Alan Mrozek brings to life the world of semi-professional football in his novel The Semi-Pros. The Semi-Pros tells the story of the Coalcrackers, a semi-professional football team from the small town of Waylon, Pennsylvania. Much like the town, the once mighty Coalcrackers have fallen on hard times and haven't won a championship or had a winning season in nearly twenty years. So in steps Mike Rader, quarterback of the last Coalcracker championship team and in many ways the Coalcracker's and Waylon's last hope of turning their ailing fortunes around.
In describing the hard scrabble world of semi-professional football Mrozek does an excellent job in conveying the love and sacrifice that goes into playing tackle football for no pay and little recognition. Semi-pro football is truly for those who love the sport and Mrozek lets you know that. He gives amazing detail of the game and how its played, so that anyone, even the most clueless of people can follow along and understand how football is played and won.
The problem with the novel is outside of the game details it doesn't have much else to offer. All of the characters, while endearing, are one dimensional and lack any sort of depth. We know Rader loves football but that's all we know about him Joe Welzack, head of the Athletic Club where the Coalcrackers play, doesn't seem to have any other aspect to his personality outside of his love for Coalcracker football and his role as team historian. Leah Marciniak, Rader's love interest, seems nice but the only thing we ever learn about her is that she had crush on Rader when she was young and how badly she wanted to leave Waylon growing up. Mrozek doesn't offer us any other side to the characters personality that isn't directly related to either the town or the sport. Without the added depth it makes it difficult to empathize with them in any way and to ultimately care about what happens to them or their town.
The other major problem with the novel is that at 440 pages it is about 220 pages too long. Some detail is good, but too much of it can bog the reader down in page after page of unnecessary information. Like I said, the detailed football information was great. It was nice to have a play by play break down of the games as they occurred but there are several games in the book and after a while those details become repetitive and boring. Also, other parts of the novel where just useless, such as the love affair between Mike and Leah. Leah first appears early in the novel as a love-struck teenager and doesn't appear again until the middle of the novel and even then there's no real explanation as to why they even like each other, let alone end up in a relationship. It is a storyline that could be cut completely from the novel and the story wouldn't suffer any.
All in all Mrozek offers an inside look at a world many didn't know existed, however the lack of attention to other details of the novel, such as character development, prevent The Semi-Pros from being the exciting and innovating novel it could have been.
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