\ A lyrical memoir . . . about his teammates his coaches his parents and the magnetic power of football in Louisiana.\ --NPR \ The best sports book of the year.\ --Sports Illustrated Inspired by a classic essay about a visit to a dying coach It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium explores in gorgeous detail the inescapable pull of college football--the cocky smiles behind the face masks the two-a-day drills the emotionally charged bus rides to the stadium the curfew checks the film-study sessions the locker room antics and the yawning void left in one s soul the moment the final whistle sounds. To understand why it s so painful to give up the game you must first understand the intimacy of the huddle. \ It ends for everybody \ writes John Ed Bradley \ and then it starts all over again in ways you never anticipated. Marty Dufresne sits in his wheelchair listening to the Tiger fight song . . . Ramsey Darder endures prison by playing the games over in his head . . . Big Ed Stanton never took up the game of golf and yet he rides the streets of Bayou Vista in a cart nearly identical to Coach Mac s recalling the one time the old man invited him for a ride.\ Far more than a memoir It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium is a brutally honest profoundly moving look at what it means to surrender something you love.