exists.

I hope this is the first of many books on beach volleyball. I don't know if the sport will ever come back to what it once was, but books like this will only serve to help.

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Good Effort But Missed Part of the Story

Revisado: 11-04-23

The author did incredible research for this book. He told a lot of stories and attempted to touch every part of sports during the 70s. He spent the most time on Title IX, which was appropriate. However, he did not quite capture the real impact of Title IX and did not show a real understanding of the true impact. He focused primarily on big time women's basketball programs to tell the Title IX story. He talked about their fight to capture part of those big athletic budgets at top football schools. Of course that did happen and is part of the story, but it is a very very small part. Probably only 5% of schools were in this category, and basketball is only one of probably a dozen sports where women's sports grew. The rest of Division 1, all of Division 2 and 3, as well as the NAIA were all ignored.....and what about the high schools? They all had to implement Title IX as well. Everyone except the very top of Division I colleges, on which the author exclusively focusses, had to implement Title IX without the benefit of TV money or much in the way of resources at all. He vilifies the male athletic directors for their resistance to Title IX. And yes, 99%+ of all ADs in the US were male at the time. What he did not mention is that in the 70s before women had really even attempted to administrate sports it was these male ADs that built women's sports out of nothing at every level, and often with little to no extra resources. They had to find coaches, facilities, administrators, officials, equipment, etc... They also had to find the athletes. Women were not lined up to join the teams. They were recruited by these male ADs and coaches out of PE classes, dorms, and the classroom. At the top levels where big football tv money was going to go to women's programs there were some ADs that pushed back when they shouldn't have. However, at all other levels there was no money to protect and the pushback was not the same. In fact, these ADs and administrators typically loved to build these programs. It was at these non elite D1 levels that title nine effected 95% of all women athletes. These stories were not told. And what about all of the other women's sports? The basketball bias is very strong. Other than tennis, the other sports were ignored by the author much like women's athletics was ignored before Title IX. One of the big stories in women's sports in the first 20-30 after Title IX was the disproportionate amount of resources going to women's basketball. The other sports have fought an uphill battle ever since to get an appropriate share of the resources.

Also, prepare to hear a lot of the University of Texas. I am not sure why. The author goes on deep dives into UT sports, but the stories don't seem to go anywhere, be very important, or contribute to the story.

I do not mean to be critical in any way. I am simply furthering the discussion the author did a great job of starting. If you love sports, this book is well worth the read and I highly recommend it.

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Good Narration, but.....

Revisado: 08-07-23

Great book! Well written! The narration is good, but he consistently mispronounces names. It really isn't that difficulty to research how former athletes from the 80s and 90s pronounced their names. It was like nails on a chalkboard to hear him mispronounce the same names over and over. It took away from my enjoyment of the book.

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We Get It, The USA is Always in the Wrong

Revisado: 04-05-20

This is a frustrating book to listen to. According to this author, no matter what the U.S. does, it is always on the wrong side of history. So when the U.S. colonizes, people are oppressed and die so the U.S. is in the wrong. When the U.S. fails to colonize, people are not rescued from oppression and they die so the U.S. is in the wrong. The overt hatred of every policy decision in U.S. history regarding empire building slants this book heavily toward opinion rather than fact. The bias is so strong that all facts have to be looked at with a grain of salt as they are all filtered by an author making no effort to present all sides of a story.

Just by the title of the text and the author's background, you know this book is going to lean hard to the left, which it does. However, the bias is not where this book falls apart. It is quite disjointed and the editor really dropped the ball. Was a chapter on James Bond really necessary? Isn't this a history book? He then goes on and on about standardization of screw threads. The connection to his topic is distant at best, but for the time he put into standardization he could have written another book on it.

That all said, the first half of the book (Part 1) is very interesting and well written. As long as you know the author's bias, you enjoy reading about events that you probably didn't know about. However, feel free to shut it off after you finish Part 1. Part 2 feels like a hodgepodge of the author's stream of conscious thoughts.

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Norm Misses On This One

Revisado: 11-12-17

I am a HUGE Norm fan. I will watch clips of him on youtube for hours. I have always found that about 90% of his materiel hits, and 10% is a painful miss. Unfortunately, this books falls into that 10%. Mixing reality and fantasy for comedic effect in a sort of autobiography is just frustrating rather than funny. Skip this one and watch his great stuff on youtube, or listen to his podcast for free.

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Great Running Book

Revisado: 11-12-17

Being an older runner, I loved this book. It is a the perfect read for someone who loves to run, but is probably not going to win any races. He perfectly captures the experience of someone who runs for the love of running.

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Wonderful Surprise

Revisado: 11-12-17

For whatever reason, I was not expecting much out of this book. In the past, I have been disappointed by biographies of people who I did not know much about. I loved this book. It is a great story about a great man. I highly recommend it. It has just the right pacing and does not lend itself to hyperbole. The first half hour or so was a little rough because the introduction was not as smooth as it could have been and it took awhile to get used to the narrator's accent. Trust me, stick it out and you will not be disappointed.

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Not What I Thought it Would Be

Revisado: 11-12-17

I have been a fan of Anna Faris for a long time. I believe her to be one of the top comedic actresses of the last 25 years. I purchased this book mistakenly thinking it was an autobiography. It is not.

This book is her take on all things love. I wanted to hear about making Scary Movie and Just Friends, and what it took to produce a movie like The House Bunny. Instead, I got her opinions to hypothetical dating scenarios. My advice is to listen to her podcast. It is the exact same thing and it is free.

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esto le resultó útil a 50 personas