Eddie Rake's Bleachers

Bleachers had taken place in a football-obsessed town named Messina. A small town of about 8,000 lived for Friday night football games. The story was told in third person point of view. The rising action of this book begins with Neely Crenshaw, who is returning to his hometown of Messina. Back in the 1980’s, he was the school’s star quarterback who helped lead the team to a state championship in 1987. He continued his football career at a tech college where he illegally accepted money to play. During his sophomore campaign, a devastating knee injury ended his football career forever. Neely had a bad relationship with his high school coach Eddie Rake who was the football coach for 34 years. He was a hard coach to play for, but was successful through the years that he had coached. After Eddie Rake had back handed Neely …show more content…
He had coached the Messina football team for 34 years, earning many wins and state titles. He was tough on his players throughout the years, but without him, those players would not have been successful. The program was a success because of him. In the book, it talks about Eddie Rake allowing his team to eat free at the town's local diners. He demanded they let his African American players to eat free as well and wanted it to be equal. The book also talks about one of the old player’s, Nat Sawyer, opening up his own coffee shop in Messina. Nat was afraid it was not going to be successful, but Eddie Rake came everyday to his shop to support him. When the rest of the town saw this, they also went to Nat’s coffee shop because they saw Eddie Rake go there. This allowed Nat’s shop to be very successful. Even though Eddie Rake had ran one of his players to death, during the book it talked about how bad he had felt and wanted to be buried next him when he died. Even though Eddie Rake had pushed his players passed many limits, he truly cared about them and wanted the best for all of