Culture
Book Review: ‘Talk,’ by Alison Wood Brooks
![Book Review: ‘Talk,’ by Alison Wood Brooks Book Review: ‘Talk,’ by Alison Wood Brooks](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2025/01/24/books/review/00Brooks-Review/00Brooks-Review-facebookJumbo.jpg)
She also warns about “candidate answers,” a kind of leading the witness, in which one asks an open-ended question only to narrow it down in anticipation. (As in: Why are you reading a book about how to improve your conversations? Do you think you have room to grow, or are you just hoping to feel superior?) I realized that I curtail my questions this way all the time; leaving them open has actually expanded the answers I receive.
Brooks is a companionable writer, and she’s alive to the absurdity inherent in her project. Talk is messy, and good talk messier still; templates, instructions and guardrails are generally self-defeating. Kant, she notes, hosted dinners that adhered to a strict script: Guests spoke during the first course of headlines and the weather before proceeding, with their entrees, to politics and the sciences. Dessert came with “jesting.” Games, beer and music were forbidden; lulls were unpardonable. Though Brooks lauds the philosopher’s ambition, she prefers her conversations faster and looser — something, she says, like Arlie Hochschild’s description of “the jazz of human exchange.”
But I couldn’t hear the jazz in “Talk”’s pages of diagrams and graphs, among them a “conversational compass,” a “topic pyramid” and a “chart of emotions.” Brooks’s rigid, evidence-based approach means that she must frequently write things that I suspect she would find obvious or trite in conversation, such as, “It’s not just about choosing topics, but also deciding what to say about them.” By the time I read that talking like a rude cop at a traffic stop “is likely to make your friends, your romantic partner, your mom and everyone else uncomfortable in less charged circumstances, too,” I was about ready to take a vow of silence.
Parts of “Talk” feel designed not to help humans communicate but to train A.I. This is especially evident in the section on levity, which advises “livening up your texts by sending Onion headlines to your friends” and imitating the outsize reactions of “Seinfeld” characters.
Is this what it feels like to be optimized? I don’t know why I say half the things I say, and I often want my conversations to roam elsewhere, but to make “spreadsheets filled with promising topics to raise with strangers,” as some of Brooks’s students do, would make me feel even less human than I already do.
![](https://newspub.live/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/np-logo.png)
Culture
The impact of being only player from your country to play in the Premier League
![The impact of being only player from your country to play in the Premier League The impact of being only player from your country to play in the Premier League](https://static01.nyt.com/athletic/uploads/wp/2025/01/28082652/One-Country-Reps.png?width=1200&height=630&fit=cover)
Gunnar Nielsen’s Premier League career was brief.
Extremely brief, in fact: it lasted 17 minutes. The goalkeeper was introduced as a late substitute for Manchester City against Arsenal in 2010 after Shay Given had aggravated a shoulder injury he picked up a week earlier when diving in vain for Paul Scholes’s late winner in the Manchester derby.
But it was a big deal back home. Those 17 minutes represented the first — and only — time a player from the Faroe Islands had played in the Premier League. It was such a big deal that a local radio station couldn’t even wait until the game had finished to call his brother for some reaction. Happily, Nielsen kept a clean sheet, avoiding the decidedly awkward prospect of his brother having to offer some live, on-air comment on an embarrassing blunder.
“He was so nervous he couldn’t say a word,” Nielsen says now. “He just gave the phone to my sister-in-law.”
Nielsen is part of an unusual little club of players, a group that was joined recently by new City signing Abdukodir Khusanov, the defender from Uzbekistan: they are two of 18 men to be the only players from their respective countries to make an appearance in the Premier League.
Neilsen made his only Premier League appearance in April 2010 (Neil Tingle – PA Images via Getty Images)
So as you can imagine, it was pretty big news in the Faroes when Nielsen made his appearance. TV and radio coverage was a given, but his almost literal 15 minutes of fame was the talk of the town. “I spoke to a bouncer at a nightclub who I knew,” Nielsen says. “He said the only thing everybody spoke about on that Saturday evening was how I made my appearance in the Premier League.
