Paper Lion: Confessions of a Last-String Quarterback

In the mid-'60s, Plimpton joined the Detroit Lions at their preseason camp as a 36-year-old rookie quarterback wannabe, and stuck with the club through an intra-squad game before the paying public a month later. The result is a literary masterpiece about professional football that not only elevated the art of participatory journalism to an art form, but also remains one of the most insightful and hilarious books ever written on the game.
The Detroit Lions agreed to permit Plimpton-wearing Number 0-to join them for four weeks of training camp, and to culminate his apprenticeship by calling a series of plays in an intra-squad game in Pontiac Stadium. No holds are barred in this memorable, on-the-field look at football and how the professionals play it. Naturally, Plimpton didn't make it as a football hero; he barely affords himself a dignified account of his performance on the field, which is just as well. What remains is an enduring classic of professional football as it looks to a first-string writer trying out as a last-string quarterback.

GEORGE PLIMPTON, the originator of "participatory journalism," is a founder and the editor and publisher of The Paris Review. His books include Out of My League, The Bogey Man, Open Net, Shadow Box and Mad Ducks and Bears.