No Wind

"No Wind," by Judd Garrett

TigerBlog has had a book on his coffee table for a few weeks now, just waiting for the opportunity to read it.

The problem has been that he's been pretty busy writing, with five blogs a week, not to mention a book on the first 50 years of women's athletics at Princeton. Those keep him pretty busy.

When he's not writing, he hasn't been all that motivated to be reading. He's been more interested in decompressing.

That whole time his TV has been on, though, that book has been staring at him. And so Saturday afternoon he turned off the Nebraska-Penn State game and started reading. Yesterday he reached Page 414, the end.

The book is "No Wind," the debut novel of Judd Garrett. Yes, that Judd Garrett, the one who was the 1989 Bushnell Cup winner as the Ivy League football Player of the Year, not to mention a first-team All-American, the leader of a team that won the program's first Ivy League title in 20 years and an NFL player, coach and scout.

There's a connection for TigerBlog at least between Garrett's novel and the women's history project.

There are a seemingly endless number of fascinating stories about Princeton women's athletics history and the people who have made it so special. As TB continues down the path of storytelling, he keeps thinking that when he's done, he could scrap the book he's written and start over and come up with another one that has just as many good stories in it.

On the third Thursday of each month, TigerBlog will be posting to goprincetontigers.com/50years (the website for the 50th anniversary celebration) an excerpt from the book. The first one was a month ago, when TB gave you a piece of the chapter on the great Merrily Dean Baker.

You can read that HERE.

This week's excerpt will feature Cathy Corcione, a five-time national collegiate swimming champion (four individual events and one relay), as well as the first Princeton woman to make an Olympic team. In fact, she was on the U.S. team at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, which were held before women were even admitted to Princeton.

Corcione graduated in 1974. Her story will be available Thursday.

What's the connection between this and the novel?

Well, Corcione grew up in Long Branch, at the Jersey Shore. She still lives within a few miles of the house in which she grew up.

She also lives in the basic area where Garrett's novel is set. More precisely, it's set in Galillee, which is a part of Monmouth Beach. It's literally within walking distance of where Corcione grew up.

Maybe it's because TB grew up not far from there himself, or maybe it's because TB has been there many times, most recently two weeks ago when he went to interview Corcione, but it was easy for him to picture the places in the novel.

Or maybe it's because the author did such a good job of describing them. That's more likely.

TB wants three things out of a novel, and he got all three out of Garrett's book. First, he wants to be able to picture the scene in his head. Second, he wants to be invested in the characters. Third, he wants to be unable to stop reading because he needs to find out what happens.

The story is about a boy named Jake, and it follows him from when he's a little kid through when his high school years. There are common themes throughout the book, which is very heavy on baseball (but no football), the meaning of God and faith (Judd was a religion major) and the value of goodness.

Mostly it's just a really well-told story, one that is engaging from the start and one that throws you all kinds of curveballs, and not just in the baseball parts. The writing style is at times very deep and at other times easy-going, with its portrait of life at the Jersey Shore. 

The relationship between the main character and the main character's father begs a lot of questions, most particularly how closely it relates to the relationship between Judd and his own father, Jim Garrett, a longtime NFL and college football coach himself. 

As TB has mentioned, he too has recently published his first novel. He knows the questions people have asked him, and he had the same questions as he read Judd's book. 

How much of the main character is Judd? Are the characters based on real people? Did any of those things actually happen?

TB will ask Judd all these questions and more next time he talks to him. He'll also apologize for waiting so long to actually get to read the book.

He'll also tell him he's glad he finally did.

TB can tell you first-hand that it's not easy to do what Judd has done. 

Writing a book is tough. Writing a compelling book like Judd's is even tougher.