Rob Ruck is a professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh. His documentaries include The Republic of Baseball: Dominican Giants of the American Game. He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Salon, and other publications and is the author of Tropic of Football: The Remarkable and Bittersweet Rise of Samoans in the NFL (The New Press). He lives in Pittsburgh.
Everything that’s rousing and distressing about block–and–tackle football is encompassed in Tropic of Football Rob Ruck’s illuminating chronicle of the Samoan presence in the American mainland’s most dominant sport.
Rob Ruck comments on the Samoan way of football. No other segment of U.S. society produces as many players per capita, and the risks of long–term damage from the sport have yet to change that.
