Book Review - Frost: A Husker’s Journey Home

Well I now know more about Scott Frost than I ever needed to know. And that works for me.

After reading Frost: A Husker’s Journey Home from the sports writers of the Omaha World-Herald I learned not only about the upbringing of Nebraska’s new football coach, but I also now know more about his parents than I ever expected.

For example I was completely unaware of how impressive a person Carol Frost was and how influential she was in Scott’s life. She deserves a book of her own.

I do admit that prior to reading Frost: A Husker’s Journey Home I was somewhat critical of the Omaha World-Herald about the publishing of a book like this because it appeared to be presumptuous. Do we need a book written about somebody who has not coached a single game at Nebraska?

I am still not sure that we do, but I can say that what was written by Dirk Chatelain, Chris Heady, Lee Barfknecht, Evan Bland, Sam McKewon and Tom Shatel was not presumptuous in any way. The reader should be able to tell very early that the staff spent a substantial amount of time and effort on leg work, researching and writing.

Except for the last section written by Tom Shatel, the book could fit under a genre of history. It was just the facts.

Each writer, for all practical purposes, wrote a long form essay on Scott Frost’s journey home. Dirk Chatelain wrote about Larry and Carol Frost. Chris Heady obviously spent some time in Wood River as he covered Scott Frost’s national emergence in small town Nebraska. Lee Barfknecht covered Frost’s college football career including his time in Stanford. Evan Bland spent his time writing about the numerous notable football coaches who influenced Frost as he moved up the coaching ladder. Then Sam Mckewon covered Frost’s time at UCF and then Nebraska.

Tom Shatel then did his best to have some fun and jumped in the DeLorean with Doc Brown to do some time traveling into the future of what is to come. Is this section a little presumptuous? Yes. But we can let it slide after everything they wrote before they let Tom Shatel be Tom Shatel.

If you enjoy something that is well written and researched about a topic which has given Nebraska fans reason for hope and unity then you would enjoy this book.

While trying to be respectful to the writers and not spoil the book I did not want to write about all of the things I learned. Instead I thought it would be helpful to highlight one of my favorite excerpts from the book. It came from Dirk Chatelain and it was right at the beginning.

Dirk has rightly earned the reputation of a great writer who can take something simple, even mundane, and turn it into something memorable for the reader. In Frost: A Husker’s Journey Home, Dirk opened the book by describing a scene in which a group of fourth graders were on a field trip to Memorial Stadium. The fourth graders were running and playing on the football field. However, if they would have taken a moment to look up from the field into the stands they would have noticed somebody running the steps above them.

Little would they have known that it was not a current player, but it was someone that played at Nebraska long ago. He came back to return Nebraska to where it rightfully belongs. Almost as if Larry and Carol Frost were preparing him for the job from the beginning.