Book Review: American Commander

American Commander

 Author: Ryan Zinke and Scott McEwen

My wife gave me this book for Christmas and I just got around to reading it. The author, Ryan Zinke is a former Navy Seal, former Montana congressman and current Interior Secretary. I’ve read a number of books about Navy Seals and their service to our country,

This book followed the same basic outline of previous books. The author detailed his childhood and his desire to enter the military. He takes us through Seal Training and the extensive work they do to test candidates physically, mentally and emotionally

I often wonder if I could make it through the demanding training and qualify as a Seal. I respect those that do and am glad we have such as elite force at the ready to carry out dangerous missions like the one that took out Osama Bin Laden.

Upon making it to the Seals, Zinke share a number of stories from his time with the Seals and describes some of the missions he participated in. I really enjoyed reading about these missions. Zinke didn’t go into as much detail as I would have liked. Still though, I was captivated by the precise way he and his fellow Seals executed these missions.

I wish he would have shared more of these types of experiences. Instead, he got into a lot of detail about policy he works on as a Congressman and his political views. To be honest, I thought these forays detracted from the book and I ended up skipping these parts and jumping ahead to parts about missions and other Seal activities he was involved in.

Every time I read a book like this I am grateful for the dedicated men and women that train and commit to defending our country. They get a lot of headlines during time of war or when a big mission is executed but they do so much more on a daily basis that goes unseen but is critical to maintaining our way of life and the freedoms we enjoy.

Even with the political aspects of the book, I still recommend this book. I enjoyed it and am grateful for Zinke’s service to our country.

Book Review: Jordan: The Man. His Words. His Life.

Jordan: The Man. His Words. His Life

Author: Mitchell Krugel

I got this book a couple years ago for Christmas. I’ve read a number of books about Michael Jordan and have always been fascinated by his talent and the way he dominated the game of basketball. I grew up watching Jordan and even though I am a rabid Utah Jazz fan, I couldn’t help but love the way he played and the success of his career. Well, except for the last two championships he won when he beat my beloved Utah Jazz two straight years and prevented arguably the best power forward and point guard to ever play the game from getting a much-deserved NBA Championship or two. But, that’s another point for another blog entry.

This book is written from years of interviews from a reporter, Mitchell Krugel that followed Jordan and the Chicago Bulls for many seasons. He had access to Jordan that few did and got to know Jordan outside of basketball in a way that most reporters and fans never did.  Each chapter starts with a page or two of direct quotes from Jordan about the chapter topic. After the Jordan quotes, the author goes on to expand on the point drawing from quotes from other players, coaches and statistics or game examples to demonstrate the point.

The book starts from the beginning, specifically early signs that demonstrated Jordan’s character and foreshadowed his greatness. The book takes you through his college career, his rookie year and early NBA years where he was establishing himself as one of the stars of the game. In the early years Jordan was criticized for being nothing more than a great offensive player. Jordan didn’t like or agree with that and worked very hard to prove himself as an elite defensive player.

As his popularity grew he became a global icon and the demands of his popularity made it increasingly difficult for him to live a normal life and do the things that most people take for granted like Christmas shopping for his kids. His popularity grew so much that he couldn’t go out in public and when he did Christmas shop for his kids he had to call stores in advance and arrange to shop after hours when the store was closed to the public.

These challenges ate away at Jordan as did the demands for interviews and media scrutiny on his every move. As he struggled to deal with this invasion on his privacy he stepped away from the game. He felt he had accomplished everything he could accomplish after nine years of playing and felt like he could be considered one of the greatest players of all time.

He decided to give baseball a shot and joined the Chicago White Sox organization. He played 18 months before coming back to the NBA. His comeback was filled with questions about how good he could be after not playing for nearly two years. When he came back he played in about 20 regular season games and then the Bulls were eliminated by the Orlando Magic in the playoffs. Many questioned whether Jordan would be able to reach the elite level he played at before retiring. Jordan was determined to come back as strong as ever.

