Remember Why You Play:
Faith, Football, and A Season to Believe
by
David Thomas

A Review

I am not normally a football fan – but when I first heard the story of Faith Christian High School a year ago, tears came to my eyes. More recently, the story was refreshed when I watched a YouTube video about the school and how it reached out to the Texas state school for boys.

I was excited to read the story of Coach Hogan, the school, and football team that left a lasting impression on the lives of 14 boys from the state school. Actually, the book follows the team from its pre-season planning, through early two-a-days, through the final game of the year – the year before the school was asked to play, for the first time, the Texas state school.

I found the first third of the book, as the coaches and team prepared for the season, of interest. It caught my attention and kept drawing me back into the book. However, much of the book is a week-by-week, game-by-game, analysis of the lives, decision, attitudes, and plays made on the field. As I said, I am not a football fan, and weekly recaps became less and less interesting. The comments on players, coaches, and others, which introduced each chapter, were uplifting, but the play-play recap of what happened on the field was less so. By the time I reached week three or four, I felt like I was rereading the same game over and over. A football fan may have enjoyed the on-field experience, I did not.

I do recommend the book. If you are like me, you might want to skim the parts of each chapter that focus on the game itself. However, do skim (and not skip) even these parts, because there are occasionally thoughtful insights on living life and sportsmanship – like when it might be appropriate for a quarterback to take a knee on the final play of a game. And when the book is over, you can be glad that a team of 40 and a team of 14 were able to change each other’s lives.

This review is based on a free copy provided by Amazon.com on its Kindle e-reader.