Books
In February 2015, Ivan Maisel received a call that would alter his life forever: his son Max’s car had been found abandoned in a parking lot next to Lake Ontario. Two months later, Max’s body would be found in the lake.
There’d been no note or obvious indication that Max wanted to harm himself; he’d signed up for a year-long subscription to a dating service; he’d spent the day he disappeared doing photography work for school. And this uncertainty became part of his father’s grief. I Keep Trying to Catch His Eye explores with grace, depth, and refinement the tragically transformative reality of losing a child. But it also tells the deeply human and deeply empathetic story of a father’s relationship with his son, of its complications, and of Max and Ivan’s struggle—as is the case for so many parents and their children—to connect.
I Keep Trying to Catch His Eye is a stunning, poignant exploration of the father-son relationship, of how our tendency to overlook men’s mental health can have devastating consequences, and how, ultimately, letting those who grieve do so openly and freely can lead to greater healing.
Sportswriter Ivan Maisel pulls no punches and takes no prisoners as he sets the record once and for all in this book about the most overrated and underrated programs in college football. A detailed, thoroughly researched thesis, it will make even the most die-hard fan of a team admit that their feelings have muddied their opinions and weakened all previous arguments about who and what is the most overrated and underrated ever. Nobody is left out as Maisel explores the best of college football’s history, including sections on the most overrated and underrated moments, national champions, Heisman Trophy winners, stadiums, and more.
Each year, on a Saturday in November, emotions run high as the entire state of Alabama comes to a halt. Stores close. Bars open. Families, friends, and couples who on any other day of the year are civil to one another become enemies. Young men strap on their equipment to partake in the annual frenzy that they will not experience again in their lives, whether or not they go on to play professionally. And a victory gives them and their fans bragging rights for a year.
Short of a national championship, to win the state’s own Super Bowl — ultimately dubbed the Iron Bowl — may well be their greatest accomplishment. Above all, the very future of the football programs themselves hinges on which team wins. With remarkable access to both schools, A War in Dixie reveals the passions and the pressures that have made the Alabama Crimson Tide-Auburn Tigers rivalry the most feverish in the nation.
Both head coaches — Tom Tuberville and Mike DuBose, in his last game at Alabama’s helm — open their doors to meetings, practices, film study, team meals, and every other activity as they prepare for the Iron Bowl. From the coaches’ first meeting at seven A.M. to lights out, hour by hour, day by day, we see what the athletes and staff endure to win.
Purchase: “A War in Dixie: Alabama V. Auburn”