Muck City: Winning and Losing in Football's Forgotten Town
How can a small high school in one of the nation’s sorriest towns--a swampy Everglades burg ravaged by drugs, AIDS, crime, violence, and poverty--produce a football team that’s sent dozens of players to the NFL? In Mealer’s gritty year-in-the-life narrative of Glades Central High’s Raiders, answering that question becomes an exploration of much more than football. The history of the Everglades, the influence of Big Sugar, Haitian immigration, and the obsessive devotion of a homegrown coach all play their part. ThoughMuck Citycovers similar turf asFriday Night Lights, Mealer makes it clear that “this is not that story.” The Raiders have no team bus and no booster club; student turnout for games is pathetically low. And yet, in the unlikely setting of central Florida’s loamy muck, “high school football was salvation itself.” --Neal Thompson