The next season he dominated even more than he did before retiring. The next three seasons the Bulls won three more championships.

One common theme of the book was Jordan’s competitiveness and his will to win and be the best. The stories of his competitiveness are legendary and every fan and player has a different favorite story about Jordan’s feats of greatness.

I remember growing up watching Jordan and his Bulls play. The Bulls has a contract with TBS to broadcast games nationally. My family didn’t have cable TV but one of my best friends did. This friend and I and one other friend would and me and my two best friends would get together every time there was a Bulls gam on and watch. We rarely missed a game. We couldn’t get enough of the way he played and how he made the amazing look so easy. He could jump and float like nobody we had ever seen.

Like the TV commercial, we wanted to “be like Mike.” When we played, we tried to imitate Jordan and duplicate the things we’d see him do on the court. Rarely could we do what did. Rarely. Never could we exactly duplicate it but we’d spend hours and hours trying to do what he did on a basketball court.

Prior to retiring in 1993 Jordan produced numbers that would have out him amongst the greatest of all time.  Three NBA championships, three NBA MVP’s and three Finals MVP’s. The numbers have changed and he’s added to them since coming back from retirement, but check out the numbers from his first nine years in the league.

• He retired with a 32.3 points per game scoring average, the highest of any player in NBA history.
• On April 16, 1987, he scored 23 consecutive points – the most ever by an NBA player – in a 117-114 loss to the Atlanta Hawks.
• His 131 blocked shots in 1988 were the most ever by a guard in NBA history.
• He was the only player in NBA history to record more than 200 steals and 100 blocked shots in a single season. He did it twice: in 1986-87 and 1987-88.
• He was the only player in NBA history to be named the league’s defensive player of the year and win the scoring title in the same season.
• He was the only player in NBA history other than Wilt Chamberlain to score more than 3,000 points in a single season. He has 3,041 in 1986-87.
• He scored his 15,000^th career point on January 9, 1991, reaching that plateau in 460 games, faster than any other player in NBA history except Chamberlain.
• He scored his 20,000^th career point on January 8, 1993, reaching that plateau faster than any other player in NBA history except Wilt Chamberlain.
• Between 1987 and 1993, he won seven straight scoring titles. The only other player in NBA history to do that was Wilt Chamberlain.
• He scored fewer than 10 points only once in his career – eight points against Cleveland on March 22, 1986. It was his first game back from a broken foot that kept him out 64 games. He played eight minutes that night.
• He was the only player in NBA history to win the scoring title and make the league’s All-Defensive team six consecutive years (1988-1993).
• He scored 40 or more points 135 times. Only Wilt Chamberlain topped 40 points more times (271).
• His streak of 575 consecutive games scoring in double figures was longer than any player’s in NBA history except for Chamberlain’s.
• He was the only player in NBA history to win consecutive NBA Most Valuable Player Awards and NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Awards in the same season.
• He was the only player in NBA history to win two consecutive NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Awards.
• He was the only player in NBA history to win three consecutive NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Awards.
• He led all players in votes for the NBA All-Star team seven straight years (1987-1993).
• His scoring average of 41 points per game in the 1993 NBA Finals was the highest ever in a championship series.
• In 1993, he became the third player in NBA history to score more than 30 points in every game of an NBA Finals series. Elgin Baylor and Rick Barry were the other two.
• He is the only player in NBA history to score more than 50 points in seven playoff games. Wilt Chamberlain scored 50 or more in four playoff games.
• He scored more points in one half of an NBA Finals game than any other player in history. He had 35 in Game 1 of the 1992 NBA Finals against Portland.
• He scored more points in an NBA Finals series than any other player in history, with 246 in 1993 once.
• During the Bulls’ three championship seasons, the team lost more than two consecutive games once.

In my mind, Jordan is the Greatest of All Time (GOAT) and it’s not even close.

I enjoyed the book and recommend it highly recommend it. In fact, my son is a huge NBA fan and I talk to him all the time about how great Jordan was. I told him about this book and he’s going to read it next. I recommend it for sports fans of all interests.