2024 the best football player in asia review
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(as of Oct 26, 2024 06:02:20 UTC - Details)
In a quintessentially American game, for an organization often called America's Team, Dat Nguyen stands as the first player of Vietnamese descent ever to play in the NFL. Yet if asked for his job description, he would probably answer simply, "I tackle."
He tackled so well at Rockport-Fulton (Texas) High School that he earned a scholarship to Texas A&M University, becoming the first Vietnamese American football player in school history. As part of the storied "Wrecking Crew," Nguyen's tackling earned him All-American honors and led the Aggies to their first Big 12 title. And, even though he was once deemed too small to play middle linebacker in the NFL, he has earned All-Pro recognition with the Dallas Cowboys.
For Dat Nguyen, though, tackling the various obstacles of life—not just running backs—gives him the most pride. He learned how to tackle life from his parents, who narrowly escaped from the North Vietnamese Army in 1975.
Nguyen offers the story of his faith, his family, and his career, a true story of the American dream lived out, as an inspiration to others. He recounts his father's decision to flee Vietnam; the boat trip that took his family to freedom; and their eventual settling in Rockport, Texas, where a community of Vietnamese shrimpers established an economic livelihood using skills brought from the old country. He describes the racism his family encountered while he was growing up and how the friendship of one young Caucasian boy and his family overcame prejudice through an invitation to participate in sports.
Nguyen's insightful look into the life of a big-time football player offers first-hand glimpses of the personalities and playing (or coaching) styles of many celebrated stars of college football and the NFL. His stories offer excitement, romance (as he pursues his college sweetheart, now his wife), faith, fatherhood, and humor.
Dat is a lively, engaging story of growing up in a refugee family, of big-time football, and of human struggle and success.
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press; Reprint edition (October 7, 2013)
Language : English
Paperback : 232 pages
ISBN-10 : 1623490634
ISBN-13 : 978-1623490638
Item Weight : 13.9 ounces
Dimensions : 6.14 x 0.58 x 9.21 inches
Reviewer: Chen
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great Story, Great Guy
Review: I've been following Dat's career since his college days, not because I'm an Aggie, but because I'm Asian American (who also happens to be a lifelong Cowboys fan). Watching him play and seeing him accumulate tackles has been thrilling. But as he notes in this book, he has never granted many interviews, so I've always wanted to know more about his life story, his family, and how he came to be an exceptional football player. So for me, this book really delivers. The story is really quite an incredible tale of courage, determination, tragedies, and triumphs big and small. It's also written very well in terms of structure, clever turns of phrase, and the balance between detail and movement. I tip my hat to Dat, Rusty Burson, and even to Darren Woodson, who contributed a very eloquent and insightful foreword. I believe that Dat's sense of humor (pretty goofy), decency, candor, and passion really came through consistently throughout the book. After finishing it, I felt glad to have rooted for such an admirable and giving individual with such an interesting tale to tell. Now I'm really curious what he's going to do with the rest of his wonderful life.
Reviewer: David M.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: great book
Review: Great book by a great guy
Reviewer: B. Chiu
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great American Story
Review: Wish he was a 49er though.
Reviewer: clayton thomson jr
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Good book for football!
Review: It tells alot about Dat as a person and not just a football player.
Reviewer: Elsy Negron Wrang
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Vietnamese son
Review: I bought this book for my son who was born in Vietnam. I wanted to expose him to positive, motivating role models.
Reviewer: BasinBictory
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great Story of a Great man.
