Review by Chris Singer
About the author:
Ryan Sprague grew up in Augusta, GA and never envisioned leaving. But, he was given the opportunity to attend Florida State University, and decided to go for it. He walked on to the football team and eventually became a starter for FSU’s National Championship run. He met his wife at FSU, and upon graduation began his career as a full–time minister. He is the proud father of four unique and remarkable boys and his family is replanting their roots in Tallahassee, FL after an exciting year in Hawley, MN and a fulfilling six in Highlands, NC.
About the book:
In 1999, the Florida State Seminoles went wire-to-wire to win the National Championship. In Grateful, Ryan Sprague gives you a chance to see the program like never before, from a player’s perspective. Starting as a walk-on in 1996, Ryan takes you on his journey as he earned a scholarship, won a starting job, and was a part of one of the greatest teams in the history of college football.
My take on the book:
I have to be honest, I wasn’t sure how Ryan Sprague’s book, Grateful, really fit into Book Dads but I’m glad I trusted my instincts and decided to review it. I’m not a Florida State Seminole fan, but it was hard to resist reading this book after seeing such a wonderful endorsement by legendary football coach Bobby Bowden. When I read that it made me think of my favorite head coach and team, Joe Paterno from Penn State University.Ryan’s story of walking on as a freshman at one of the most storied college football programs in history, earning a scholarship and eventually being a starter for the Florida State Seminoles is a great story for dads to share with any kid who dreams of making it big in college sports.College football fans, especially Seminole fans, will really enjoy this inside story of one of college football’s greatest championship teams, but the real pleasure for me was the positive messages interlaced among Ryan’s anecdotes. In a time when every week we see a college football player, team or program making headlines on ESPN for all the wrong things, Ryan is clearly the real deal where it matters most: off the field. Ryan’s messages of perseverance, determination, loyalty and of course, gratitude are what really comes across in this memoir. This is
Ryan is my brother! How fun to find this review! Ryan really is that great of a guy off the field as well. His oldest son has CP and Ryan has an awesome blog on wordpress called Nobody’s Normal. It’s about life with a child with unique abilities. Check it out!
Jennifer,
Hi, I’m pretty good friends with Chris the guy who runs this site. My oldest daughter has CP too. She wrote a book Chris reviewed called I Am Not Weird and I’m on the board of a parent run organization raising funds for CP research. Please have Ryan check it out. Http://www.facebook.com/letscurecp and http://www.letscurecp.org