Continuing on with talking about the titles on this year’s Outstanding Books for the College Bound list (which began with touching on the religious/spiritual books and memoirs) I thought it would be timely to talk about the books across the OBCB list that were connected to football and football culture.

As you may or may not know, last week, NFL football prospect Michael Sam came out about his sexuality in advance of the draft. The decision to own who he is in anticipation of achieving his own goals of being drafted to the big league is something worth talking and thinking about. Football has a culture surrounding it, and that culture is why Sam’s coming out is such a huge deal: it’s not something generally talked about, let alone embraced.

One of the things we were looking for on OBCB and something we talked a great deal about was getting sports-related books onto our lists in some capacity. It turns out we had three football titles, each in a separate category, and each one of them looks at the culture of football in some way. Though none touch on what we’re seeing right now in the media with Sam and his decision to come out, part of why these three books made the lists is because they’re things that we haven’t seen talked about in the media. And though it sounds like they’re all downers or they’re unnecessarily harsh on football and sports culture, they’re not. They do shed light into the dark side of the sport, but all pay respect to what football is, why people love it, and why people want to play it. Readers seeking good sports books will find these three showcase very different things and do so in a way that respects the game.

Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime, and Complicity by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry

Though it tackles probably some of the harshest stuff on the OBCB list, Armstrong and Perry’s book was one of — if not the — best books I read while serving on committee. It’s one I found by accident while seeking out anything sports-themed that might have a tie-in to what people are aware of in the sports world socially today.

This is a piece of investigative journalism that began as a news story in Seattle and blossomed out into a full blown book that’s incredibly compelling, fascinating, and disturbing. The book follows the University of Washington’s football team in 2000 as players are accused of committing a series of crimes, including rape, drug possession, attempted murder, and more. And while those crimes are the story, what’s at the heart of the book is how the players on this team managed to get away from all of those things and not have their personal lives impact their reputations as heroes. This isn’t a book about how they overcame adversity; it’s a book about why the things they did were purposefully overlooked, buried, or otherwise ignored by the media at the time and why and how it is that even now, over a decade later, those things they’ve been convicted and charged with have no bearing on their reputations or their status as football heroes.

How was it possible that the school, the local police, and the media kept these things quiet? It’s because of what football is and the power it holds.

What’s worth mentioning about this book, too, is that it’s not just the criminals who have page time here. It’s the victims, as well as those who really did need football in their lives to get on the right track. The girl who is at the center of the rape story has a voice in this book, and I found that particularly powerful, as well as particularly hard to read. We see what that crime actually does to her and her future — not just that her rapist manages to avoid having his reputation marred by it, but her experience at school is not any longer an experience that belongs to her. Likewise, there are stories here about the players whose lives changed because of football in a good way. It helped give them drive and purpose, and it allowed them to find themselves in an otherwise scary place at the university.

Anyone interested in politics, in investigative journalism, and in crime or criminology will be fascinated by this, whether they love football or not. And readers who love football but may be less invested in the social and cultural aspects will find the writing about the game itself to be compelling. Perhaps the thing I took away from this book most was not just the fact that it is still relevant today, but many of the names of the players involved in these stories are not only still playing in the big leagues today, but some of them have gone on to be big in the big leagues…and these incidents are still ignored or denied.

League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru

Fainaru-Wada and Fainaru’s book is on the science and technology list within the OBCB, and I haven’t read it in full. It had originally been nominated in another category, and I read the first fifty pages before suggesting it switch over.

But what I can say about this book aside from it being very readable is that it’s a little bit about football, a little bit about football culture, a little bit about sports medicine, a little bit about concussions and injuries sustained during football, and a little about how big sports managed to deny and hide the fact that injuries sustained while playing could have brain — and thereby life — altering consequences on players.

Can science show evidence that a problem exists and if so, if a big organization chooses to deny that evidence, who gets the final word? Which one has more power and more believability? What about the players whose lives have been changed, not to mention had their careers ended, because of injuries they got on the field? The NFL is a huge and powerful organization, and even in the wake of a pile of evidence, their power to deny says a lot.

Since I can’t talk much more detail about the book because I haven’t read it in full, I suggest spending a little time with the PBS Frontline report and story about League of Denial. I’d be willing to bet that teens who find this report interesting will be eager to pick up the book (and not just teens, but adults, as well, since our list is broad in scope and audience).

Muck City by Bryan Mealer

Mealer’s title appears on the arts and humanities list within the OBCB, and that’s because the biggest take away from this book is that football is human. What I mean by that is that it has the power to impact people’s lives in a way that goes beyond politics, beyond the culture of responsibility or deniability, and beyond even what it means to win or lose a game.

Set in Belle Glade, Florida, Muck City is about how high school football can become the heart of a city when there needs to be something positive within a broken-down place. I’m not familiar with Florida, aside from my image of beaches and resorts, so sitting down and being put into Belle Glade, which is a poor, broken, dying, crime-ridden town. For more perspective on Belle Glade, it’s often referred to as Muck City because of it’s high concentration of muck, which is what helps sugarcane grow. More than that, Belle Glade is known for having one of the highest concentrations of AIDS infections per capita in the United States — while that statistic is older, it should give a picture of what this community looks and runs like.

The other thing to know about Belle Glade is that it’s also known for sending on a huge number of its high school players to the NFL, with a good number drafted in the first round. Football is one thing that community rallies around, but even more than rallying around their high school’s team, football is a way out of the community for many of its players who have grown up knowing no certainty in their future.

Mealer’s book follows three people. There’s coach Jessie Hester, who was Muck City’s first first star and comes back not to just win championships but to make a huge impact on the kids who he sees through the program. Mario Rowley is the team’s quarterback, and he’s driven by the need to win in order to make his parents — who aren’t alive anymore — proud and to move beyond a string of things in his life that keep holding him back. Football is his ticket out of town, too, if he’s good enough. Then there’s Jonteria Williams, head cheerleader for the team, who wants to get out of Belle Glade and become a doctor. The problem is she needs a scholarship to make it happen, and she pushes herself to the brink in order to help realize this dream.

This is the book to hand to readers who love drama with their personal stories of triumph and adversity. Which sounds really cheesy and reductive, but it’s the easiest way to sell this book to readers. It’s about football and there’s a lot of football in it, but it’s a lot more about what it’s like to grow up in a rough, unforgiving environment and still find things that interest you and make you find a passion and desire in your life.

In many ways, Muck City is football culture on the microlevel in a way that the other two books are football culture on the macrolevel. Together, these three explorations of football manage to look at the big picture — the politics and structure of the system — while also looking at the smaller one — how and why we care and love the game itself.