When I was fifteen, I ate two peanut butter sandwiches every night before bed. Yes, I was often hungry. I was fifteen and dudes of that age are often very, very hungry. But that’s not why I’d eat those sandwiches. They actually made me want to throw up, because I’d already had a giant dinner and then I’d lie down with that peanut butter brick in my gut and I’d think “gain weight, gain weight, gain weight” and then I slept fitfully and had nightmares about terrible car accidents and girlfriends leaving me and school hall thuggery. I was 5’9” and I desperately wanted to weigh 170 pounds by sophomore year.
In the mornings, I’d take all that peanut butter protein and I’d lift weights like a wild monkey, screaming and throwing things around. I couldn’t gain weight.
Around that time, my mom, an English teacher, handed me Vision Quest by Terry Davis. It’s about a wrestler, Louden Swain, who is dropping weight so that he can wrestle the other best wrestler in Washington State. Louden (yes, there’s a reason my Stupid Fast character is named Felton – dorky version of Louden) works out like a wild monkey. He puts his health in danger to achieve his goal. I loved this book so much, I would have glued it to my body (I did carry it everywhere).
Here’s the thing, though: I entered that book through sports, but I didn’t want to live in it just because there’s a dude in there working out like a wild monkey. Louden had a complicated home life (I had a complicated home life). Louden had to go to work after school (I had already delivered newspapers at 5 a.m. for three years), Louden had to make decisions about the importance of his own desires when his desires might harm the community (was I debating individualism with him?). A really beautiful girl moved into his house (was he adult enough to attract her?). A host of side characters told him what they knew about life (I listened, too). The wrestling aspect of the book acted as a candy coating. The revelation of friendship and true character and real love was the medicine I needed as that dorky fifteen-year-old.
I was at a Wisconsin High School a few weeks back. I talked books in front of a group of maybe 100 kids. It was a Friday afternoon, last hour. Probably thirty percent of the attendees wore some form of football jersey or t-shirt (the school had a game later that evening). While a couple of the jersey wearers were obviously larger and tougher-looking than the general audience, most looked like regular kids who might just as easily have been mathletes or band geeks or whatever, except they wore a jersey. This picture confirmed something I already knew: at most schools there isn’t a stereotypical jock monolith filled with steroidal bruisers hell-bent on crushing the spirits of nerds. Most athletes are just your average kid. 
Whatever average means. The starting quarterback at the school I visited was also the lead in the musical.
Clearly sports are important in our culture. Sure, probably too important. Because they are important, they provide a common language, a doorway. Wallflowers have their books. Music freaks have their books. Lovers of the supernatural have more books than they can possibly read. Often, these books aren’t about music or geekery or ghosts in the end, but they’re about love and tragedy and friendship and hard decisions. When I read John Coy, Chris Crutcher, Bill Konigsberg or Matt de la Pena, I enjoy the sports, but mostly, I identify with great characters who are dealing with the complexity of real life.
Thirty percent of the kids in that auditorium wore football stuff.
When I was fifteen, I carried around Vision Quest, not because it taught me about what it takes to be a better jock. The book taught me about a wider world and a way of being and a way of negotiating complexity. It both reminded me of me and stretched my understanding and empathy.
I do love athletics. But, I don’t write about football for the sake of football. The football player on the cover of Stupid Fast is a point of entry. And, I’d love to see a copy of Vision Quest in every locker in the locker room.
Great post! I didn't know Vision Quest was a book – I want to read it! I love the movie, which perhaps I shouldn't admit, but there it is. Happy to learn about Stupid Fast as well and adding it to my TBR list.
"I enjoy the sports, but mostly, I identify with great characters who are dealing with the complexity of real life." Yes, yes, yes.
Excellent post! I think one thing that bothers me about many books set in high school is the strict division of cliques, when I remember my school most of the athletes (including the cheerleaders) were just normal and usually friendly kids. Sports was something they did, not who they were. And I love books that express that more complex reality.