Just for funsies, and to more fairly represent the literary tastes of our wonderfully diverse campus, I asked some of West Valley's football players what they were reading.
Brooks Snow, 19, is majoring in Criminal Justice.
"I like sci-fi," he said momentarily.
"Like, Isaac Asimov?" I suggested. (I like Isaac Asimov.)
Snow hadn't heard of him. "Like Star Wars," he clarified. Finally he mentioned Tom Clancy.
"Like Rainbow 5?" I asked. Snow corrected me—it's Rainbow 6—but suggested I abstain from mentioning that particular title, as he prefers not to be associated with rainbows. (Sorry, Snow.)
Then Snow redeemed himself, recalling that he had read Homer's The Odyssey and Iliad in high school, and declared that those are, hands down, his favorite books ever.
Joesph Fernandez's favorite book is Shiloh:
"I got hella mad when he hurt the dog."
Dmitri Vigil is reading Nineteen Eighty-Four for a class. (I thought, Oh, no, not this book again.)
"It's lovely," he said.
"Does it scare you?" I asked pointedly.
"Yes, it does. It scares me a lot." He paused, then said, "It's well-written."
Michael Cobb was not reading a book; instead, he proudly flexed his muscles. He'd coasted into the library on his razor scooter until a coach snapped at him to carry it. (There were two coaches present in the library to ensure that the athletes were actually studying.)
Pierre Woods, on the other hand, mentioned that he was actually enjoying his textbook, American Cinema. He took it out of his backpack. "It's cool," he said, flipping through the pages. "I like it. It tells you about different types of movie styles, periods in filmmaking..." He then went on at length about the impact Casablanca and Humphrey Bogart had on 1940s Hollywood.
NATIVE ALASKAN
Ryan Bacon, Alaskan and not a football player, wears sunglasses indoors.
Ryan Bacon, major undeclared, is not a football player, but a whale-watching, moose-petting newcomer to WVC; having just recently come from Alaska. He's reading About a Boy, which was made into a film starring Hugh Grant. It has very short chapters and could probably be read by early middle-schoolers, Bacon observed. His brother plays for a J-rock band—professionally, in Japan.
TEAM EFFORT
How many jocks does it take to read one book?