A View from the Bench: The Story of an Ordinary Player on a Big-Time Football Team (Sport and Society)

This book is a great read if you are a Nebraska Football fan and a solid one if you are a college football fan in general. Mills wrote this book from notes he took at the time the events were happening. This serves to give the book a tone that captures his attitudes at the time of the events instead of reviewing them through a nostalgic lens. The figures of Johnny Rodgers, Rich Glover, etc. have always been mythological figures to me. This book gave me insight to them when they were college kids in the early 1970's, not Hall-of-Famers in middle age. All the key players come off as normal; not larger-than-life or disappointingly flawed. I was drawn to the book as a chance to find out more about the transition from the Devaney era to the Osborne era from a player's perspective and was not disappointed.

Interesting insight into " big time " college athletics. Parents can learn to guide their children into the " best option" for college athletics by being realistic. The book confirms what we all know.

The book might be best targeted for Nebraska Cornhusker fans since most of information comes from when the author played in the early 1970's. However, because the book deals in large part with his relationship with Monte Kiffin, his defensive coach, the book has surprising relevance today. The book gives great insight into Kiffin's coaching style. Mills also was very candid about his playing ability, his inability to gain and maintain weight needed to play his position and the problems he had being a student. I read Big Red Confidential years ago and found Mill's take on Boyd Epley to be different from that book. If one is an old Big 8 fan, the book mentions two other assistant coaches Mills played for, Warren Powers and Jim Walden, who later became head coaches in th conference. He did have tidbits about Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne, but his constant focus on Kiffin showed that college football players have more of a relationship with their most direct coach. I would recommend the book even though a die-hard Nebraska fan would enjoy it more.

The college gridiron game does not get the same exposure this side of the Atlantic as the NFL does so this was a real interest piece for me. Mills is a decent but ultimately only average player at a big-shot college team in Nebraska. The story charts his attempts to make it on that team, and the rule that the game held over his college life. Probably the most notable element for me was his descriptions of Monte Kiffen, Tampa Defensive Co-ordinator who was coaching at Nebraska at the time. Kiffen is described in reasonable detail as a stern, effective, and astute reader of people and it's clear that Mills understands why Kiffen made it to the top. Mills himself is not a stand-out as a player or a writer. He doesn't have excellence in either - his game lacked the spark that he needed to make it in the skill positions and he wasn't big enough to play the strength positions - his writing does not leap out, it's affecting and his own viewpoint is definitely interesting but it isn't the kind of work that will stay in the mind forever. Perhaps this is because it is the story of an average blue collar guy from his own perspective. It's somewhat endearing and interesting to the fan, and to those looking for more about the college lifestyle and the Americana that accompanies it.