GutCheck! An Anthropologist's Wild Ride into the Heart of College Football

Sport anthropologist Robert Sands, Ph.D.following in the footsteps of the classic anthropologists as Margaret Mead or Bronislaw Malinowski, spurred on by George Plimpton1s three decade old football journey and seasoned by the Gonzo journalist, Hunter S. Thompsonchose to enter the unheralded world of the real football, not the hype witnessed on Saturday afternoons in Columbus or Lincoln. Sands wanted to experience college football from the inside out, but more interesting to the anthropologist was to discover just how close this hidden world of pads, helmets and pigskins is to the world outside the 100 by 54 yard rectangle that players call home.

At age 37, and an anthropology professor at Santa Barbara City College, Sands enrolled in the necessary 12 units for four consecutive semesters at SBCC so that he could live out what he writes is the 3ultimate American male rite of passage. With no organized football experience, but with plenty of heart and desire, Sands becomes a second team wide receiver and emotional leader, elder statesman and finally in his second season a contributing statistic to the team1s story. Along the way, Sands encounters an unforgettable cast of charactersplayers and coacheswho usher him and us into the surprisingly complex world of male athletes; 3Ph.D1s playing with ex-cons.2 Wrapped around pain, violence and expectations of manhood, young and not so young players grab onto one or two more years of playing a game all the while facing an uncertain future in a world off the field governed by many of the same rules found on the field. The book1s narrative, a season-ending game between a! n outgunned Santa Barbara City College and Bakersfield College is skillfully woven through the book like a musical leitmotif and the drama of a possible upset keeps the pace and drama of the book flowing.

Football is fun-this book was not.


Too Academic for Non-academics   July 9, 2000
 0 out of 1 found this review helpful

Generally, I found the content overly academic. I guess this would be ok for Sands anthro classes, but not real great for non-Sands students.


A seminal, scholarly, informative, fascinating book.   March 4, 2000
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

In GutCheck!: An Anthropologist's Wild Ride into the heart of College Football, anthropologist Robert Sands shares the findings and observations of his two year research and playing collegiate football at Santa Barbara City College while he was a professor on the faculty. Sands writes with a sensitivity and insight that is rare in football literature and GutCheck! will be especially appreciated by mothers of football sons, as well as the growing numbers of women interested in the sport and seeking an understanding of this male-dominated sport. GutCheck! is a seminal and informative contribution to both cultural anthropology and personal or academic sports/football library collections.


Gutcheck good story good message   February 15, 2000
I enjoyed the book. I found myself rooting for someone who was by all accounts old, and had never played football, making a junior college team.

I have told many of my friends about this book


Football Culture   December 25, 1999
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I bought this book for my husband, but he liked it so much, I decided to read it. What he liked was the personalities, the players and the coaches, because he played with people like that. He said the way the author showed how there is so much more to football than just beating heads was great. I liked it because the author, who is an anthropologist, used his playing the game to help him sort through and describe the culture of football. He writes about things like violence, racism, football being a rite of passage, the manliness of the game, he even talks about the history of football. My son plays football now and I watch football with my husband and this is the first time I have read something that helps me understand why people play football. Not only was reading the book a learning experience, we both thought that book moved along a good pace and was never boring. We really got caught up in it. My son reads it next.