“Because the system is based on completely unobjective truths. Because the system has screwed your school, just as it screwed my alma mater a decade earlier, just as it has been screwing athletes like Cam Newton for decades. Until it changes, why shouldn’t you screw the system in return? Amid this skewed landscape, your definition of legitimacy is as rational as anything else.”
Michael Weinreb
Mr. Bartley, Break Down This Book: Ben just says yes to Bigger Than the Game
“Until recently, I’d never questioned why or how sports had evolved to our present situation. Unlike [Michael] Weinreb, I did most of my growing in the ’90s. I’ve always had ESPN and Deion Sanders and steroids in baseball. Yearlong coverage of sports minutiae has always been a part of my day-to-day. For better or worse, the monolithic money-maker Sports has become has always, and probably will always, be a part of my life.”
Bo Had Better Commercials: an interview with Michael Weinreb
Auburn fans think of Bo Jackson as the embodiment of everything great about the 1980s.
Thanks to Michael Weinreb, we know we’re not alone.
In his latest great book Bigger Than The Game, Weinreb traces the birth of the modern athlete to the Year Of Our Bo, 1986, when Reagan was referee, the Bears were rappers, and cocaine as innocuous as Big League Chew.