Playing For Pizza

“Both teams punt, then the Broncos fumble. With six minutes to go, on a third and eight, you check off at the line and throw to Bryce on a hook, but the ball is high and is picked off by somebody in a white jersey.”

This passage, in which Arnie recounts Rick’s disastrous final game with the Cleveland Browns, is typical of the novel’s focus on football and The Pressures of Fame. Arnie’s account of the game will inform Rick that his career appears to be over, thanks to a very public poor performance.

“Rick needed a softer game. Another concussion and he might indeed suffer the brain damage so often joked about. Truthfully, Arnie didn’t care. Just another phone call or two and Rick Dockery was history.”

Rick’s sports agent Arnie is cynical and selfish, and does not care about Rick’s wellbeing. This passage both points to the serious threat to Rick’s health posed by repeated football injuries, and the fact that Rick cannot even trust his own agent to genuinely care for his interests, once more highlighting The Pressures of Fame.

“There, not too many years ago, in front of 100,000 fans, on a gorgeous autumn afternoon, he’d thrown four touchdown passes and picked the defense apart like a surgeon. Big Ten Player of the Week. More honors would certainly follow. The future was so bright it blinded him.”

Rick’s central problem as a football player is his inconsistency: Although he has moments of brilliance like the one described in this passage, he also tends to make dramatic mistakes. His past successes make Rick’s dramatic fall from grace even more painful for him.