re: It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium

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Lacour

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Is this kindergarten?

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How utterly and completely ironic.

Lacour, I would say you are better than this but you really aren't.

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I would think that a poster with the username JudgeHolden, nay any poster who would even know the character of JudgeHolden, would be able to come back with something stronger than "frick you back."

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It was laved with sarcasm in juxtaposition to "misanthropic," which the eponymous Judge Holden clearly was. There's a couple of Cormac's favorite words for you.

Dude, just cuz I know it doesn't mean I have to show it to everyone on the Rant. Bradley is a good writer. You don't like him? Hate him. Your call, Big Chief. But he put his arse on the line by writing deeply personal books. I respect that.

I didn't say I didn't enjoy the book.

I clearly posted the LSU parts were good.

However, I, along with a fair number of other posters in the thread think he is a tad on the whiny side.

Tad is a lenient description.

It was a good read. Not what you expect, because it is, as some have already said, really dark in some ways. He speaks fondly of LSU, his days playing, and team mates, but nothing in his life ever satisfied him after LSU.

I think you can learn from it and realize some things about your own life if you read it with the right frame of mind.

Or you may blow your brains out.

I enjoyed and would recommend it....

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Should I read it?

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Yes. Have to agree that it is melancholy/dark at times, and Bradley sometimes does come off as "poor me," but if you're interested in LSU football it's a must read, imo.

Read this speech by Bradley at the Cholly Mac Reunion and it'll give you an idea of what you'll find in the book. Exerpts:

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ONE DAY LAST YEAR I was watching TV in a hotel room in New York, flipping through the
channels with the remote control, when I came to an image that immediately brought me
out of bed and to my feet.

An old man was being honored at a football game. He sat in a wheelchair, too weakened
by cancer to walk. Surrounding him was a cluster of middle-aged men wearing somber
expressions. The old man in the chair, Charles McClendon, had been a football coach
once. Facing death, he was returning now for a final visit to the stadium where he had
built his legend. The men were the boys who'd played for him years before.

The scene was so poignant, and so heart-breaking, that I could hardly bear to watch it.
I turned off the set and threw the remote against a chair. I stumbled into the bathroom
and splashed water on my face. Finally I left the room and the hotel and went for a
walk. I walked for hours, up and down the streets of Manhattan.

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The weight of memory is huge and often hard to bear, especially for those who live with
regret. Until recently I was one such person. For some twenty-two years, since the end
of my senior season in 1979, I had made a quite sizable effort to stay clear of LSU. I
avoided my teammates and coaches. I avoided Tiger Stadium. I even avoided traveling to
Baton Rouge, not wishing to be reminded. One might've thought that my experience as a
football player had been a terrible one, when in fact it was so good and so meaningful
to me that most every other experience that came my way was diminished because of it.

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Full Text

Also, here's part of the speech in Bradley's own voice: LINK

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Lacour

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Is this kindergarten?

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Dude seriously. You just called him an a-hole, then accused HIM of being the child.

Way to hijack the thread, douchebag.

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His book is very deeply personal and revealing. I am glad there is someone here to defend him about it.

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I didn't read it because I expected it to be all about football. I expected it to speak to the power that LSU has to transform a person, especially when he puts his all into that place. I felt that way about my time at LSU. And I connected with the book because of my experiences on campus.

I would recommend it without hesitation--especially if you're an alumnus who did more at LSU than just curse in cheers and boo fellow classmates on the field.