Read between the yardlines this summer

Want to hear two words that strike fear into any student’s heart?

Summer reading.

Maybe forcing our nation’s high school kids to spend time with a book during their two-month sabbatical is passé, but the task builds memories – and knowledge.

You can tell a lot about someone’s personality just by asking them what summer reading book they remember (“The Keys of the Kingdom,” A.J. Cronin’s novel about a priest in China, read, slowly, the summer before my freshman year at, of course, a Catholic high school).

And some of the themes learned while reading in the back seat of your parents’ Buick headed to Aunt Margie’s house last a lifetime.

So in the spirit of keeping summer reading alive, I’ve prepared a short list of books for the high school athletes. After all, they have nothing else to do during the summer.

Some of them are old, some are new. But they all are about life. And they’ve all been read by yours truly.

“Next Man Up,” by John Feinstein.

This is the book that got me thinking about this whole list thing, so blame Feinstein if you’re already bored. But he does a masterful job of capturing what life is like for a player on an NFL team.

Feinstein spent the 2004 season with the Baltimore Ravens, documenting the ups and downs of a year that starts with promise and ends in disappointment.

If you play high school football and dream of someday playing in the NFL, this is a must read. When you’re 16, strong as an ox and fast as a deer, you may see the pro life as perfect, the be-all and end-all of your life. A quick dose of reality isn’t a bad thing.

“Mad Ducks and Bears,” by George Plimpton.

That’s not to say being a pro football player isn’t fun – and funny – and isn’t worth striving toward. There was no better writer than Plimpton, and no funnier book than this one, written 30 years ago.

It chronicles his relationship with two retired Detroit Lions, Hall of Fame defensive tackle Alex Karras and offensive guard John Gordy. The stories about their career – on and off the field – are priceless, and instructive.

“Bang the Drum Slowly,” by Mark Harris.

This is the only novel on the list, but it reads more like reality than many sports books. And, no, you can’t just watch the movie. There’s never been a worse adaptation in the history of Hollywood – and not just because Robert DeNiro throws like Johnny Damon.

The movie never caught the importance of team, of teammates, of brotherhood, that the book did. By the time you get to the final words, “From here on in, I rag nobody,” you understand.

(By the way, Harris’ first baseball book “The Southpaw,” the prequel to “Bang the Drum Slowly,” is also worth grabbing.)

That’s the short list, but if you read like I did in high school, it should get you to August, and the start of football.