GutCheck! An Anthropologist's Wild Ride into the Heart of College Football

Synopsis

Beyond the t.v. cameras of college football, the male fantasy images of pin-up cheerleaders and adoration garnered by marquee players plays thousands of the real gridiron gladiators. Huge football stadiums seating whole cities give way to humble fields of dreams. On these uneven turfs toil the many private four year colleges and junior college players who try to delay then inevitable death of their football careers by playing a few more seasons. The end comes not in bowl games or the draft or like gypsies chasing professional careers in Europe or elsewhere, but in the last game where tomorrow brings the rest of the player's life and the last completion or tackle will remain so very vivid in just in his mind.

Sport anthropologist Robert Sands, Ph.D.-following in the footsteps of the classic anthropologists as Margaret Mead or Bronislaw Malinowski, spurred on by George Plimpton's three decade old football journey and seasoned by the Gonzo journalist, Hunter S. Thompson-chose to enter the unheralded world of the real football, not the hype witnessed on Saturday afternoons in Columbus or Lincoln. Sands wanted to experience college football from the inside out, but more interesting to the anthropologist was to discover just how close this hidden world of pads, helmets and pigskins is to the world outside the 100 by 54 yard rectangle that players call home.

At age 37, and an anthropology professor at Santa Barbara City College, Sands enrolled in the necessary 12 units for four consecutive semesters at SBCC so that he could live out -what he writes- is the "ultimate American male rite of passage. With no organized football experience, but with plenty of heart and desire, Sands becomes a second team wide receiver and emotional leader, elder statesman and finally in his second season a contributing statistic to the team's story. Along the way, Sands encounters an unforgettable cast of characters-players and coaches-who usher him and us into the surprisingly complex world of male athletes; "Ph.D's playing with ex-cons." Wrapped around pain, violence and expectations of manhood, young and not so young players grab onto one or two more years of playing a game all the while facing an uncertain future in a world off the field governed by many of the same rules found on the field. The book's narrative, a season-ending game between an outgunned Santa Barbara City College and Bakersfield College is skillfully woven through the book like a musical leitmotif and the drama of a possible upset keeps the pace and drama of the book flowing.