{"product_id":"2940170377190","title":"A Few Seconds of Panic: A 5-Foot-8, 170-Pound, 43-Year-Old Sportswriter Plays in the NFL","description":"In \u003ci\u003eWord Freak\u003c\/i\u003e, Stefan Fatsis infiltrated the insular world of competitive Scrabble players, ultimately achieving expert status (comparable to a grandmaster ranking in chess). Now he infiltrates a strikingly different subculture-pro football. After more than a year spent working out with a strength coach and polishing his craft with a gurulike kicking coach, Fatsis molded his fortyish body into one that could stand up-barely-to the rigors of NFL training. And over three months in 2006, he became a Denver Bronco. He trained with the team and lived with the players. He was given a locker and uniforms emblazoned with the number 9. He was expected to perform all the drills and regimens required of other kickers. He ws unlike his teammates in some ways-most notably, his livelihood was not on the line as theirs was. But he became remarkably like them in many ways: he risked crippling injury just as they did, endured the hazing that befalls all rookies, daily gorged on 4,000 calories, and slogged through two-a-day practices in blistering heat. Not since George Plimpton's stint as a Detroit Lion more than forty years ago has a writer tunneled so deeply into the NFL.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt first, the players tolerated Fatsis or treated him like a mascot, but over time they began to think of him as one of them. And he began to think like one of them. Like the other Broncos-like all elite athletes-he learned to perfect a motion through thousands of repetitions, to play through pain, to silence the crowd's roar, and to banish self-doubt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile Fatsis honed his mind and drove his body past exhaustion, he communed with every classic athletic type-the afable alpha male, the overpaid brat, the youthful phenom, the savvy veteran-and a welter of bracingly atypical players as well: a fullback who invokes Aristotle, a quarterback who embraces yoga, and a tight end who takes creative writing classes in the off-season. Fatsis also witnessed the hidden machinery of a top-flight football franchise, from the God-is-in-the-details strategizing of legendary coach Mike Shanahan to the icy calculation with which the front office makes or breaks careers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith wry candor and hard-won empathy, \u003ci\u003eA Few Seconds of Panic\u003c\/i\u003e unveils the mind of the modern pro athlete and the workings of a storied sports franchise as no book ever has before.","brand":"Tantor Audio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47102343151856,"sku":"2940170377190","price":20.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940170377190_p0.jpg?v=1763708799","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940170377190","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}