Joe Posnanski is getting pretty good at this whole sports countdown thing.
The award-winning sportswriter’s previous books have profiled major baseball players (“The Baseball 100”) and identified 50 of the biggest events in the history of our national pastime (“Why We Love Baseball”).
Posnanski is back with a new sport and total. In “Why We Love Football: A History in 100 Moments,” the former Sports Illustrated writer provides an enjoyable look back at the players and games that came to define America’s most popular sport.
Of course you can argue about what was included, what wasn’t included, the order, etc. But ultimately the book is a love letter to football – a moving, informative and sometimes hilarious look at what makes the playing field so special. play such a part of the national fabric.
“It takes us as fans to the mountaintop and it tears our hearts apart,” Posnanski wrote. “It lifts us up and crushes us, moves us and revolts us, leaves us empty and wanting and leaves us breathless.”
There are no-brainers in there: the 1972 “Immaculate Reception” that lifted the Pittsburgh Steelers over the Oakland Raiders to their first-ever playoff victory, the “Kick-Six” missed field goal return for Auburn that stunned Alabama in the 2013 Iron Bowl, and Bart Starr’s title-winning quarterback goalie during the 1967 NFL Championship ‘Ice Bowl’ game against Dallas at Lambeau Field – but ‘Why We Love Football’ is at its best when it explores the off-the-beaten-path moments in its long history of the game.
And the intersection of football and pop culture. The passage alone about former Notre Dame coach Dan Devine’s role in the underdog feel-good film “Rudy” could be worth the purchase price of the book.
For football fans like this reviewer, the book is an absolute must-read. But it should also be accessible to the football-averse, with its brilliant writing and research uncovering gems and perspectives that bring the game and its characters to life. Readers will laugh out loud every now and then.
“Football is important because the game at its best illustrates life at its most exuberant, most passionate, and most emotionally heightened,” Posnanski writes.
“Why We Love Football” proves this statement by reminding us all of what makes football the No. 1 sport in the country.
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