From the Publisher
"Joseph Goodman’s WE WANT 'BAMA is a book about sports, sure. But it is far more than that. It is a stunningly stylish take on psychology and success, a free-wheeling but deeply reported look at the culture — some might say the neuroses — that makes phenomena like the University of Alabama possible. This is a sports book, sure. But not like the others you’ve read."—John Archibald, Pulitzer prize-winning columnist, The Birmingham News
"Alabama football might be a larger unifying force than Jesus in some parts of the south. For three hours on a Saturday the state stops spinning. Joseph flawlessly dissects the people and the catalysts for this phenomenon and flawlessly walks us through the one thing that unifies every fall in Alabama. Win or lose, football is religion. On Sundays we pray to Jesus, on Saturdays it's Nick Saban."
—Roy Wood Jr., The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
"Joe Goodman, Alabama man, sports fan, and one hell of a writer, takes the reader along on a deep dive into the fascinating, complex, and wildly passionate pool of crazy that is Alabama Crimson Tide football."—Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize–winning humor writer
"Joseph Goodman on Alabama's best season ever—and all that went with it—is exactly what I'd expect from him. It's smart, it's funny, and it's a bit out there. If you're an Alabama fan, a college football fan, or someone who wants to enjoy an unconventional approach to a sports book, you'll love this."—Pat Forde, National College Football columnist for Sports Illustrated
"Covering Alabama Football over the years, you discover early on the importance of ‘team’ to Nick Saban. In a year filled with so much strife, seeing the 2020 Crimson Tide come together to win in the most unpredictable of seasons inspired so many Alabama faithful. Goodman’s focus on the significance of togetherness through adversity is something that can ring true for us all."
—Laura Rutledge, ESPN/SEC Network Host & Reporter
"WE WANT 'BAMA isn’t just a story about a great college football team—this is also Joe Goodman’s love song to the state of Alabama: its flaws, its charms, and its wonders. With an unflinching, biting, and humorous style, Goodman shares the economic, political, social, and historical factors that converged for the Crimson Tide to thrive through an unforgiving and unforgettable 2020 season. A must-read for every college football fan—but especially Alabama lovers and haters—who wants to understand what’s required for excellence."—Michael Lee, The Washington Post
"OMG. Read this book. Now. Joseph Goodman’s fever dream about our great and terrible state recalls Hunter S. Thompson, Charles P. Pierce, and W.J. Cash on a good day, which is to say, Game Day."—Diane McWhorter, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of CARRY ME HOME: Birmingham, Alabama—The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution
"If David Foster Wallace was from red clay country and liked football instead of tennis, he might have approached Goodman’s gonzo-lashed prose. An outstanding work of sports journalism that far transcends mere sports. Roll Tide."
—Kirkus (starred review)
Library Journal
10/01/2021
Journalist Goodman writes a true believer's look at University of Alabama football. The book purports to make the case that the 2020 Alabama College Football National Championship team is the greatest unit in sports history A large portion is devoted to politics, which will induce many readers to skip over the pages of polemics or close the book altogether. Even when the political slant diminishes about two-thirds of the way through, Goodman's hyperbolic gonzo journalism style makes the book largely unreadable. In this non-chronological grab bag of the author's stream of consciousness, it's hard to get a sense of the 2020 season or of the Crimson Tide's magnificent accomplishment on the field. Goodman ambitiously tries to provide a comprehensive discussion of racism, Southern and Alabaman customs and history, the state's passion for football, the school's financial dedication to the sport's preeminence, the coach's obsessive attention to all details, several remarkable key players, and some peripheral local social media stars. In execution, however, it's a dizzying mishmash that fails. VERDICT Confounding, overblown rhetoric dooms this intended salute to the most recent college football national champion.—John Maxymuk, Rutgers Univ.—Camden Lib., NJ
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2021-10-12
A rollicking, politically charged portrait of a college football team in “the Foul and Venomous Year of Unholy Universal Biting Bullshit that was 2020.”
College football is a secular religion in the South. Nowhere is that more true than Tuscaloosa, where Alabama’s Crimson Tide has racked up an enviable record—first under Bear Bryant and then Nick Saban, who has surpassed Bryant in championship games won. In addition, writes Goodman, “he defended what was right when the hour of truth demanded it.” That defense was a repudiation of Trumpism in the heart of Trump country, with Saban and his players publicly affirming the Black Lives Matter movement and denouncing racism. Goodman has a healthy sense of both the symbolic power of football and its limits. “College football,” he writes sagely, “is American bloodlust played by unpaid gladiators, and game days in the Deep South are the feasts before the altars of decadence.” Tailgating, beer chugging, fights—all part of the deal, compounded by Covid-19, which the Alabama program took seriously. The political consequence of taking a knee and masking up? Trump, of course, backed Auburn, endorsing its former head coach in his 2020 Senate run. Goodman has no use for Trump, nor for the Lost Cause mythology of the Confederacy. As he observes, Birmingham wasn’t founded until after the Civil War, and thus there’s no excuse for any Confederate memorials there. Goodman is constantly aware of what social justice advocates on and off the gridiron are up against: “Always remember what sells in the Deep South: ‘White Southern men’ are the real victims of history.” If David Foster Wallace was from red clay country and liked football instead of tennis, he might have approached Goodman’s gonzo-lashed prose. Goodman is wholly an original, and he delivers a spirited reckoning of what’s right and wrong with the South.
An outstanding work of sports journalism that far transcends mere sports. Roll Tide.
