John Feinstein has a history of writing great middle grade/young adult sports books with his The Sports Beat series, which follows teenage reporters Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson as they rise to national prominence by solving crimes at the Final Four, the US Open, the Super Bowl, the World Series, and mostly recently a story in which Susan Carol herself competes at the Olympics.
The Walk On, therefore, promised to be a good book. I have to say, however, that it left be severely disappointed. Whereas The Sports Beat is full of unique and exciting books, this one falls flat.
Summary
Alex Myers is the main character of the book, apparently a “triple threat” but in this book a quarterback. He is extremely talented, but at his new school (which he moved to after his parents divorce because of his dad working too much) he is facing an uphill battle. The team is very good and has a quarterback in Matt who may be the best in the state, not to mention who is the son of the Coach.
Alex quickly becomes friends with another new kid, the amazing freshman wide receiver Jonas, who can already run a 4.5 40-yard dash. Although Jonas is a star, Alex is not only relegated to the bench, but is even a third string QB.
He also quickly falls in love with Christine Whitford, a reporter for the school newspaper. The school newspaper just as quickly stirs up trouble, with reporters writing controversial stories that question the decisions of the Coach. That is not good, especially because the editor of the newspaper is also the offensive coordinator.
Alex gets a chance when Matt goes down with an injury, and the second string QB fakes one in order to get Alex into the game. He makes some game winning passes and becomes a hero, but goes back to the bench when Alex returns.
The team is very good and they are going far into the playoffs, but other teams start catching on a little to Matt and the Coach is forced to put Alex in at the end of a few games to save them. Alex, however, is no longer convinced that he is the better QB, given Matt’s leadership role.
In the end things get complicated and Alex gets accused of taking steroids, something he definitely did not do. It will take some definite detective work to clear his name in time to save the team.
Review
The theme of a new quarterback coming in and trying to challenge the established quarterback is such a repeated idea, I’m surprised it isn’t in the Constitution or something. There are gaggles of young adult books like this (although Feinstein tends to appeal to middle grade as well, keeping romance away from being too explicit), and many of them have a great twist. For example, Pop by Gordon Korman is the story of a kid who is good and comes to town to challenge the old quarterback, but what makes the story great is the friendship of the main character with an ex-NFL linebacker who has Alzheimer’s. To be good in this genre you can’t just tell the same old tale. You have to come up with something new. This book doesn’t do that.
Sure, there’s the steroid thing, but that doesn’t come up until very late in the book and is not really super great, especially compared to other mysteries woven by Feinstein.
Some things with the characters also don’t make sense. Alex is basically a perfect QB and Jonas a perfect wide receiver, both easily destined for division 1 and quite possibly the NFL. Sure, it’s good to write about great athletes and their adventures, but in this story the character’s almost superhuman abilities seem kind of strange.
Alex’s relationship with his dad is also extremely weird. His mom got divorced because his dad simply worked all the time and wouldn’t make enough time for his family. There are a number of times their dad comes to spend time with them, but Alex won’t even do it because he thinks his dad has shown he isn’t a very high priority. The story of the guy simply working all the time doesn’t really make sense, and it’s place in the story is odd. I don’t know if Feinstein has a grudge against dad’s who work too much or something, but either way it’s off.
Coach Gordon is an interesting character, and so is his son, who seems to be just as nice as his father is mean until the ending casts some doubt on that. Christine is nice, but there’s nothing really too exciting about her either.
The Walk On is uninspiring, definitely not cutting it for a book of this genre and especially disappointing given the brilliance Feinstein has shown us in the past. The best part of the book was a couple of cameo appearances by Stevie, which don’t amount to much anyway. There are a lot better sports books for boys, including some great ones by the same author.