ISU Bengal

Issue date: 8/27/08 Section: Sports

For fans, the history of sports is something that most are familiar with, and reading a book about it doesn't excite them. But when an ESPN anchor known for his humor and take on the sporting world writes a book about the history of sports it becomes much more interesting.



An Incomplete and Inaccurate History of Sport was written by ESPN anchor Kenny Mayne, and it covers a wide range of sports from wiffle ball to boxing and even covers things not considered sports, like flying on a commercial jet liner and snowball fighting. Each sport covered in the book has some interesting and sometimes very unusual facts about the sport and some of the chapters have stories about how those sports relate to experiences Mayne had as a child growing up outside Seattle.



Kenny Mayne has been working for ESPN for the past fifteen years. Along with his anchoring Sportscenter he has done many feature stories showing the lighter side of sports. He also heads the network coverage of one of his favorite sports, the Triple Crown of Horseracing. Mayne uses humor to show the public that sports are still games and that too many people are shocked that athletes have a sense of humor.



Mayne, who was a backup quarterback at the University of Nevada ­- Las Vegas and even went to training camp with his hometown Seattle Seahawks, spends eight chapters writing about one of America's favorite sports tackle football, which Mayne calls "the greatest sport in the world and everybody knows it." He evens goes into detail about how he has taught his two daughters how to run pass patterns in the family room.



There is another section of the book dedicated to horse racing, and it details Mayne's first trip to the track with his uncle when he was just 12 - years old. It also describes the time he saw a man named "The Dude" win 268,000 dollars at the Breeders Cup race. For the record, Mayne's daughters also know how to read the daily racing form (a form used for betting on horse racing).



The book does not leave out the ladies, as there is a chapter on the sport of childbirth and how much respect Mayne has for women, after watching his first child being born. "Yes, as millions of women know, it's a high-stress, high-endurance sport." He backs up that powerful quote with a fact that the average labor is between 12 and 15 hours.



An Incomplete and Innaccurate History of Sport is an entertaining look at a variety of sports and life experiences of the author Kenny Mayne, and how those sports have shaped him into the person he is today. The witty and vivid descriptions, used by Mayne in the book, help the person who is not remotely interested in sports to be entertained by the real life experiences he describes.

For more information about Kenny Mayne and the book visit www.KennyMayneHasWrittenABook.com or www.crownpublisihing.com.

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