More and more books have been coming out arguing that commercialized American sports have become a nightmare for our society, distorting educational values, dissolving social bonds -- Gerdy points out that the millions of people sitting in front of their TVs watching "March Madness" between the commercial breaks are people who would have been playing a sport 50 years ago -- helping to keep black kids in cultural bondage (when the entire society tells you to worship some black slamdunker rather than a gifted black physicist or writer, you're not likely to go to the public library and check out a book), and in general serving as a drain down which tens of millions of Americans pour their lives and spirit.

All this has been said before. What's moving about Gerdy's account is that he writes about it from the inside: he grew up in NJ, was a college basketball star and 3rd-round draft choice by the Lakers, has served as an SEC conference director, and in general knows the sports world from the inside out. He has seen it, during his lifetime, turn into a whited sepulchre: clean on the outside, but inside filled with ashes and dead men's bones.

Gerdy takes as his moral measure of "real" sports the pickup games that we all played as kids 40 years ago. This is the appeal of his book: a group of kids who went from house to house picking up friends, went to the playground, made up or adjusted their own rules, adjudicated disputes by themselves, and in general played for the pure joy of the game in an adult-free world. Most "policy" books about commercialized sports miss this dimension: it is the fall out of Eden in American sports.

From those preteen and teenage pickup games, Gerdy then takes us through the long grim downhill road of $billion network deals, parents who encourage their kids to take steroids and growth hormone to win a place on the starting team, Div IA scholarship athletes who can't read and write, the powerful world of white men who sustain the vicious hypocrisy of "amateur" sports from the Pop Warner League up to the level of Ohio State and Nebraska, the million-dollar coaches who become more powerful than the presidents of their universities or the governors of their states, the pro athletes who have been taught to consider themselves above the law (1 in 5 NFL players has been arrested or indicted for a serious crime, ranging from assault and kidnapping to rape and burglary and homicide), and the cretinism of an American TV-watching public that considers all this "normal" for a developed civilization.

I had read Gerdy's earlier books. This one is more radical. He ends by arguing for measures that will surely take place over the next 10-20 years: removal of Division IA sports from American higher education (he points out that the great European universities bear no resemblance to sports factories like Nebraska and Oklahoma and Kentucky and Tennessee: who ever heard of a middle linebacker from the Sorbonne?), abolition of "athletic scholarships," removal of all commercialized sports to purely commercial sphere (his model is cable-TV wrestling), wiping out of kiddie leagues and high school sports as a "pipeline" for the professional leagues, and, in general, a restoration of participatory sports -- for millions and millions of Americans who no longer know the joy of actually playing a sport, who waste their lives in front of the tube eating potato chips and drinking beer -- as a way of life in America.

Again, all this has been said before, but in Gerdy's account the story has the appeal of being told by someone who lived inside the gates of Eden, and who is thus in a position to report first-hand on the "fall into commercial spectacle" that is at present such a disgrace to the United States.

After reading his latest hard hitting, honest, revealing book about America's addiction to sports, one might think that John Gerdy hates sports. On the contrary, John has spent his entire life in and around sports. He is not a disgruntled parent or angry ex-coach with an ax to grind.

John Gerdy is a thoughtful scholar who has written a book of enormous value to anyone who cares about the affect of sports on American culture, values, and education. John Gerdy dispels all of the myths surrounding organized sports in America and exposes them for what they are.

Youth sports have been taken over by adults, and high schoo, collegiate and professional sports have been taken over by money. This book is a chilling indictment of what sports have become in this country, and it isn't good. John questions whether sports promote positive ideals and teach valuable life skills that will prepare us for competition in a global, information based economy.

My hi-lighter went dry, and I couldn't put this book down. This is the most significant contribution to the national dialogue on the desperate state of sports in our society. If you have ever wondered what was wrong with how we conduct sports in this country, this book will explain it all. On a scale of 1-5, Sports: The All-American Addiction is a 10!

Read this book and tell everyone you know about it. It is that good!

Regis Tremblay, Executive Director of The Foundation For Kids FIRST in Sports.

Clear-eyed and knowledgeable, John Gerdy demonstrates that sports has become an American Frankenstein's monster, far removed from its origins and corrupting every level of society it touches. You could not have a better guide to the world of sports in this country, or to the overwhelming need for its reform.
--Hodding Carter III
President and Chief Executive Officer, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation