One Great Game: Two Teams, Two Dreams, in the First Ever National Championship High School Football Game (Paperback)

by Don Wallace (Author) "On December 7, 1991-nine years and 299 days before the first high-school national championship game-the Concord (California) De La Salle Spartans suffered what they still..." (more)
Key Phrases: national championship game, number one ranking, yards downfield, Mater Dei, Bob Ladouceur, Derek Landri (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
On October 6, 2001, two California high school football teams played in what turned out to be the first, and perhaps the only, national championship high school football game. The De La Salle Spartans and the Long Beach Poly Jackrabbits came into the season as the two top-ranked teams in high school football, according to USA Today polls and various sports polls throughout the country. Wallace, who played for Poly in the late 1960s, skillfully chronicles the stories of these two football powerhouses. De La Salle, which sported the nation's longest winning streak at 113 games, is an all-male, predominantly white, Catholic high school in the wealthy northern California suburb of Concord. Long Beach Poly is an urban, inner-city high school with tremendous racial diversity, whose more famous graduates include Cameron Diaz and Snoop Dogg. With his journalist's eye, Wallace (author of the novel Hot Water) interviews the coaches and players of each team as they prepare for the 2001 season and the game that became known as the national championship. In a fast-paced narrative, he gives a play-by-play account of the game. Although Poly seems to have a physical edge over De La Salle, the latter keep their winning streak alive with a 27-15 win. Unfortunately, Wallace never makes it clear why this game was called the national championship game, especially because it was the teams' fifth game of the season, not the final one, other than that two top-ranked teams faced each other. Overall, though, Wallace's well-told story of this season and the game captures the emotions of everyone involved in the quest to be a winning team.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
Kevin Baker Author of Paradise Alley One Great Game is one great book. Don Wallace has written an engrossing, surprising, and thoroughly captivating story about two very different American high schools squaring off in high school football's first national championship. His knowledge of the game is acute, but he moves beyond football to give us a clear-eyed picture of how America itself has changed over the past thirty years. -- Review --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Atria (September 13, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743446224
• ISBN-13: 978-0743446228
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #850,801 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don Wallace scores a touchdown................., September 18, 2003

By	Juan Pardell - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Great Game : Two Teams, Two Dreams, in the First Ever National Championship High School Football Game (Hardcover)

Don Wallace's ability to capture an essence of not only the emotions of what was truly a first in the world of prep sports, but the historical content that lead to a memorable event just a few weeks after this nation's 9/11 tragedy. The game was a temporary remedy for sports fans wanting to escape the horrors that occured in New York City. ESPN had named it one of the top sporting events in the country to watch for that week.

Wallace is able to captivate an audience with his descriptions of the preparation that went into the game itself. His attention to detail as to how each schools football programs arrived at the point of their unforgetable matchup is outstanding. I am most impressed with how the book uses high school football as a metaphor for how life as viewed by those involved in the game.

Don Wallace describes his own upbringing in Long Beach and the dynamics that have that have occured since he has moved away. His definitions of the suburban community of Concord, California, and how it somewhat evolves around the school with the infamous winning streak, actually makes the town sound interesting.

I believe those choosing to purchase this book will realize it is more than just about one football game. It reaches more into depth of two contrasting communities, that despite the differences, are very similar. It is more about the country we live in today.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All-Star Prose for an Irresistible Matchup, November 3, 2003

By	David Ferrell (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Great Game : Two Teams, Two Dreams, in the First Ever National Championship High School Football Game (Hardcover)

I confess I was intrigued partly because of the success of "Friday Night Lights," H.G. Bissinger's classic look at high school football. However, I like Wallace's book better. While "Lights" drifted into long, rather dry sociological digressions, "One Great Game" is focused, beautifully written, and still explores--in a hard-hitting way--the fascinating contrast in two football cultures. It's an irresistible matchup: white, upscale Concord De La Salle, No. 1 in the nation and riding a 113-game winning streak, versus blue-collar, diverse Long Beach Poly, No. 2 in the nation and producer of more NFL football talent than any school ever. I was amazed at the access Wallace must have gotten to produce this book. He obviously spent a lot of times in the lockerrooms, absorbing the changing emotions and dreams of these young athletes, and he also proves himself an exceptional student of the two communities where these schools are based. It's worth the read just to glimpse into the mind and philosophy of De La Salle coach Bob Ladouceur, architect of the record winning streak, a guy who's apparently able to turn young men of good or even modest athletic ability into a juggernaut through discipline and commitment to the common goal. It's the kind of thing that's rare and makes an amazing story.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A study of contrasts - very well written, July 29, 2004

By	BasinBictory "Mister Basin to You" (Nowhere in particular) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Great Game : Two Teams, Two Dreams, in the First Ever National Championship High School Football Game (Hardcover)

This book chronicles the first-ever meeting between the #1 and #2-ranked high school football teams in America. In October of 2001, #1 Long Beach Poly, a Southern California powerhouse with a long, storied tradition, alma mater to a record 50 past and present NFL players, played host to #2 De La Salle, a Catholic all-boys school from the upper-class suburban town of Concord, CA, home of the nation's longest football (and perhaps all team sports) winning streak, which, before the Game, stands at an astounding 116 games.

Prior to this game, no #1 and #2 teams had ever met in head-to-head competition, which always beggared the question, "Who's REALLY #1?," since most, if not all of the USAToday's Top 25 high school teams would end up the season undefeated.

Long Beach is the "most diverse city in America," a sprawling city of 425,000 sandwiched between monstrous L.A. to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the south. It has a long and rich history, much of it less-than-sparkling, where waves of immigration, first of blacks, Hispanics, and Japanese in the early part of the 20th century, then of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Central Americans following upheavals in their respective homelands, made for a boiling brew of racial tension. Despite all this, Polytechnic High School, located in the decaying heart of downtown Long Beach, is a shining beacon for the whole community, not only as an athletic powerhouse, but as an academic springboard to prestigious colleges. in the 2001 season, the Poly Jackrabbits have perhaps their most talented team ever, with 5 players ranked among the 100 best high school players in the country.

Concord, California, is a wealthy, mostly white, upper-middle-class suburb in the East Bay Area, populated by the professional, educated types who toil in nearby San Francisco. De La Salle is an exclusive all-boys school where tuition is $7,200 per year. The De La Salle Spartans are coached by a living legend, Bob Ladouceur, who since 1979, has lost only 14 games in his entire career, and none since December of 1991.

The book takes two parallel stories, one of Poly, the other of De La Salle, focusing on the players, coaches, families, and overall atmosphere of each school and community, before intersecting them at the Game, which is described in bone-jarring play-by-play detail. You can almost imagine listening to the game on the radio, the play-by-play is so well-written.

The Game was billed as a sort of David vs. Goliath, with De La Salle playing the part of David, traditionally undersized but winning on the basis of suberb coaching and relentless conditioning, and Long Beach Poly playing Goliath, with massive offensive and defensive lines and Division I college talent populating every skill position. However, when reading about each program, the reader gets the impression that instead of David vs. Goliath, it's more like Godzilla vs. Mothra, two unstoppable juggernauts heading toward a climactic Battle Royale. And ultimately, that is exactly what it is - simply one of the finest battles between two programs of the highest caliber in the biggest game of their lives, and possibly the lives of many others.

I was very satisfied with this book. If you like football, sports in general, or just like a thrilling and consuming read, this book delivers.