“It was such a big thing when it happened. I remember people were sending me pictures and texting me and calling me — to this day I meet people who still say they remember where they were at that exact time when I came on.”
Khusanov is the second player to join the club this season, after Ipswich Town striker Ali Al-Hamadi became the first Iraqi to grace the division when he came on in the opening game of the season against Liverpool.
For the sake of completeness, the others are: Victor Wanyama (Kenya), Henrikh Mkhitaryan (Armenia), Onel Hernandez (Cuba), Junior Firpo (Dominican Republic), Nathaniel Mendez-Laing (Guatemala), Danny Higginbotham (Gibraltar), Ryan Donk (Suriname), Ali Al-Habsi (Oman), Jordi Amat (Indonesia), Hamza Choudhury (Bangladesh), Dylan Kerr (Malta), Mbwana Samatta (Tanzania), Frederic Nimani (Central African Republic), Neil Etheridge (Philippines) and Zesh Rehman (Pakistan).
By definition, the nations on that list are not traditional football powerhouses. Some of the players had a slight leg-up, given that they were born and raised in bigger or more recognisable football environments, but played for another country due to a familial connection. Amat, Choudhury, Rehman, Etheridge, Hernandez, Firpo, Mendez-Laing, Higginbotham and Donk fall into that category.
But some of the others grew up in surroundings where there simply weren’t any role models to show them the path to one of Europe’s big leagues. They are trailblazers.
“You need to see someone that’s done it before,” Nielsen tells The Athletic. “We’re closely connected to Denmark, so you’re looking up to players from there, but (not having a Faroese example) did not make it easier. There hadn’t been anyone in the Premier League from the Faroe Islands, and even though there were some young players who had been on youth contracts at some Premier League clubs, there wasn’t anyone to look up to in that sense.”
Wanyama didn’t have a compatriot to show him the path to the Premier League either but he was lucky in that he, at least, did have some more immediate role models, such as his brother, McDonald Mariga, who joined Parma in Serie A when Wanyama was 16. Before that, Wanyama followed Mariga to Helsingborgs in Sweden, briefly returning home when the elder brother went to Italy, before properly starting his European journey with Beerschot, in Belgium. It also didn’t hurt that his father, Noah, played for and coached Nairobi-based side AFC Leopards.
![](https://static01.nyt.com/athletic/uploads/wp/2025/01/28084117/Victor-Wanyama-Tottenham-scaled.jpg)
Wanyama playing for Tottenham in 2019 (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
“I grew up in a football family,” Wanyama tells The Athletic. “I used to watch the Premier League — I grew up watching those games. When I was 11, I was already dreaming about being there one day. I loved Roy Keane and Paul Scholes.
“My father was a coach, my brother played: it was something very deep. It was in our blood. I wanted to play on the biggest stage. I was aware the Premier League was the toughest league in the world. I knew it would be tough to get into, which motivated me.”
Etheridge’s situation was slightly different. Born and raised in England, the goalkeeper qualified to play for the Philippines through his mother. He would travel to the Philippines fairly regularly growing up but, for various reasons, didn’t go back for years. Then, at 18, his former team-mates in the Chelsea youth team and Filipino internationals James and Phil Younghusband suggested him for a place in the squad too. He made his debut in 2008, has clocked up more than 80 caps and was named national team captain in 2022.
![](https://static01.nyt.com/athletic/uploads/wp/2025/01/28084402/Neil-Etheridge-Fulham.jpg)
Neil Etheridge in action for Cardiff against Manchester City in 2019 (Oli Scarff / AFP)
“I just felt a connection with the country and the people,” Etheridge says from Thailand, where he is now playing. “The Philippines is an extremely proud country. The culture and blood runs through you. I was only 18, but I saw a chance to make a change in a country that is not necessarily football-orientated. Basketball is the No 1 sport. Back then, football wasn’t really a sport that was recognised.”