Review: Dat Nguyen first piqued my curiosity when, circa 1997, I picked up one of those sports publications which had just put out their college football preview issue. Among the teams profiled was the Texas A&M Aggies, and the player who happened to be featured as their marquee player was a guy whose last name was "Nguyen."Now - I did a double take. What's this? An Asian football player who not only is a member of a major college football power (the Aggies were in the midst of a pretty good run in the late 90's), but who is featured in a sports magazine? I had to know more. Asian athletes are typically dismissed as not big or tall or brawny enough to play major American sports like football and basketball, and instead are more typically associated with less physical sports and personalities such as Michael Chang in tennis and Kristi Yamaguchi and Michelle Kwan in ice skating. Asians who play American football are exceedingly rare, and the handful that exist seem to be relegated to the "smaller" positions on the field such as defensive back and wide receiver. So when I learned that Dat Nguyen, #9 of the Texas A&M Aggies, was a record-setting dynamo of a MIDDLE LINEBACKER (perhaps the most physically demanding position in the game) - I almost immediately became a fan.I followed Nguyen's record-setting career at A&M and then watched him break into the starting lineup for the Dallas Cowboys. None other than Bill Parcells had glowing praise for him "He's just too good of a player - he just makes too many plays - he could play on ANY of my defenses." That's tremendous praise indeed, considering Parcells has coaches the likes of Lawrence Taylor, Pepper Johnson, and Harry Carson among his defensive stalwarts.Nguyen is quite insular and does not typically seek the media spotlight, so relatively little was known about his story until this book came out.Once you read it, however, the awesome obstacles he had to overcome give me an even deeper respect for the man beyond even his football exploits. Nguyen was born in a refugee camp in Arkansas, after his family (father, mother, and three siblings) all made a harrowing escape from South Vietnam just as the ARVN was collapsing and Communist forces were closing in. Nguyen's mother was pregnant with him at the time. When the family finally got out of the refugee camp and settled along the coast in Rockport, TX, the virulent racism of the time led to much unrest and even an incident where a man was killed. Nguyen's youth soccer team won the league championship, but the Vietnamese players on his team were shunned by the white parents of the other players. It was widely believed that Vietnamese could well excel in soccer, but they could never play a "real" American sport like football.Well - Dat proved them wrong. He excelled at Rockport-Fulton High, and soon was entertaining scholarship offers from many major football powerhouses, including Texas, Texas A&M, UCLA, and Michigan among them. He chose the Aggies because that is where he felt most comfortable, but almost immediately fell out of favor with the coaches because he had allowed his work ethic to slip and showed up in camp fat and out of shape. He was on the verge of losing his scholarship, when he met up with a walk-on safety named Rich Coady, who became his workout partner. The following year, Nguyen showed up in excellent shape, and quickly earned a spot in the starting lineup. He would eventually become the Aggies' all-time tackles leader with an astonishing 500+ tackles in a 4 year career, and win several awards. It was also during his time at A&M that he met Becky Foster, who would eventually become his wife.When Nguyen was drafted by the Cowboys, he certainly wasn't going to let the lax work ethic that had nearly cost him his scholarship dog him again as a pro. He worked harder than ever, despite being smallish for a middle linebacker, and broke into the starting lineup for the Cowboys midway through his second season. He was becoming a force in the league until an unfortunate neck injury forced an early retirement from his playing days. He is now on the coaching staff of the Cowboys.Throughout the book, Nguyen simply impresses the reader as a uniquely humble, decent, honorable, and religious young man, devoted to his family and friends. The book is a great read and I highly recommend it.
Reviewer: Kevin Killian
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Cowboy, Up
Review: For Dat Nguyen, "quit" is the worst of the four letter words. He didn't take rejection well, just kept getting right in the face of the bigots. And when Becky Foster, the prettiest girl in town, excused herself from the vertigo dancefloor, saying she had to use the bathroom, and then left the club entirely, well, that just made Dat more interested in the cute, perky winner who went home, and boasted to her girlfriends, "I just danced with the biggest Chinese boy you've ever seen!"Well, as the world knows, Dat Nguyen is not Chinese but instead, Vietnamese American, born in a refugee camp to two starving people who had flung themselves onto America's welcoming arms. His mom and dad advised him, go wary among the white people, but soon enough Dat was thriving with whites and included them among his best friends. And when it came to showing his athletic prowess, he did not go with the traditional Vietnam sports, but instead threw himself gloriously and momentously into the most all American of sports, football at Texas A & M, where he became a legend. Then, later, in his 20s, he became the first NFL player of Vietnamese descent.Becky is a dreamboat who looks like a cross between Michelle Pfeiffer and Martha Stewart, a young Martha Stewart before the lines and wrinkles of age and care made inroads into her laugh lines. When Dat and Becky married, even the preacher asked him to sign some footballs! It just shows what Dat humorously knows, an autograph hound knows no privacy! They were married in March, 2001, and now have two little biracial angels, and "Dat" is now a "Datty."The book is informational in many aspects, for instance we find out a good deal about Vietnamese superstitions. No group photos with odd numbers of subjects, so "you can take a photo of two, four, six, or eight of us, but don't even think about snapping a shot with only three, five, or seven of us." As a budding photographer, this will be a culturally sensitive tip for me. Also, you can't have a house where you can see the back door and the front door at the same time (from inside). Footballers have their own innumerable superstitions and Dat's a Christian, but it all seems to work for him. He's clean living and so the book is a little dull, for as he says frankly and upfront, he's the type who'd rather suck on a McDonalds milkshake than a bottle of merlot.
Reviewer: Rebecca Smith
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: I went to High School with Dat
Review: Dat is a great guy and was a great football player