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The Hot Seat

A Year of Outrage, Pride, and Occasional Games of College Football

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The Hot Seat

Written by: Ben Mathis-Lilley
Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
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About this listen

A fan spends the Michigan football team’s 2021 season searching for answers about human nature, American history, and the related subject of whether Jim Harbaugh will keep his job.

Being a University of Michigan football fan should be joyful. Michigan is an elite academic institution whose football team boasts 43 Big Ten championships.

But these days, college football is complicated. The NCAA is corrupt and exploitative, and Michigan keeps losing to Ohio State. It’s hard not to wonder, as Slate writer and superfan Ben Mathis-Lilley does in this book: why are we doing this?

The Hot Seat is a chronicle of one of the wildest years in Michigan football history, but also a search for the truth about fandom, from the pages of history books to the wilderness of online forums. Is it embarrassing to care about what happens in a game? Why is Jim Harbaugh like that? Is this somehow Thomas Jefferson’s fault? This book explores all these questions, and many more.

Against the backdrop of a quickly changing sport and country, The Hot Seat is an exploration of the all-consuming culture of fandom, and why it matters.

©2022 Ben Mathis-Lilley (P)2022 PublicAffairs Coaching Football (American) Michigan
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Very solid book about fandom and tribes

This is a must read for any person who is a lover, or fan something in general. A sports team, marvel franchise, or political affiliation for example.. It uses the Michigan football team as an allegory of when your fandom turns to fanatical and lose perspective of what is truth and what is healthy behavior.

We are all conditioned to become part of a tribe. To belong with a group of like minded people where you feel safe and secure to be yourself. But many times, that tribe can become dysfunctional and you can lose perspective of how it treats you back, or even cares about you.

A wonderfully written book about how being a fan rooting for something is healthy, but you must have perspective and understand that when they are treating you poorly back, and are lying to you, then it’s time to walk away.

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