Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Texas. Nick Eatman
A Year in the life of Lone Star Football, from High School to College to the Cowboys.
It is a challenge for authors to cover a team during a season. It is more difficult to cover two different teams in that same season. It may even be unprecedented to cover three teams in the very same season. But that is what author Nick Eatman did and wrote in his book, Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Texas.
Eatman, who has covered the Dallas Cowboys for more than 20 years, took advantage of his connections to follow and write about the seasons for a local high school, university and professional football team. The high school is Plano, of Plano, Texas, a northern suburb of Dallas. The college is Baylor University located ninety minutes south in Waco, Texas. The professional team is obviously the Dallas Cowboys, the franchise that Eatman follows daily.
The stories are well written for each team. An insightful new theme is introduced from one week to the next. Eatman was inspired by the way the popular TV show, Modern Family, was arranged for each episode cutting from one of three featured families. Each chapter reviews the games that took place on Friday, Saturday and then Sunday. Of course, the coaches were the main characters for each team along with some of the assistants. The insight of the coaches and the performance of the players drive the story from one week to the next—even when they are not playing on their normally scheduled date or at all.
It is compelling reading about the team’s struggle, strategy and mind-set heading into the next week. The author skillfully sets the tone for each new week in each chapter. Unfortunately, a downside to committing to a season could be the team’s performance and success or lack there-of on the field. Two of the three teams chronicled did not meet expectations and thus experience disappointing seasons. Of course, this cannot be controlled by the author. On the other hand, it was intriguing to read about how the team faces adversity and strives to persevere for the next game.
The book is decidedly regional although that was likely the intention. A reader will certainly get a heavy dose of Texas football culture but will have to endure reading through the adversity of less than stellar play---on more than one occasion all three featured teams lost in the same weekend. The author may have considered adding more history for each program of the sport in general. “Whether it’s a Friday, Saturday or Sunday in the fall, the passion of football never stops.” Why is the game of football and having success so important to their culture and Texans personally? “In Texas the fans might make football king, but they also look to their teams to produce seasons and people that are worthy of their adoration. Simply loving the sports is no longer enough. The reality of Texas football has grown more complicated.” Perhaps a chapter that provided more insight on this regional philosophy would have helped to address this widely held narrative.
Despite some unexpected and uncontrollable foibles, Eatman delivers a captivating story of some success and some failures of the 2015 football season in north Texas. As the season grew older the chapters began to highlight more off the field transactions making the story more intriguing than the weekly game details. Although the book is a little on the lengthy side, 333 pages, much of the story is easy to process, traverse and enjoy.
- You might like this book if you read about Texas High School football teams
- You might like this book if you like to read about Baylor or Texas college football.
- You might like to read this book if you like to read about the Dallas Cowboys.
- You might like to read this book if you are a high school, college or professional football fan.
- You might like to read this book if you read about north Texas culture.
Read more about the author on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nickeatman
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