He’s not kidding. They had sunk to 195th in the world around the time Etheridge was first called up, and had little to no record in international competition. Their highest ranking in the intervening years of 111 might not seem great, but they qualified for the Asian Cup for the first time in 2019 and made it to the second round of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup, again the first time the team had gone that far.
Etheridge achieved most of this before playing in the Premier League for the first time, eventually doing so in 2017 after winning promotion with Cardiff. “It was a massive deal,” he says. “Although it wasn’t as big as if a Filipino played in the NBA, and Manny Pacquiao is the No 1 sportsperson in the country by a country mile. I was probably more recognised as the first South East Asian player to play in the Premier League, rather than the first Filipino.
“I’ve been able to do a lot of first. In 2010, we reached the semi-finals of the South East Asian Cup (AFF Cup) for the first time and that was when football blew up in the Philippines. Even now, 15 years later, it’s still in infant stages, but it’s something I’m proud to be a part of, to put football on the map in the country.”
National identity can be a slightly complicated, non-binary and sometimes fluid thing, so it’s worth offering some parameters: the players are defined as being ‘from’ their particular country either if they were born there and haven’t represented another country, or if they have represented that country at full international level.
There are some curiosities on the list. The Premier League has seen several players who were born in Suriname and went on to represent the Netherlands (Regi Blinker, Edgar Davids, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink), but Donk, the only player to represent Suriname, was born in the Netherlands.
A few on the list weren’t classed as being from their respective nations while playing in the Premier League. Higginbotham played a few games for Gibraltar, but those were a long time after his Southampton/Sunderland/Stoke City pomp. Mendez-Laing’s debut for Guatemala came when he was in League One with Derby, a few years after his top-flight days with Cardiff.
![Danny Higginbotham](https://static01.nyt.com/athletic/uploads/wp/2022/10/07125024/GettyImages-676473744-scaled-e1665161441945.jpg)
Danny Higginbotham back in his playing days for Stoke City in 2010 (Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)
Then there are the grey areas, such as former Brighton & Hove Albion midfielder Mahmoud Dahoud, who is counted on some lists as Syria’s sole representative. He was born in Syria and raised in Germany, for whom he played two friendlies in 2020 so was thus regarded as German while in England. However, in 2024, he switched allegiance to the nation of his birth and was called up to Syria’s squad… only to pull out before actually playing. He may still represent them in the future, but we’re not counting him for now.
Then there’s Equatorial Guinea. Emilio Nsue, who was born and raised in Spain and made four appearances for Middlesbrough in the Premier League, played 45 times for Equatorial Guinea between 2013 and 2024 and won the Golden Boot at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations. However, he might not count, as in 2024 FIFA ruled he had been ineligible the whole time.
Back in 2013, the Equatoguinean Football Federation applied to their Spanish counterparts for Nsue to switch nationalities (he had made several competitive appearances for various Spain youth teams), but to say the least there were some irregularities with the process. They defaulted two 2014 World Cup qualifying games due to Nsue’s ineligibility, but they kept picking him anyway, and did so at various intervals over the following decade. It genuinely seems that FIFA only noticed due to his heroics at AFCON, at which point they declared his whole international career null and void.
So…does he count? Are we getting into a weird, metaphysical area by acting as if Nsue’s international appearances literally never happened, rather than administratively never happened? If so Pedro Obiang, the only other Equatorial Guinea international, becomes the 19th individual on this list. But for now, we’ll go with tangible reality and credit Equatorial Guinea with two Premier League players.
Of course, the Premier League is not the pinnacle for everyone. It’s not necessarily the case that every player slept on Barclays bed sheets and their only desire as a kid was to play in England.
Take Wanyama, for example. “It was a bigger deal to play for Celtic,” he says, “because it was the team I grew up supporting. Particularly in the Glasgow derby.”
For most of these players, playing in the Premier League was a source of personal pride, but the hope is they can be the inspiration and role model that they didn’t have when they were younger.
