Customer Reviews

A View from the Bench: The Story of an Ordinary Player on a Big-Time Football Team (Sport and Society)

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Interesting insight into " big time " college athletics. Parents can learn to guide their children into the " best option" for college athletics by being realistic. The book confirms what we all know.

The book might be best targeted for Nebraska Cornhusker fans since most of information comes from when the author played in the early 1970's. However, because the book deals in large part with his relationship with Monte Kiffin, his defensive coach, the book has surprising relevance today. The book gives great insight into Kiffin's coaching style.

Mills also was very candid about his playing ability, his inability to gain and maintain weight needed to play his position and the problems he had being a student. I read Big Red Confidential years ago and found Mill's take on Boyd Epley to be different from that book. If one is an old Big 8 fan, the book mentions two other assistant coaches Mills played for, Warren Powers and Jim Walden, who later became head coaches in th conference. He did have tidbits about Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne, but his constant focus on Kiffin showed that college football players have more of a relationship with their most direct coach.

I would recommend the book even though a die-hard Nebraska fan would enjoy it more.

I played football in high school, and since I never played that much I feel like I can relate to the story told in this book. The author writes mostly about his college years, not high school, but the idea is the same. It is an insirational account of not giving up, and finding that what is most important about being an athlete isn't always how much playing time you get.