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A Few Seconds of Panic: A 5-Foot-8, 170-Pound, 43-Year-Old Sportswriter Plays in the NFL | 
 enlarge | Author: Stefan Fatsis
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $15.00
You Save: $10.95 (42%)
New (28) Used (2) from $15.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 1340
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 1594201781
Dewey Decimal Number: 070.449796092
EAN: 9781594201783
ASIN: 1594201781
Publication Date: July 3, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Drawing on rare access to an NFL teams players, coaches and facilities, the author of The New York Times bestseller Word Freak trains to become a professional-caliber placekicker. As he sharpens his skills, he gains surprising insight into the daunting challengesphysical, psychological, and intellectualthat pro athletes must master
In Word Freak, Stefan Fatsis infiltrated the insular world of competitive Scrabble players, ultimately achieving expert status (comparable to a grandmaster ranking in chess). Now he infiltrates a strikingly different subculturepro football. After more than a year spent working out with a strength coach and polishing his craft with a gurulike kicking coach, Fatsis molded his fortyish body into one that could stand upbarelyto the rigors of NFL training. And over three months in 2006, he became a Denver Bronco. He trained with the team and lived with the players. He was given a locker and uniforms emblazoned with #9. He was expected to perform all the drills and regimens required of other kickers. He was unlike his teammates in some waysmost notably, his livelihood was not on the line as theirs was. But he became remarkably like them in many ways: He risked crippling injury just as they did, he endured the hazing that befalls all rookies, he gorged on 4,000 daily calories, he slogged through two-a-day practices in blistering heat. Not since George Plimptons stint as a Detroit Lion more than forty years ago has a writer tunneled so deeply into the NFL.
At first, the players tolerated Fatsis, or treated him like a mascot, but over time they began to think of him as one of them. And he began to think like one of them. Like the other Broncoslike all elite athleteshe learned to perfect a motion through thousands of repetitions, to play through pain, to silence the crowds roar, to banish self-doubt.
While Fatsis honed his mind and drove his body past exhaustion, he communed with every classic athletic typethe affable alpha male, the overpaid brat, the youthful phenom, the savvy veteranand a welter of bracingly atypical players as well: a fullback who invokes Aristotle, a quarterback who embraces yoga, a tight end who takes creative writing classes in the off-season. Fatsis also witnessed the hidden machinery of a top-flight football franchise, from the God-is-in-the-details strategizing of legendary coach Mike Shanahan to the icy calculation with which the front office makes or breaks careers.
With wry candor and hard-won empathy, A Few Seconds of Panic unveils the mind of the modern pro athlete and the workings of a storied sports franchise as no book ever has before.
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| Customer Reviews:
 What a ball! July 24, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you like sports or competing, you'll love this book. It's an Every Man story of a regular guy trying to find out how it feels to be a professional athlete. And for those of us who'll never get a chance to find out, it's a ton of fun.
Fatsis takes us inside the practices, the plays, the coaches offices, the locker room and the training room for a first-hand look at the conflicted and pain-filled lives of professional football players. Between the gnarled fingers and torn ligaments, we see how these athletes balance a violent and insecure job and real life and why the pay that looks so good on the outside isn't so great on the inside.
As he did with Word Freak, Fatsis makes a reader feel part of it all, especially as he works to become something that he's clearly not. As he kicks and kicks (and often misses and misses), we feel his determination and ambition, underscoring the challenges that all athletes (and even those of us in cubicles) face every day.
A great read to get ready for training camp, to go along with the season, or make the off-season go faster!
 Behind the Scenes with Stefan Fatsis. July 21, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
In this book the author signs up to go through training camp with the Denver Bronco's. He's relatively old and relatively small so he's going to try out to be a kicker. Like his last book about Scrabble competition - Word Freak, this guy doesn't just cover the action, he jumps on in.
I'm a big fan of Stefan Fatsis as a writer. He's got a great eye for detail and an excellent, but subtle, sense of humor. I enjoyed Word Freak tremendously and when I hear him commenting on NPR, I always appreciate his analysis. Also, I'm a sports fan and I live in Denver and I follow (but am not a season ticket type fan) of the Broncos. This was a fun book for me for those reasons.
Stefan shows what it's like for the guys you don't generally read about. The second tier kickers, the 3rd and 4th string QBs. It's a high stress gig with no job security and the threat of serious injury. You get a lot of short bios of the different sports characters he deals with. (Interesting fact, Mike Shanahan lost a kidney in a college game injury.) These bios/sketches make for great reading. You get to see the team in it's ups and downs.
The only quibble I had was that it started a little slow, with the author trying to find a place that would have him and some of the details in what it takes a middle age guy to become competent at kicking. Minor issue though. The book was massively enjoyable and I'm looking forward whatever Fatsis does next.
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