A Few Seconds of Panic, Stefan Fatsis
A Few Seconds of Panic, Stefan Fatsis
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A Few Seconds of Panic
A 5-Foot-8, 170-Pound, 43-Year-Old Sportswriter Plays in the NFL

Author: Stefan Fatsis

Narrator: Stefan Fatsis

Unabridged: 11 hr 37 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 07/17/2008


Synopsis

In Word Freak, Stefan Fatsis infiltrated the insular world of competitive Scrabble players, ultimately achieving expert status (comparable to a grandmaster ranking in chess). Now he infiltrates a strikingly different subculture—pro football. After more than a year spent working out with a strength coach and polishing his craft with a gurulike kicking coach, Fatsis molded his fortyish body into one that could stand up—barely—to the rigors of NFL training. And over three months in 2006, he became a Denver Bronco. He trained with the team and lived with the players. He was given a locker and uniforms emblazoned with the number 9. He was expected to perform all the drills and regimens required of other kickers. He ws unlike his teammates in some ways—most notably, his livelihood was not on the line as theirs was. But he became remarkably like them in many ways: he risked crippling injury just as they did, endured the hazing that befalls all rookies, daily gorged on 4,000 calories, and slogged through two-a-day practices in blistering heat. Not since George Plimpton's stint as a Detroit Lion more than forty years ago has a writer tunneled so deeply into the NFL.

At first, the players tolerated Fatsis or treated him like a mascot, but over time they began to think of him as one of them. And he began to think like one of them. Like the other Broncos—like all elite athletes—he learned to perfect a motion through thousands of repetitions, to play through pain, to silence the crowd's roar, and to banish self-doubt.

While Fatsis honed his mind and drove his body past exhaustion, he communed with every classic athletic type—the afable alpha male, the overpaid brat, the youthful phenom, the savvy veteran—and a welter of bracingly atypical players as well: a fullback who invokes Aristotle, a quarterback who embraces yoga, and a tight end who takes creative writing classes in the off-season. Fatsis also witnessed the hidden machinery of a top-flight football franchise, from the God-is-in-the-details strategizing of legendary coach Mike Shanahan to the icy calculation with which the front office makes or breaks careers.

With wry candor and hard-won empathy, A Few Seconds of Panic unveils the mind of the modern pro athlete and the workings of a storied sports franchise as no book ever has before.

About Stefan Fatsis

Stefan Fatsis is the New York Times bestselling author of Word Freak. He is a sports reporter for the Wall Street Journal and a regular guest on National Public Radio's All Things Considered.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ryann on March 02, 2009

Since I rarely read nonfiction books, when I do I expect them to be real winners just like this true story of a 43-year-old sportswriter who decides to experience the life of an NFL football player by going through Broncos training camp as a field goal kicker. Not only was it the story of one man's......more

Goodreads review by Jennelle on July 24, 2017

I read Stefan Fatsis's "Word Freak" a few years ago and enjoyed it, and I'm a casual football fan, so when I saw this at the library, I thought it might be a good read. I was right. In addition to the interesting inside look at the running of a football team, I also got a humbling reminder that foot......more

Goodreads review by Agatha on September 09, 2008

Fantastic story about a sportswriter who spent three months with the Denver Broncos organization, as a kicker. Hilarious, true, and often heartbreakingly sad about the realities of professional football as a career.......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on October 15, 2021

[8.0/10] I would recommend Stefan Fatsis’ book to any professional football fan. His “embedded reporter” take on the inside of an NFL training camp is part story of personal challenge, part snapshot of a particular team at a particular time, and part broader look at the machinations of the wider Nat......more

Goodreads review by Tung on January 16, 2010

Fatsis is a professional writer and journalist whose first book Word Freak (a documentary about the subculture of competitive Scrabble, professional Scrabble players, and Fatsis’ attempt at succeeding at competitive Scrabble) I enjoyed. A Few Seconds of Panic follows the Word Freak mold: put yoursel......more