Watch Paper Lion: Confessions Of A Last-String Quarterback Video

Paper Lion, published in 1966, is a non-fiction book by prominent American writer George Plimpton. In 1960, Plimpton, not a professional athlete, arranged to pitch to a lineup of baseball stars in an All-Star exhibition, presumably to answer the question, "How would the average man off of the street fare in an attempt to compete with the stars of professional sports?" He chronicled this experience in his book, Out of My League. To write Paper Lion, Plimpton repeated the experiment in the National Football League, joining the training camp of the 1963 Detroit Lions on the premise of trying... MORE

Paper Lion, published in 1966, is a non-fiction book by prominent American writer George Plimpton. In 1960, Plimpton, not a professional athlete, arranged to pitch to a lineup of baseball stars in an All-Star exhibition, presumably to answer the question, "How would the average man off of the street fare in an attempt to compete with the stars of professional sports?" He chronicled this experience in his book, Out of My League. To write Paper Lion, Plimpton repeated the experiment in the National Football League, joining the training camp of the 1963 Detroit Lions on the premise of trying out to be the team's third-string quarterback. The coaches were aware of the deception; the players were not until it became apparent that Plimpton did not know how to receive the snap from center. Plimpton, then thirty-six, showed how unlikely it would be for an "average" person to succeed as a professional football player. When finally inserted at quarterback for a series in a scrimmage conducted in Pontiac, Michigan, Plimpton managed to lose yardage on each play, convincing many in the crowd that he was a professional sports clown inserted for amusement purposes, not someone who was genuinely LESS