Ben comes from a football family. His dad played for the NFL, and his brothers played in college. Ben is in 6th grade and following in their footsteps as a quarterback. But then he learns that his dad has ALS. They say it might be connected to all the hits he took on the field. I had never heard that, but I guess it makes sense, as it is a neurological condition.
With this news, his mom wants him out of football, but his dad wants him to play. Ben wants to play, not just for himself, but to give his dad the chance to coach for what may end up being his last time coaching. His brothers, who also help coach his team, are mostly on his mom’s side. They try their best to keep Ben from getting hit too often in games and practice.
This was a hard book for me. There was a teacher at my school who had to leave teaching because of ALS. I kept thinking about her and her kids as I read this book. It was so hard to get through. Another part that made this hard for me to read was all the sports talk. I know this is a sports book, but I don’t know a thing about sports, so I was struggling to understand what was going on a lot of the time and might have started to sort of skim the football parts. I don’t think the plays in the games are a massive part of the plot, so it’s fine if you don’t fully understand.
The chapters are short and almost always end on a bit of a cliffhanger, so you want to keep reading on to the next chapter. I love that, and I sort of hate that because I end up reading way longer than I intended to. Oops!
I read the author’s note at the end of the book, and I learned that the author was an NFL player and he now has ALS. So, he based this book on his real life. That made the book even harder to think about! This book sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole, exploring ALS diagnoses among NFL players. It’s not good. I think my students were annoyed with me hinting that they should probably pick a different sport if they were considering football in high school.
Four out of Five Magical Coffee Cups
Literary Coffee 