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Playing through the Whistle

Audiobook

From a Sports Illustrated senior writer, a moving epic of football and industrial America, telling the story of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, its now-shuttered steel mill, and its legendary high school football team

Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, is famous for two things: the Jones and Laughlin Steel mill, an industrial behemoth that helped win World War II, and football, with a high school team that has produced numerous NFL stars including Mike Ditka and Darrelle Revis. But the mill, once the fourth largest producer in America, closed for good in 2000. What happens to a town when a dream dies? Does it just disappear?

In Playing through the Whistle, celebrated sports writer S. L. Price tells the story of this remarkable place, its people, its players, and through it, a wider story of American history from the turn of the twentieth century. Aliquippa has been many things—a rigidly controlled company town, a booming racial and ethnic melting pot, and, for a brief time, a workers' paradise.

Price expertly traces this history, while also recounting the birth and development of high school sports, from a minor pastime to a source of civic pride to today, when it sometimes seems like the only way out of a life of poverty, drug abuse, and crime. Playing through the Whistle is a masterpiece of narrative journalism that will make you cry and cheer in equal measure.


Expand title description text
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing Edition: Unabridged

OverDrive Listen audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781504760232
  • File size: 440328 KB
  • Release date: October 11, 2016
  • Duration: 15:17:20

MP3 audiobook

  • ISBN: 9781504760232
  • File size: 441039 KB
  • Release date: October 11, 2016
  • Duration: 15:17:15
  • Number of parts: 16

Formats

OverDrive Listen audiobook
MP3 audiobook

Languages

English

From a Sports Illustrated senior writer, a moving epic of football and industrial America, telling the story of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, its now-shuttered steel mill, and its legendary high school football team

Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, is famous for two things: the Jones and Laughlin Steel mill, an industrial behemoth that helped win World War II, and football, with a high school team that has produced numerous NFL stars including Mike Ditka and Darrelle Revis. But the mill, once the fourth largest producer in America, closed for good in 2000. What happens to a town when a dream dies? Does it just disappear?

In Playing through the Whistle, celebrated sports writer S. L. Price tells the story of this remarkable place, its people, its players, and through it, a wider story of American history from the turn of the twentieth century. Aliquippa has been many things—a rigidly controlled company town, a booming racial and ethnic melting pot, and, for a brief time, a workers' paradise.

Price expertly traces this history, while also recounting the birth and development of high school sports, from a minor pastime to a source of civic pride to today, when it sometimes seems like the only way out of a life of poverty, drug abuse, and crime. Playing through the Whistle is a masterpiece of narrative journalism that will make you cry and cheer in equal measure.


Expand title description text
  • Details

    Publisher:
    Blackstone Publishing
    Edition:
    Unabridged

    OverDrive Listen audiobook
    ISBN: 9781504760232
    File size: 440328 KB
    Release date: October 11, 2016
    Duration: 15:17:20

    MP3 audiobook
    ISBN: 9781504760232
    File size: 441039 KB
    Release date: October 11, 2016
    Duration: 15:17:15
    Number of parts: 16

  • Creators
  • Formats
    OverDrive Listen audiobook
    MP3 audiobook
  • Languages
    English