The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation
By: Sally Jenkins / Narrated By: Don Leslie
Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
A mightily inspirational listen… that’s pretty god awfully depressing as well…
Okay, okay—so maybe author Sally Jenkins didn’t put the efforts of the Carlisle School’s football team the Indians in proper context as far as football goes; another reviewer thought it atrocious that she elevated Harvard and the like to the stratosphere when actually their football programs were in decline. And maybe she gave us a little bit toooo much context for the situation of Native Americans during (and waaaay before) they played their games.
But sue me! I liked the gosh darned book! It gathers all my favorites: Military history, history, social injustice, and football! Gimme a great sports story, as long as it’s NOT baseball, and I’m there! And Ms. Jenkins managed to make the football exciting and the social injustices as experienced by the boys outrageous and galling. Who doesn’t like getting their dander up every now and again? I liked how the book opens with a locker room/playing field pep talk and then it goes into atrocities perpetrated against Native Americans in battles against the Army years before. Talk about a game that has lots of meaning; talk about a rivalry that is miserably significant! Elegantly done, Ms. Jenkins! Elegantly done.
Not so elegantly done is how a whole heckuva lot of the book is in the not shying away from everything from ignorant slights to horrific mistreatment. I applaud that she hits everything head-on, but she does go on at great length, for long stretches, that I kept having to come back to make sure I was listening to a book that is ostensibly mostly about a ragtag group of underdogs playing their hearts out for pride and the dignity of their People. Especially since, as written, I can’t condemn people for high ideas, no matter how flawed the execution or how dismal the outcome.
Which brings me to the depressing part: There are no happy endings here. There are a lot of football-driven Huzzah Moments, especially against Harvard and Army, but the lives of the boys were troubled and even if you know Jim Thorpe’s story and his descent into the abyss of alcohol abuse and loneliness, you’re still gonna come out of this book feeling choked up and despondent. Cuz life is unfair. I tried breaking that to a 2nd-grader once, and she didn’t buy it. Turns out, all I would’ve had to do to convince her would’ve been to read several passages from this book, and she would’ve dashed away in tears.
Still, one shouldn’t overlook some fun football (Like the way I segued from MISERY to SPORTS?), and the Indians and coach Pop Warner did much to advance the game and turn it into some of the better things we enjoy today. Football equipment? Warner’s responsible for that. Forward pass? The Indians did that. Trick plays? Yessss, the Indians executed those verrrry well and with a lot of panache.
Add to that some pretty evenhanded and, dare I say it: Masculine? narration by Don Leslie, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book!
Sure there’s a lot of what went wrong with the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and sure people rose, people fell. But there’s also young men who went on to use their education and skills to challenge the government. I thought that was pretty darned impressive.
Yeh, yeh, yeh. They lost, but heck! They tried.
And that’s what I’ll hold onto after this book. Depressed? Yep. But inspired? Yesss, oh my!
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