A Darker Shade Of Red [Paperback]

Lloyd Pye (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 2007

This novel is a long-needed antidote to the rose-colored, star-athlete sagas popular in the world of "24-7 football access." It throbs with adrenaline-pumping, hard-hitting reality, made all the more compelling because it is based on the true story of author Lloyd Pye's four years playing college football. This book unblinkingly examines the the painful, shocking, and often inspiring world of the redshirt athlete, an aspect of football known superficially by every fan of the game, but the reality of which is known intimately only by those "on the inside." Grippingly real, intensely honest, this book provides an edge-of-your-seat expose of a hidden and hushed-up aspect of college football. Readers will live the hopes, dreams, and personal disasters of a handful of young men who represent the thousands of redshirts who will never have the glory, but will always represent the true guts of America's favorite game. No one who reads this book will ever--can ever--forget it. It is stunningly powerful.

Product Details

• Paperback: 308 pages
• Publisher: Bell Lap Books Inc. (September 7, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979388120
• ISBN-13: 978-0979388125
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,400,109 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Darker Shade of Red, October 7, 2007

By 

Scott in Cabbagetown - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Darker Shade Of Red (Paperback)

This is a fascinating story of life on the bottom rung of college football's ladder, the redshirt squad of a mediocre team called the Cajun State Fightin' Crawdads. It is based on author Lloyd Pye's four years as a player at Tulane University. He has created a page-turner that seamlessly maintains an intense narrative flow from the start to last page. It was velcroed to my hands until I finished it.

The story is a fictionalized account, based on Pye's actual experience, of the ten days leading up to the season opening game between the Crawdads and the defending national champion Texas Longhorns. It is told from the perspective of the team's senior manager, Sage, an ex-lineman with a serious knee injury. It focuses primarily on the "redshirts," the players on any college team who are used and abused primarily as crash-test dummies. They run the opposing team's plays in practice, and any success they enjoy is viewed by their coaches as merely the result of varsity player mistakes and failures--a thankless assignment.

We meet these intensely pressurized young men at a dramatic point in their lives, and through their struggles we gain a view of a facet of the game that few fans are ever aware of. Everyone hears the term "redshirt" during every game on TV, but who knows what a redshirt's life is actually like? Who knows what they go through as thinking, feeling tackling dummies?

The novel begins with "Wake Up," "Breakfast" and "Morning Practice," as we are introduced in exciting ways to not only the characters, but the mechanics, ethics, motives, hazards and the world of college football. Threads are remarkably woven, and the action scenes and sequences are described superbly. Pye has an uncanny ability to describe the excitement of crowds and the effect of this on the players. It is, after all, a cult of the spectacle, and of a particularly war-like spectacle. And you come to understand what drives and sustains the people involved in it in a way that brings out the humanity of the characters, even of some of the least admirable.

The intensely human angle makes this a story for everyone, a tale of the human spirit under incredible stress at a very young age. Even if you've never previously taken an interest in the game of football, if you've never been involved in it at any level, this book can clearly show you why so many millions are hooked on it. This book is a winner on every level!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars get on the Lloyd Pye bandwagon, November 30, 2007

By 

deadfoot - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Darker Shade Of Red (Paperback)

What can I say, I'm a big fan of Lloyd Pye's other books, so this one was a no brainer. Regardless of whether you are a football fan or not, most everyone will like, and probably love, this book.

The fact that it's a fact-based novel is just icing on the cake.

Highly recommended.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I lived the basis of this story with the author., October 7, 2007

By 

Ygnacio T. Toulon "Nat Toulon, #72." (Tallahassee, Fl United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Darker Shade Of Red (Paperback)

A Darker Shade Of Red
For anyone over the age of 55 that played either high school or college football during the 60's, the introduction alone is worth the price of the novel. It's insights into the tough mentality of the coaches is right on target. My high school coach played for Bear Bryant before he came to our small town and eventually went on to college where he is still a Dean of Men. (A tribute to the men he made on and off the field.)
I played against Lloyd Pye in the state semi-finals in '62 (we won and then won state) and again in '63 (he won and then won state) and then joined him as a freshman at Tulane University in '64. Although the characters are a combination of many personalities, as are the coaches and events, it is definitely a riveting fiction with an incredible insight to the true circumstances we endured. While most players entered as freshman, may have made it to the redshirt squad usually as a sophmore and then maybe to the varsity, I took a different personal path. I became a true sophmore starting tackle my second year and played against 4 true All-Americans, was hurt in junior pre-season and was redshirted, and then broke my neck during spring training and became a manager (or as Lloyd likes to call it I had a "Laundry Schlorship" for my senior year. I can honestly say that the emotions presented in this novel are raw, gripping and exceptionally truthful to our experiences.