What is the Biblioholic Reading: Sports Edition

Well I have been talking a lot about how I became a biblioholic, but I have not mentioned what I'm currently reading. This is a dreadful oversight and I intend to correct immediately. Not all of my reading is in academia. I read things from many genres. I plan to post them separately so I can have a theme to each Post. Today's post is the "Sports Edition".

Recently I joined the Nacogdoches Rollergirls womens flat track roller derby (WFTDA) league as a referee. Our first public bout was on Feb. 25th and it was a huge albeit painful success. In order to prepare for the role of a Jammer Ref.,I spent a lot of time reading and memorizing the rules of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association. However, being the book junkie that I am I couldn't stop there. I started reading, Rollergirl: Totally True Tales from the Track, this is an exciting inside look into the new roller derby revolution from the skater's point of view. It is a raw and unpolished book that gets a bit racy at times. It is obviously riding on the success of the A&E TV series "Rollergirls". The book successfully maintains the tone of the popular series. Another facet of its success comes from the dearth of current books about one of the fastest growing phenomenons in sports today. All the Roller Derby skaters and fan will read this book. They will get a straight forward in your face account of events a seen by the author. I don't know how many people outside of the Roller Derby world will enjoy it. Read it or not, everyone should attend at least one roller derby bout in their life. They won't forget it.

While Rollergirl: is entertaining, I also wanted to read a more serious treatment of my new obsession. I craved information on the more serious aspects of sports officiating. The rebirth of Roller Derby or Neo-Derby is still growing and working out the rules. As a result I drew on the vast amount of experience and knowledge of officials from all across the sports spectrum.

From the university library I checked out Psychology of Officiating. This is an excellent book. I highly recommend it to referees or officials of all sports, from t-ball to the NBA. Some of the most valuable information is found in the chapters on goals, communication, and burnout. The book covered a myriad of things I never would have thought of as part of officiating. I can not recommend the need for this book highly enough. After reading it I gained a new respect for sports officials and I now watch sporting events on TV for the first time just to see the officials (or "The Third Team") work.

From my public library I got a copy of Successful Sports Officiating. This to was an excellent book whose editors included staff from Referee Magazine. It talks about many things including: communication skills, keeping the game under control, developing your skills and developing your career. One of the many great aspects of this books is that it has pictures and quotes from model officials illustrating the principles discussed in the book. Successful Sports Officiating and Psychology of Officiating are both going to be added to my permanent library whether there is room or not.

If you are interested in sports, either as a player or as a fan I recommend Successful Sports Officiating Psychology of Officiating. After reading these books you will appreciate the game even more, and will understand the "Third Team" or "Third Player" and the game better. Ultimately it will result in enjoying the sport even more and may encourage you to become involved as a ref. for one of your local youth leagues. and/or

Nacogdoches Roller Girls Debut

Well the Rollerderby bout was awesome last night, maybe even turbo cool. Madame Furrie from the Iron Maidens in the NRG has a great post with some good comments at her blog "Strange Fruit" I'll quote from her blog because she is as great a writer as she is a skater.

But back to NRG. The Iron Maidens and the Brick Street Brawlers hit the rink raring to go. We basically skated as fast as we could and hit harder than we ever had before for the first five minutes. And then - exhaustion. .... Miss Glad Ass suffered a major injury in the first five minutes and was out for the rest of the bout. Today, we found out it was a broken collar bone.

... those last two minutes were brutal! Goody Nuff and Bad Apple were our last two jammers. The Maidens were ahead, but not by much, and the Brawlers weren't giving up without a fight. And what a fight it was! An all out kamikaze mission on quads and I'm surprised we didn't have more broken bones. But when the buzzer sounded and the smoke cleared, the final score was Brick Street Brawlers - 94; Iron Maidens - 107.

I am chalking last night up as a success, NRG's finest yet. And trust me - they are only going to keep getting better.

Love, Madame Furie

It was a blast we completely sold out of tickets

Die Hard

I hate Bruce Willis. He always plays such a stud. In the Die hard movies he was ridiculously macho but in Armageddon (spoilers coming) when he rips the suit of his antithesis who is going to marry his daughter so that he can stay on the meteor to trigger the nuclear bomb by hand, that is just way over the top. And then the big guy goes you the man Harry you the man. Now how’s a guy supposed to compete with that. I take my wife to a move looking to have a good time, drink a couple of gallons of coke, eat several cubic meters of popcorn, hear some Aerosmith, maybe put my arm around her? J and then here comes Bruce Willis “the man” after ramroding this whole impossible project during the movie he then sacrifices his life by blowing himself up on a meteor with a nuclear bomb and saves the entire planet. How am I supposed to compete with that? I mean what kind of chance do I have to save the world. Oh hey Linda I saw a squirrel in the road today and slammed on my breaks just in time to save it. Good thing I changed those rotors last week. I mean give me a break. Like Die Hard the building is full of terrorists and he single-handedly kills them all and saves everyone. I’ve been in Nac 9 years and have never seen a terrorist.

Just for the record I want everyone to know. If the library is ever taken over by a band of heavily armed international terrorist who want to steal the OED that I’ll be there to stop them and save the day. Or if NASA ever calls and asks me to fly in the space shuttle to blow up a meteor and save the world, I’m there. I’am all over it. Now its true I didn’t get the dishes completely finished yesterday, but if ninjas break into our house to steal those dirty dishes I’m there. Any way Bruce Willis doesn’t seem like the type that does dishes. I think I need to spend that time resting up for that NASA gig.

Anyway someone ripped the sign off the wall by the women’s bathroom in the back on the second floor and I wasn’t there. Not sure when it happened. I had been coming from the other direction most of the time and tonight I came a different way and saw it. Everybody seems to be getting more and more ancy and irritable and I am hearing a lot of coughing. I think that tomorrow may be a pretty rough night. But hey don’t worry about it man, because I’m there, I’m all over it. I’ll keep an eye on those dishes too.

R Philip Reynolds

The Machine

The Human Search Engine

The Man

The Librarian