Anderson, Lars

PERSONAL:

Married; wife's name Sara. Education: Graduated from St. Olaf College; Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, M.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Birmingham, AL. Office—Sports Illustrated, 2 Embarcadero Ctr., San Francisco, CA 94111. Agent—Scott Waxman, Waxman Literary Agency, 80 5th Ave., Ste. 1101, New York, NY 10011.

CAREER:

Sports Illustrated, San Francisco, CA, staff writer.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Best Books of 1998 designation, New York Public Library, for Pickup Artists: Street Basketball in America.

WRITINGS:

(With Chad Millman) Pickup Artists: Street Basketball in America, Verso (New York, NY), 1998.

The Proving Ground: A Season on the Fringe in NFL Europe, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2001.

The All Americans (nonfiction), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2004.

Carlisle vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner, and the Forgotten Story of Football's Greatest Battle, Random House (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

A staff writer for Sports Illustrated, Lars Anderson writes books that focus on various social and cultural aspects of team sports such as basketball and football. In Pickup Artists: Street Basketball in America, Anderson and coauthor Chad Millman explore the history of basketball and how "playground athletes, many from working-class families, altered the basic nature of the game and laid the groundwork for the sport as it is played today," in the words of a Publishers Weekly reviewer. The authors see street basketball as having influenced the evolution of the game from a finessed competition involving sophisticated ball handling and carefully structured techniques to the flamboyant modern game of fast breaks and backboard-shattering slam dunks. Anderson and Millman lament that, by the late twentieth century, the game had turned into a commercial enterprise under the control of sneaker and athletic-wear conglomerates, with recruiting organized so tightly that potential players could be spotted as early as elementary school. The book includes profiles of prominent pickup players as well as a number of top female players.

The Proving Ground: A Season on the Fringe in NFL Europe examines the highs and lows of National Football League (NFL) Europe, a developmental league operated by America's NFL. In NFL Europe, potential NFL superstars can hone their skills and learn the rugged game of American football. Anderson follows the Scottish Claymores team throughout their entire 2000 season, focusing on their many successes as well as their jolting setbacks. Anderson looks at individual players, personalities such as head coach Jim Criner, and dedicated fans who follow NFL Europe with a devotion rarely seen even among the most fervent of American tailgaters and stands-dwellers. Anderson also addresses how NFL Europe serves as a training ground of sorts for new football fans, marketing NFL football in Europe and building a broader fan base for American football. Anderson follows the Claymores from their training camp to their championship game, the World Bowl, from cramped living quarters in an allegedly haunted hotel in Glasgow, Scotland, to raucous parties and jubilant victories. Wes Lukowsky, writing in Booklist, called the book "an entertaining look at a side of pro football fans seldom see." The dream of full-fledged NFL professional status "continues for these players as long as they can pump it full of life," commented John Maxymuk in Library Journal, "and this book lets us see the humanity in that effort."

Part military history and part sports history, The All Americans profiles four men—two from each military branch—who played in the 1941 Army-Navy football game just prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Eight days after the game, the men who were rivals on the football field united to fight a deadlier common enemy. Anderson devotes more than half of the book to the highlighted game, a technique that effectively spotlights the profound changes the war wrought on all facets of American life—even its recreation. "The sudden transformation from boys at play to men at war makes the subsequent battle narrative especially powerful," observed David Pitt in Booklist. Anderson "makes a convincing case that the Army-Navy football rivalry played a significant role in preparing many young men for war," noted Sports Illustrated reviewer Charles Hirshberg. The goal of Army-Navy football is probably not to produce great players but effective leaders, ultimately the primary goal of the military schools that stage the games. Pitt remarked favorably on Anderson's "dramatic writing," fully realized characters, and captivating storyline.

Anderson explores another fascinating chapter of American sports in Carlisle vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner, and the Forgotten Story of Football's Greatest Battle. The game to which the title refers took place in 1912, only twenty years after the defeat of the Sioux Nation at Wounded Knee led to massive efforts to assimilate Indian youth through education in special schools. One such student, Jim Thorpe, was sent to the Indian school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. A tremendously gifted athlete who would go on to win Olympic gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon, Thorpe immediately attracted the attention of Carlisle football coach Glenn Scobey "Pop" Warner. With Thorpe as his star player, Warner made Carlisle a football powerhouse. Carlisle's game against the U.S. Army team, which included player Dwight D. Eisenhower, resulted in a 27-6 victory for Warner's team.

Although Boston Globe writer Brion O'Connor felt the book suffers from overwriting and cliche, many critics enjoyed Carlisle vs. Army for its insight into social history as well as sports tactics. As Kevin A. Stoda remarked in a review for the Guerilla News Network Web site, "it is a book that reminds American readers how far the country has evolved and changed since the days when Indians ran the plains and U.S. armies marched Indians off to reservations." Carlisle vs. Army "transcends the football game that spawns its title," observed Book Reporter contributor Stuart Shiffman. Weekly Standard contributor Samantha Sault described the book as a "classic cowboys-and-Indians story: the cowboys of West Point, with impressive physical and mental prowess, battling the Indians of Carlisle, national football sensations."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 1, 2001, Wes Lukowsky, review of The Proving Ground: A Season on the Fringe in NFL Europe, p. 292; October 1, 2004, David Pitt, review of The All Americans, p. 296; September 1, 2007, Bill Ott, review of Carlisle vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner, and the Forgotten Story of Football's Greatest Battle, p. 44.

Boston Globe, August 26, 2007, Brion O'Connor, review of Carlisle vs. Army.

Choice: Current Review for Academic Libraries, October, 1998, J. Davenport, review of Pickup Artists: Street Basketball in America, p. 356.

Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 1998, review of Pickup Artists, p. 858; September 1, 2001, review of The Proving Ground, p. 1255; July 15, 2007, review of Carlisle vs. Army.

Library Journal, October 15, 2001, John Maxymuk, review of The Proving Ground, p. 82.

Publishers Weekly, May 4, 1998, review of Pickup Artists, p. 193.

Sports Illustrated, December 13, 2004, Charles Hirshberg, "Lessons from the Sandlot: The Author Reveals How He and His Teammates Were Formed in the Crucible of Pop Warner Play in the '50s," review of The All Americans, p. Z16; September 3, 2007, "Reading the Play," review of Carlisle vs. Army, p. 4.

Star News (Wilmington, NC), October 17, 2007, review of Carlisle vs. Army.

Weekly Standard (Washington, DC), October 22, 2007, Samantha Sault, "Clash of Titans; Jim Thorpe and Ike Meet on the Field of Friendly Strife," review of Carlisle vs. Army.

ONLINE

Bookreporter.com,http://www.bookreporter.com/ (June 20, 2008), Stuart Shiffman, review of Carlisle vs. Army.

Entertainment Weekly Online,http://www.ew.com/ (June 20, 2008), Jeff Labrecque, review of Carlisle vs. Army.

Guerilla News Network Web site,http://alone.gnn.tv/ (June 20, 2008), Kevin A. Stoda, "Lars Anderson's Carlisle vs. Army—What Does It Tell Us about the Way Things Used to Be?"

Kansas City Chiefs Book Bytes,http://www.kcchiefs.com/ (June 20, 2008), Eileen Weir, review of Carlisle vs. Army.