Southport, CT – Which is more popular, football or baseball? It's an argument for bars and living rooms all across the nation. When it comes to America's favorite sport, football wins. Come meet author Rich Cohen, on Sunday, September 21, from 4:00pm - 6:00pm, in Pequot Library’s Auditorium/Concert Hall. A devoted Chicago Bears fan, Cohen wrote, Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football. Cohen’s 45 minute author talk will be followed by a Q & A, book signing and refreshments. It kicks off Pequot Library’s annual Meet the Author series.
For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the 1985 Chicago Bears were more than a football team. They were the greatest football team ever—a gang of colorful nuts, dancing and pounding their way to victory. They won a Super Bowl and saved a city.
It was not just that the Monsters of the Midway won, but how they did it. On offense, there was high-stepping running back Walter Payton and punky QB, Jim McMahon, who had a knack for pissing off Coach Mike Ditka as he made his way to the end zone. On defense, there was the 46: a revolutionary, quarterback-concussing scheme cooked up by Buddy Ryan and ruthlessly implemented by Hall of Famers such as Dan “Danimal” Hampton and “Samurai” Mike Singletary. On the sidelines, in the locker rooms and in bars, there was the never-ending soap opera: the coach and the quarterback bickering on TV, Ditka and Ryan nearly coming to blows in the Orange Bowl, the players recording the “Super Bowl Shuffle” video the morning after the season’s only loss.
Cohen tracked down the coaches and players from this iconic team and asked them everything he and football fans have always wanted to know: What’s it like to win? What’s it like to lose? Do you really hate the guys on the other side? Were you ever scared? What do you think about as you lie broken on the field? How do you go on after you have lived your dream but life has not ended?
Rich Cohen, a New York Times bestselling author, grew up on the North Shore of Chicago, where he died with the Cubs and was reborn with the Bears. He has written ten books and a host of magazine articles for, among others, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s Magazine, and Vanity Fair, where he’s a contributing editor. Cohen has won the Great Lakes Book Award and the Chicago Public Library’s 21st Century Award, and his stories have been included in The Best American Essays and The Best American Travel Writing. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and three sons, but is plotting his return to Chicagoland.
Confirmed authors in Pequot Library’s Meet the Author series include: Kenan Trebincevic, Sunday, November 2, 2014, 4:00pm, The Bosnia List: A Memoir of War, Exile, and Return; Peter Sis, Sunday, December 7, 2014, 4:00pm, The Pilot and the Little Prince: The Life of Antoine de Saint Exupery.
Please visit www.pequotlibrary.org to learn more about this vibrant library, educational, arts and cultural institution. All classes and programs are open to everyone. For information: (203) 259-0346 ext. 15.