Get Your Own Damn Beer, I'm Watching the Game!: A Woman's Guide to Loving Pro Football [Paperback]

Holly Robinson Peete (Author), Daniel Paisner (Author), Marcus Allen (Epilogue)

Book Description

Release date: August 11, 2005

Year after year, Sunday afternoons and Monday nights during the NFL season have belonged to men. While they cheer and argue play calls, the women in their lives are relegated to beer and chip detail. It's time for these women to join the action, and Holly Robinson Peete, star of 21 Jump Street, For Your Love, and Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, and wife of NFL quarterback Rodney Peete, has written this hip, smart, cheerful guide to help them do so.

Peete shares her infectious enthusiasm for pro football and takes the complexity out of the game by breaking it down to its component parts. She explains the role of each position player, provides a rundown of all on-field penalties and referees' hand signals, and offers an illustrated guide to some of the most common plays in the NFL. She gives her take on the most memorable plays in NFL history and dishes some inside dirt-in a breezy, girl-talkin' narrative that promises to turn the novice spectator into a well-informed football fanatic.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sitcom star Peete has an insider's view of the NFL: she's married to quarterback Rodney Peete. Drawing on her knowledge and love of the game, Peete targets females who'd prefer not to be abandoned on game days and invites readers to picture a time when their significant other "no longer calls all his guy friends over to watch the game...because there's no one he'd rather watch it with than you." Peete's appealing wit spices up the basics (explanation of the game's rules, positions, history and common strategies) and includes sidebars on football movies, top quarterbacks and Peete's favorite "football butts." Though the book shoots for a female audience, Peete's patient explanation of even the most fundamental components (she devotes a page each to discussing the ball and the field) can be of use to those with a Y-chromosome who find the gridiron baffling. Her affection for America's game comes through in this book, and many game-day widows will embrace it as an essential read. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

A couple decades before she married NFL quarterback Rodney Peete, Holly Robinson, star of several popular TV shows including 21 Jump Street, became a Philadelphia Eagles fan. Her dad, a television writer and the original Gordon on Sesame Street, hooked her early: "Honey," Dad responded to his five-year-old daughter's request to visit the Good Humor Man, "if that kicker makes this field goal, you can get your strawberry shortcake." Holly started cheering for the Eagles on that day and didn't stop, eventually marrying the quarterback. In this women's guide to pro football, Peete, writing with coauthor Paisner, uses her knowledge to review the nuts and bolts of the game: rules, positions, strategy, a little history. Most important, though, is her ability to impart her passion for the game in a chatty, friendly way. This goes well with Musiker's The Smart Girl's Guide to Sports (2005). Mary Frances Wilkens
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books; First Edition edition (August 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594861633
• ISBN-13: 978-1594861635
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #634,529 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 45 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent but Not On Target November 1, 2008

By C M

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

After reading many of the reviews on Amazon, I decided to purchase this book thinking that it was the best choice for an intro to football for women, or rather, for people who don't know much about football. Generally, when something is written about sports and "for women", I tend to think that what the writer really means is that they start at the beginning with no assumptions about things you already know (or should know) about the sport because women are generally thought to be less knowledgeable about sports than men are.

The book has loads of knowledge about the history of football, the rules, and plenty of top 10 lists to acquaint you with players, coaches and games. There's plenty of terminology and strategy included as well. However, there's also an entire chapter devoted to football wives talking about their husbands schedules (and so on) as well as comments about how "cute" football huddles are and gushing over the ties to Holly's love of ice cream and the game.

Over all, I would say that the amount of knowledge in the book is good for a beginner's guide. But, I would also say that if you are A)someone who likes to cut to the chase or B) not a "girly girl" who wants to hear about Holly Peete's childhood, family life, and lists of things that she finds cute when you are buying a book to learn about football... go with another book.

If, on the other hand, you do find that heart warming anecdotes and and off topic discussions of a football player's family life do help you to stay interested in what you are reading, then by all means buy this book. That's just not what I am looking for in a book about sports.

Books like this one make me understand why women may not be as interested in sports as men are. Books like this one assume that women can't be interested in a sport the same way that a man is... that she has to be convinced that sports are worth while. I'm just waiting for a beginner's guide to a sport that isn't cute and cuddly to "appeal to women" and, alternatively, isn't titled "the idiot's guide to ...". What I want is a book that respects me as a person who is truly interested in the sport *for what the sport is* but is also aware that some people just never learned about a particular sport and don't have any knowledge base that can be assumed.

Holly Peete's book is definitely informative, but also has a lot of superfluous information that has nothing to do with football for anyone other than herself. I give it three starts for having to sift through all of that off topic info.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun Helpful Reading September 21, 2005

By Little Miss Cutey

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I love basketball and ice hockey. Those I understand well. I love NFL but I understand (understood) it less. This clarified all the parts I needed clarification on and now I'm understanding it fully. Holly made this a fun read, but she knows her stuff too. Now I don't look so blank when I watch a game on ESPN on pay tv. She knows she's aiming this at intelligent women who are NFL'y challenged, so this is really well written and I highly recommend this to anyone.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally!! It all makes sense August 22, 2005

By C. Luckett

Format:Paperback

As a true b-ball fan, I never really appreciated the great american sport of football. I became more and more intrigued by the sport as I followed our Carolina Panthers to the Superbowl, season before last. Although I religiously watched all of the playoff games, I certainly couldn't hold my own in a conversation about the games. But now I have to say I believe I can. Holly, girl, you did the dog gone thing. Men even seemed to be the impressed by the mere fact that I was reading a book about football (as I found at the airport earlier this week).

This book is fun, sassy and informative. I can hardly wait until this season's opener. Bring on the beer, wings and yes, even ice cream. I'm lovin' it!