Exciting and dark side of elite sports

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kdowli01 Avatar

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This was really powerful and dark, and I really enjoyed reading it. This has some similar themes to Beartown (but with football), but is handled in a really different way.
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This is about Wally and his brother Henry and their dreams to play football for Bastille, a fictional powerhouse in college football. Henry is a star kicker but because of his mental deficiencies requires Wally to help him in school and with the game. When their beloved coach dies, a new coach comes in and changes everything they loved about the team and the sport.
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I don't think the topic of toxic masculinity or corruption within football, or any elite sport, would surprise anyone. What stood out to me was the comparison between the original coach and the new one, and what that did to the atmosphere of the team. It makes it so obvious how much of a role one person can have in creating a healthy (or unhealthy) environment, and how kids react when they're trained a certain way in a sport, and how that relates to life.
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There's a lot more to this than just the coach being mean -- there's a lot of politics behind it all, and what a school is willing to do to keep donor money coming in, such as overlooking problems with academics or even heinous crimes.
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I wouldn't consider myself super knowledgeable on football, and I did not see that as a deterrence here. Maybe I would have understood some scenes differently if I knew all the terminology, but I still thought it was easy to follow and had some exciting scenes.
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My only thing keeping this from 5 stars was the ending, which honestly felt pretty sudden and a bit too perfect. But otherwise I very much enjoyed this! Just beware of some serious trigger warnings for sexual assault and abuse.