Continuing a collection of reviews on American-soccer related media, we switch breifly to books...
"Before his son enlisted for a season of Youth Soccer at the neighborhood Boys and Girls Club in College Park, Maryland, Jim Haner was just your typical white middle-class suburban father. And as an award-winning journalist for The Baltimore Sun, Haner was more likely to write about scoundrels than soccer.
But his son had caught the bug, so Haner reluctantly found himself in a room full of anxious parents, listening to the Youth Soccer Commissioner proudly proclaim that 'soccer is the essence of being!' He wondered, What's this all about? and before he knew it, he was giving pep talks to nine-year-olds in shin guards and cleats. As the coach of the Hornets, a ragtag team on ten boys and one determined girl, Harner found himself eating, sleeping, and dreaming soccer; the game became an overwhelming, all-consuming obsession. So he imersed himself in soccer lore, dug deep into the historical record, took road trips to meet the living greats, and funneled his research into an intimate portrait of the soccer craze from the bottum up, and from the past to the present. With pyrotechnic flair, the coach-turned-soccer apostle describes how 'Mob Ball' fever was spread when successive waves of immigrants arrived in the States from England, Europe, South America, and Africa. He traces the rises and falls in the game's popularity in the decades since, up to the current wave of 'soccermania.' When 100,000 people showed up in Pasedena to see the Americans take the Women's World Cup title in 1999, it was clear that the craze had become unstoppable. Now little girls paste up posters of Mia Hamm on their bedroom walls, instead of pop stars. Youth soccer enrollments are skyrocketing. And socer is finally getting its due from the American media.
Soccerhead is a timely meditation on the poetry and politics of the game- a memoir, a cultural history, and a relfection on the Zen-ness of the sport, all rolled into one. This is a book for soccer moms and dads, sports fans, sociologists, politicians, historians, and last but not least, anyone who's ever been empowered by a pair of shin guards and a two-tone ball."
2006 Jim Haner. North Point Press.
What was good?
A very detailed and easy to read history of soccer in America. Haner very successfuly intersperses scenes of youth soccer with his own journey through the rich, yet very much hidden legacy of American soccer. His own journey from uninformed to soccer historian makes it easy for even those who know little of soccer to pick up the book and understand the progression that takes place.
What was bad?
There is little to complain about. The speed with which I finished the book makes me wish that it were longer, and the journey wasn't over with so quickly. Sometimes the youth soccer scenes are a little hard to follow with the way the historical journey is injected into them.
Overall?
A great book and a must for true fans of American soccer or anyone wanting to know more about this great sport. The youth soccer parts should be familar to both former players as well as parents, coaches and refs. And the historical journey through American soccer that makes up the backbone of this book is an easy read and very enjoyable.
Rating 9/10
Retailed for $24.00 @ Barnes & Nobles
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