Scoring Points: Love and Football in the Age of AIDS

Book excerpt: Gary Gerson led an uneventful life growing up Jewish in East Tennessee. This changed when he decided to walk onto the Vanderbilt football team with no prior experience, beginning a lifelong love for the game with four years of exhilaration and heartbreak. After juggling the challenges of infatuation, a bowl game, a major steroid scandal and ultimate dishonor at Vandy, Gerson's journeys brought him close to danger in Africa and India, a brush with the Yeti in the Himalaya, and more football in Amsterdam. When he fell in love with Shelley while teaching at the prestigious Cranbrook Kingswood School in Michigan, his journey for meaning took a sharp turn as she revealed her painful secret. Using his wife's triumphs and challenges as motivation, Gerson stepped back onto the football field at the age of 31 in Canada, scoring points along the way to his final personal victory. This book contains frank discussions about sex, relationships, love, AIDS, and death, but it is appropriate for all ages.