For the Glory. Ken Denlinger.

For the Glory
Ken Denlinger.
New York: St. Martin's Griffin. 1994.

The story of a Penn State collegiate football recruiting class. In telling the stories of these players, Ken Denlinger is telling the story of all football players in major college football programs.

During recruiting, high school football players are the focus of adulation by college football coaches. The coaches even go into the players' living rooms to make a good impression on the family.

But what greets the players when they go on campus for their first football practice and for the next five years (most players are "redshirted," i.e., they don't play during the first year in order to preserve four years of eligibility when they will be more ready to play) is in stark contrast to the homey, pleasant informality displayed by the coaches in the players' homes: indifference, sarcasm, criticism from the coaches, competition with other players who are often a step better at their positions, the pressure of doing well in school, a constant shifting of status as shown by the color of practice jerseys, lack of communication with the coaches, the feeling that they should do what they are told because they are told and not to try to understand why, the impossible goal of being a national champion.

All of this amounts to failure, temptation to leave the program and injuries that frequently end the players' football careers. Ken said that he was most surprised by the number of career-ending injuries that occurred in practice. In the process, the players either mature as adults or buckle under the tremendous sense of failure. Few college football recruits make it.

Paterno's coaching philosophy is to make the players so fearful of him and his criticism and to make the practices so fierce that the pressure of playing the actual game would seem little by comparison.

Ken Denlinger used players' quotes well. Their quotes are often eloquent summaries of the situations in which they find themselves.

Technically, Ken paid attention to the last sentence of his paragraphs, ending with a pithy summary or pointing to the next paragraph, which greatly increased the readability and flow of the narrative.