Return to Glory

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 25 AUG. 2003

In a plodding portrayal that is reverent to a fault, Grant, a writer for ESPN, chronicles the challenges and triumphs of Tyrone Willingham's first year at the helm of the nation's most storied college football team: the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Grant highlights the significance and pressure on Willingham as the school's first black coach in any sport, and he does provide the requisite behind-the-scenes glimpses of the program that are sure to pique the interest of any Irish fan. Indeed, one of the most engrossing incidents features Willingham derisively breaking down tape of his former team, Stanford, and clearly laying the blame at the feet of its new coach. But the writing itself is formulaic and dull. Aside from painful extended metaphors like describing Willingham and the team as a jazz combo, Grant occasionally strays from his otherwise distant, professional tone with awkward dips into slang that he seems to think sports talk demands. He refers to Touchdown Jesus, a mosaic on the university library, as having a "certain bling-bling"; he describes an opposing receiver as getting "truly Heisman on their asses"; and at one point he bizarrely refers to Willingham as "the most popular Negro in America." In addition, Grant is so adoring of Willingham that the coach hardly comes across as human. Grant played football for him at Stanford, and a first-person player's perspective would have been revealing. The book has enough details and anecdotes to keep a rabid Notre Dame fan turning pages, but it will hardly be of interest to a wider audience or leave much of a mark in the realm of sports literature.