But what I adore about sports is the human decision making these are world-class athletes and elite human beings living out their dreams under the crucible of pressure. I would watch two horses kicking around a football in a field, mesmerized. I adore all sports! It’s like a Mexican telenovela played live without a net and the world watching. It’s one of the wonders for me about America - that you let bald men like me on television. It’s wonderful, and another thing I do not take for granted. And now I work with the NHL with Men in Blazers on Ice, and I get to talk to the stars of the game. I guess as far as teams I’ve embraced since moving here … the Washington Capitals? The NHL is like the Premiere League with the volume and speed turned up to 11. I also love the White Sox, having gone to see them when I was 16. To this day, it’s the Chicago Bears, who impart a wonderful source of sporting hope. Since you’ve moved here, has any team caught your eye like that? In the book, your obsession with the 1985 Chicago Bears is kind of a catalyst for your eventual embrace of American football and America itself. Sadly, he passed away years ago - I hope this is a way his legacy won’t be forgotten. He always talked about seeing Joni Mitchell play live. McNally, he was empathetic and allowed us to talk about our feelings and realize there were other possibilities out there he had come to America as an 18-year old and lived on Cape Cod. And canings were commonplace.Īt our school … you know Statler and Waldorf from The Muppets? That was all of my teachers, so I never found that funny. It was a throwback to the 1930s, when Britain still had an empire and children should be seen but not heard. I grew up in an English public school setting - it was a private school, but calling it public throws off Americans - and it was like Grey Gardens. McNally, he’s in many ways the hero of the book. Liverpool was in black and white, and America felt like Technicolor.ĭo you keep in contact with the people from your school years? For me it was a taste of optimism and hope and possibility. I loved America - loved the books, the movies, the television, the music, the occasional knockoff pair of Ray-Bans. I told myself I was an American trapped in an Englishman’s body. When I was growing up, it was a challenging time for Britain. The one orgainzing idea in my life has been America. And nature abhors a vacuum.Īnd watching what was going on in America at that time, it was an interesting year of chaos. At the beginning of COVID, sports stopped - and that’s my lifeblood! I always joke about sports, that it allows me to feel things like joy, defeat, victory and astonishment, feelings that most human beings feel in real life. It was one of those big lofty ambitions you never get around to. Roger Bennett: I wanted to write this book as long as I’ve been in America. InsideHook: Did you write Reborn during COVID? “I’m at your service,” says Bennett, appearing on my computer screen. Bennett acknowledges it, but his enthusiasm for our country - as well as sports, and even a Tuesday afternoon Zoom interview - will reignite your patriotism, and also your love of License to Ill. But Bennett - one-half of Men In Blazers, the wildly informative and entertaining TV show/podcast about soccer - spends most of his new book (Re)born in the USA not celebrating his current success, but describing his funny, awkward and ultimately uplifting teenage years, the time period where he fell in love with a country he’d never set foot in. Which he eventually did, and (spoiler alert) eventually became an American citizen. And a summer spent in Chicago left an indelible mark - he was always destined to leave England and move here. He liked football (soccer), but fell in love with the NFL and the 1985 Chicago Bears. He consumed Miami Vice, The Breakfast Club and the Beastie Boys. So of course he looked across the ocean for inspiration and hope. His teenage years were spent in a dying industrial city, at a private school where discipline was harsh and girls were absent (for the most part). Roger Bennett was born and raised in Liverpool, but the home of the Beatles never quite captured his imagination.
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