Assignment

Anybody who knows me knows I like to read.

Since starting at Deseret Book, that has come in handy.

And since I like sharing the things I like, I figured I should probably share these two:

Surround Yourself With Greatness (Chad Lewis' memoir) and Christmas on Mill Street (think Sandlot meets A Christmas Story) rocked my socks off.

Christmas on Mill Street is out now, and is adorable.  Ador-a-ble.  Enough said.

Surround Yourself With Greatness comes out next month, and covers Chad Lewis' time as an LDS missionary, BYU football player and NFL player, as well as describing events from his life, like his father's life-threatening stroke at the age of 47 or meeting George W. Bush. 

I would heartily recommend it if only for this quote:

“My main point [in testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1997] was that [the Alliance] system eliminated about half of the teams in the country from having any chance to become national champions before the season even started. They were crushing the glass slipper for all of the so-called lesser teams before the invitations to the dance were even made. Their arguments in favor of the exclusivity of the Alliance were sounding more un-American all the time.

With the pressure from the Senate, the system changed just enough to create the Bowl Championship Series, which carefully skirted the anti-trust laws in question but still runs counter to the common sense of the American people. The University of Utah would twice go undefeated and twice crash the BCS party by winning their bowl games in convincing fashion, but still not be crowned national champions because they did not belong to a blueblood conference. The way the BCS was put together was clearly not what inspired the First Americans to leave England and hack out a life on the soil and the frontier of this great country. Pedigree should not trump performance. Champions should always be determined within the lines of the field, not in the courtroom.”

You tell them, Chad.