Customer Reviews

Paper Champions: The BCS on Trial

5 star:		(1)
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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Do NOT waste your times....Mr. Gaines is a quack of a former judge who has a waste of time on his hands with this book! He writes it as if America loves reading law reviews...and trial summaries. Come on....useless and poorly written....there are so many ways to more forcefully argue against the BCS....this is a boring read...even for the most educated of fans! Mr. Gaines...stay out of the literary realm....PLEASE!!!!

This book is nothing more than a transcript of trail in Federal court. A trial lawyer may love it. It doesn't show a lot of work on behalf of the author.

...in the "john", in a restaurant or coffee shop while waiting on an order, riding the bus to work, or in any other situation where it's preferable to read a book in small portions. This is because unlike most books, which are divided into chapters, the formatting for this book was derived from testimony in a fictional trial where many witnesses testify before a Federal court in a civil suit brought about by the protagonist, who serves as his own lawyer, against the entity that makes up the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). The book starts out with a brief introduction about the protagonist and why he decided to bring his lawsuit against the BCS, and then the protagonist begins examining the various witnesses who are involved in Major College Football, including coaches, sports writers, players and others. Because the testimonies are mostly brief, a person can read a few pages and ingest a good point in the book. Personally, I like this format better than the typical chapter form in which you have to read long passages before getting to key points in the story. For folks not accustomed to reading long novels (and are football fans), this is a great book for them.
As for the book itself, I thought it raised some good points about why there should be a playoff in Major College (NCAA Division I) football. However, the "trial" only consisted of the protagonist examining witnesses without cross-examination by the defense (lawyers for the BCS). I believe the book could have been better if both sides of the argument could've been heard so that the reader could objectively make up his mind on the issue.
My only other criticism about the book was its many grammatical and spelling errors. For a journalist who also teaches English at a college in Texas, he could've done a better job at proofreading the final copy for his book. Actually, he didn't proofread the copy at all. According to the epilogue in the book, his son did! As someone who works in the printing business, that just doesn't make any sense. Despite this lack of professionalism, I still enjoyed the book and would recommend it to others.

Great Book! Articulates everything fans really feel about the BSC and the complete failure of no playoffs.