The Sweet Season: A Sportswriter Rediscovers Football, Family, and a Bit of Faith at Minnesota's St. John University FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
Austin Murphy has written for Sports Illustrated since 1984. In 1992 he did a feature on St. John's College, a small Benedictine school in Minnesota, and its head football coach, John Gagliardi. Seven years later Murphy returned to the St. John's campus with his wife and two kids, ostensibly to write a book about Gagliardi and the Johnnies' season. Murphy is up-front with the reader: More important than writing this book for him was saving a troubled marriage.
The personal aspects of The Sweet Season border on treacle -- "Things are going better for us in bed..." -- without ever crossing that line ("...Bear with me here"). Murphy's family anecdotes are funny enough to keep readers entertained, but what really makes The Sweet Season take flight is Murphy's moving portrayal of the gracious, somewhat oddball characters at St. John's and their spirited postseason play.
Murphy is truly smitten with Gagliardi and the Johnnies. The 73-year-old Gagliardi is an aging pirate, forever sneering at the conventions of calisthenics and full-contact practices. His nonconformist tactics work: Gagliardi is the NCAA's second-winningest head coach of all time, behind Grambling's Eddie Robinson. In the '99 and '00 seasons he led St. John's on nail-biting playoff runs that would give younger men heart attacks. By the end of the book, the author realizes that the outcomes of the Johnnies' games become far more important to him than he had expected. The fervor with which Murphy follows the team adds dramatic tension, and a few revelations, to the end of an ultimately startling book. (Brenn Jones)
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Looking to escape the NFL for a while, sports journalist Austin Murphy spends a sabbatical at St. John's College, a small Benedictine school in rural Minnesota, with the best record in college foot ball history. After fifteen years covering professional sports for Sports Illustrated, Murphy writes, "How unusual to go an entire season without interviewing a felon!"
Instead, he spends the season with the winningest coach in football, Coach John Gagliardi, a smiling wiseman who has forgotten more about the game than most of his peers know. But he hasn't forgotten the most important thing: that the coaches a game.
In the typically macho world of sports, this is a story about kindness and humility. It's also the story of a family, and what happens when a harried, frazzled couple has an opportunity—however brief—to slow down. Murphy, an immensely funny and appealing writer, brings his considerable charm to this already compelling story.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Murphy, a Sports Illustrated writer whose beat exposes him to the ballyhoo of college football on fall Saturdays and the high maintenance millionaires of the NFL on Sundays, takes a season-long respite from egos and attitudes at idyllic St. John's College in Collegeville, Minn., to cover the school's Division III squad, the Johnnies. Murphy seeks rejuvenation, for himself and his relationship with his wife and two small children. He also seeks enlightenment from John Gagliardi, the Johnnies' eccentric coach whose unorthodox style includes never allowing his players to hit each other in practice. He's also the winningest active coach in NCAA football and second on the all-time list. Murphy's dry, delightful humor keeps him out of trouble when sappiness looms. Upon his final visit to the Johnnies' stadium, he writes, "Here... I will let go of the season. Here, I will bid bittersweet adieu to the Natural Bowl, my favorite sports venue of all time. Here, I will search for the Starbucks commuter mug I left under the bench this afternoon. The goddam things go for about seventeen dollars." He also shows his sportswriting talents with several vital, original descriptions reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson's gridiron coverage. "Moore hip-faked the poor boy halfway back to Wisconsin," Murphy writes of the Johnnies' offensive star, "sold him a parcel of swampland, a used '74 AMC Pacer with a cracked engine block." Readers will also appreciate Murphy's funny, self-deprecating reflections on his family life, though the passages sometimes drag on. But invariably Murphy comes to the rescue with a well-timed one-liner, a signature of this lighthearted, enjoyable book. (Sept.) Copyright 2001 CahnersBusiness Information.
Library Journal
St. John's is a small Benedictine college in Collegeville, MN, whose hugely successful Division III football program has been coached since 1953 by the highly unorthodox John Gagliardi. Gagliardi has flourished with a style different from most football coaches: no spring football camps, no whistles, no calisthenics, no hitting during practice, and no cuts. Murphy is a Sports Illustrated writer who did a story on the "Johnnies" in 1992 and returned to Minnesota, book contract in hand and family in tow, to cover the 2001 St. John's season. His book is first about the football program and the participating players, coaches, and fans. Second, it depicts the cheerful, peaceful atmosphere of a small, Midwestern, Benedictine college through a prism of everyday experience. Finally, much of the book is autobiographical, dealing with the author's life and family and how this experience affects both. By turns, funny, touching, and inspiring, this is an interesting story well told. John Maxymuk, Rutgers Univ. Lib., Camden, NJ Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Sports and human interest intertwine as a man rediscovers the pureness of amateur sports as well as the joys of family life. Journalist Murphy spends a much-needed sabbatical from his stint at Sports Illustrated by taking his family to rural Collegeville, Minnesota, in order to interact with the coach and players at St. John's, a small Benedictine college, which happens to have the best record in college football history. Through 2000, the Johnnies have won the conference title 23 times, advanced to the national playoffs 16 times, advanced to the title game 4 times, and have won it 3 times-thanks mainly to its head coach, John Gagliardi, the NCAA's winningest active coach (second on the all-time list to the retired Eddie Robinson) and a regional celebrity. Gagliardi is a friendly and sometimes elusive, Yoda-like coach who insists that his quarterbacks call their own plays and who hides a strategist's mind behind an unassuming style. But besides Gagliardi, and talented players such as Tom Linnemann, it is the atmosphere of the school itself that Murphy credits with the success of the Johnnies. At first experiencing some culture shock, Murphy and his family settle into life at this place where the Benedictine monks set the reflective tone and unhurried pace. And while Murphy gets involved with the team, he also reconnects with his wife, Laura, and his two young children. With appealing humor, Murphy recounts how he acquires newfound respect for what his wife goes through on a daily basis and how, in turn, Laura sees in her husband "more of the guy she fell in love with." The epilogue gives a brief synopsis of the 2000-01 year, when the Johnnies lost to Mount Union in the Stagg Bowl. Morethan just a game book of college football, "The Sweet Season" at the innocent appeal of sports in everyday life.
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