SARAH at Sarah and the Goon Squad wrote a book review of Tiki: My Life in the Game and Beyond by Tiki Barber.
I asked Sarah to read Tiki's book because she's a raging football fan (her words), a fan of Tiki and his identical twin brother, Ronde, and she's the mother of 4-year-old twins, the Goon Squad. We met when we were both pregnant with our twins. Mine were actually due after hers were, but they were born earlier. The Goon Squad was born two weeks later.
Sarah also blogs for BlogHer, DC Metro Moms, Draft Day Suit, Loser Moms, MamaPop and Sarah Reviews Stuff Here.
Book review: Tiki Barber should have waited to write his memoir
I love Ronde and Tiki Barber. Since I grew up in Tampa, Florida, and I am a huge Buccaneers supporter (Ronde plays linebacker for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers), I have been a fan of Ronde's for years. When I found out that I was pregnant with twins, I started paying more attention to Ronde's identical twin brother, Tiki.
The Barber twins are great. They are both fantastic football players, devastatingly handsome and smart men. When they wrote their first children's book I ran out to the store to get it the day it became available, even though my own twins were still infants and it was a book for older kids.
So when Becky asked me if I wanted read Tiki Barber's new autobiography Tiki, for this blog, I eagerly agreed.
Tiki was a running back for the New York Giants. He retired after the 2006 season, and he got a job on The Today Show, so Tiki felt like it was a good time to write his memoir. At 35 years old.
After reading it, I disagree. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't a bad book. I read it in a couple of days, and any parent of twins knows that is no easy feat. I enjoyed learning a little bit about Tiki's childhood. I knew that his mother, Geraldine Barber, raised her twin boys as a single parent. I have enormous amounts of respect for a woman who can do that and bring up two such successful children. Actually, I admire anyone who can raise twins alone and keep them both alive. I'm not sure I could do this without my husband.
[Becky here: Sorry to interrupt, but here's my favorite quote from Geraldine when, as children, Tiki and Ronde complained that their mother shouldn't get to make all the rules: "I got really frustrated with them and I said, 'Look, when you make more money than me, you can tell me what to do.' That comes back to haunt me at least once a week."]
I also enjoyed the sections of the book that dealt with football. I liked Tiki's descriptions of specific games that I remember watching on television.
I was surprised, though, at how much trash he talked about his old coach, Tom Coughlin. Coughlin is a notoriously tough coach to play for but WOW. Barber pretty much says that Coughlin made him lose his love for the game. In fact, he says it more than once. Tiki also refers to his coach's "bonehead calls." I'm just not sure that this is necessary in a book about Barber's life. So, yes. I was bothered by his harsh criticisms of his coach. Not that I have any problem with someone not liking their boss. I just think it could have been put more delicately. But this wasn't even my main problem with the book.
My biggest issues with Tiki were the grammatical errors. Now, I wasn't an English major and I'm sure if you looked at all of my work you would find grammar errors all over the place. This review will probably contains some problems (unless Becky edited it before she published it), but if I were writing an autobiography, I would hire people to fix things like this problem on page 215.
If the coaches on the sideline had heard me, they would have went beserk.
Again, I'm no grammar scholar, but shouldn't that be "gone berserk"?
Overall, the book wasn't bad. I learned that Tiki was his high school's valedictorian. I didn't know that.
I am still a big fan of Tiki. I just think the whole book would have been more interesting if he wrote it 20 years from now.
Related posts
Identical twin Tiki Barber writes his memoir
The Today Show talks about twins
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~ Posted by Becky, who also blogs at Deep Muck Big Rake and Being Savvy: Tampa. Write her at becky_handsfull@yahoo.com.
Hi Sarah and Becky, - thanks so much for contributing this. Let me think of some UK twins in sport...could be a long list!
Posted by: Linda | July 07, 2008 at 09:22 AM