Paper Lion: Confessions of a last-string quarterback

I don't think you need to be a Detroit Lions fan like me to appreciate this. The very idea of a journalist infiltrating an American Football squad to see from the inside what life in the NFL is like is worth a read. For those who do like their American sports it is nice to look at it from a historical point of view. But most of all it is a great insider view of the game as it was. And it serves as a nice reminder that my Detroit Lions once won championships!

Well written and excellent insight into professional football in the sixties.

First read as a very young teen.Still the best sports book I've ever had.

George Plimpton decided he wanted to play quarterback for an American football team. It's the dream of many American kids, but Plimpton was a journalist in his mid-thirties. Even so, he managed to talk himself into the Detroit Lions pre-season training camp and soaked up the experience, recording it in this book. We hear about many of the Lions' players, coaching staff and the set up of the training camp in a boarding school. The sport has changed a great deal since Plimpton's 1963 foray into the sport - the basics are the same, but everything is far more professional and commercialised. Indeed, Paper Lion is an interesting contrast to the annual television series Hard Knocks, which follows a modern NFL training camp each season. You'd find this a hard read if you had no interest in American football, but for fans of that sport, this is a real gem.

My husband had been looking for this book for years, had the original but 'loaned' it out, and never received it back. He was so happy to have the opportunity to once again to read it and put it back on his favourite sport book shelf. He knew he could download one to his kindle, but not the same as having a favourite book in his hand.