Football In the John

Categories: Sports

Preparations for the 2008 pro football season are underway, with all 32 NFL teams in training camps.  For NFL fans like me, optimism runs high this time of year. The inevitable setbacks, injuries, and eviscerating losses that each team experiences (are you listening Patriots fan?) during the grueling campaign remain over the horizon.

All too soon, passionate football fans will stand accused of taking the games way, way too seriously.  That's why books such as The Football Uncylopedia, written by Michael Kun and Adam Hoff, are well suited to this time of the year.  It’s a compilation of football miscellanea that possesses qualities essential for enduring the NFL preseason: it's frivolous and entertaining.      

Mind you, this tome boasts that it's “ideal for the bathroom of every pro football fan in America.”

In The Football Uncyclopedia, alphabetical entries plunge the reader pell-mell into oddball facts, trivia, and rather scatterbrained associations. For instance, an amusing discourse on players' nicknames is found under, “Appliances, Kitchen: William ‘The Refrigerator’ Perry Was Not Actually a Refrigerator.”   

The entry, “Stadium, Giants,” addresses the geographic anomaly associated with the reigning NFL champions playing their home games out of state: “The Giants are too embarrassed to tell anyone they’re dating New Jersey.”  

A favorite entry is certain to be “Mexico, Ron: The NFL Should Not Have Been Surprised By Michael Vick’s Involvement With Underground Dogfighting.”  Here the reader is reminded just why the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback required the nom de guerre “Ron Mexico”  (but there’s no need to go into medical issues here) and reviews misbehavior and controversies linked to the troubled young quarterback 

Glib, funny, and sometimes rude (“Leaf, Ryan: Ryan Leaf’s Family Should Not Read This Book For Obvious Reasons”), The Football Uncyclopedia is both entertaining and forgettable, sort of like the NFL preseason itself.  (Okay, I know what you’re thinking: the preseason is just forgettable.)  But I think you get the idea.