“Without wanting to blow my own trumpet,” says Etheridge, “if it wasn’t for me and the success I’ve had, there would be a lot of football players who wouldn’t have had a career in the game. A lot of people wouldn’t even have known that the Philippines had a team, if it wasn’t for the likes of myself, and the success I had later in my career, playing in the Premier League, being able to really enhance our national team. There are a lot of people around the world who have decided to play for the Philippines because they now know what the Philippines national team is.”
Wanyama adds: “I’m proud if I have made young players dream, to believe in themselves that they could play in the Premier League one day. Now everyone wants to be there, and they know the door is open to them. They believe they can do it too.”
(Top photos: Getty Images)
Culture
Adapting the Twists and Turns of ‘Conclave’
![Adapting the Twists and Turns of ‘Conclave’ Adapting the Twists and Turns of ‘Conclave’](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2025/02/14/podcasts/14tbr-peter-straughan/14tbr-peter-straughan-facebookJumbo.jpg)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | How to Listen
The screenwriter Peter Straughan has become adept at taking well known — and beloved — books and adapting them for the big and small screens. He was first nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay of the 2011 film “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” based on the classic John le Carré spy novel, and then adapted Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall” trilogy into an award-winning season of television, with an adaptation of the third novel coming out soon. Now he has been nominated for a second Oscar: for his screenplay for “Conclave,” based on Robert Harris’s political thriller set in the secret world of a papal election.
“It’s almost like mosaic work,” Straughan tells Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, about adapting books. “You have all these pieces; sometimes they’re going to be laid out in a very similar order to the book, sometimes a completely different order. Sometimes you’re going to deconstruct and rebuild completely.”
In the third episode of our special series devoted to Oscar-nominated films adapted from books, Cruz talks with Straughan about his process of translating a book to the screen, and about the moments in ‘‘Conclave” that he found most exciting to adapt.
We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.
Culture
Johni Broome’s chase for greatness and ‘embodiment of the American dream’
![Johni Broome’s chase for greatness and ‘embodiment of the American dream’ Johni Broome’s chase for greatness and ‘embodiment of the American dream’](https://static01.nyt.com/athletic/uploads/wp/2025/02/12171642/GettyImages-2189953908-scaled-e1739400744317.jpg?width=1200&height=630&fit=cover)
AUBURN, Ala. — Pastor Carl McKay goes back with the Broome family of Plant City, Fla. So far back, he was there for the earliest inklings of the Broome family.
“I was picking my daughter up from the rec center and out comes John (Broome) and Julie (Murray) holding hands,” McKay said of two people who now share 20 years of marriage and three kids, including one of the best college basketball players in America. “They would have been 13. I said, ‘Y’all, stop holding them hands, you’re too young for that stuff.’”
McKay has continued dispensing advice over the years, solicited and unsolicited — like the time he told John that his son Johni clearly was going to be a basketball star and needed to stop wasting time on the football field. The Broomes have belonged to the congregation at St. Luke Independent Church for McKay’s 20 years there. Two weeks ago, the congregation heard McKay’s story of an interrogation he once received from an especially inquisitive child.
“David and Goliath” was the Sunday school lesson, a classic tale of faith, courage and overcoming enormous odds. But the kid wouldn’t let him off the hook. How could this happen? A guy that big? A guy that small? The small guy winning? How does that make sense? Resourcefulness was the answer, of course, and a prevailing trait along with faith and courage that defined the protagonist.
When McKay revealed to the congregation that the questioner was 9-year-old Johni Broome, smiles and nods greeted the twist. America knows 22-year-old Johni Broome as a national player of the year candidate who stars for the top-ranked Auburn Tigers, but Plant City remembers when he was a slow, unathletic, unranked prospect who was passed over by the Florida Atlantic Owls. Without making his basketball success biblical, what a way to frame it: Broome building a slingshot over years and blasting away at his limitations.
“He’s an amazing example for our community,” McKay said. “And that goes way beyond what he is as a basketball player.”
What he is as a basketball player goes way beyond what he was supposed to be, and the 6-foot-10, 240-pound Broome credits the foundational aspects of his life. He still has questions on spirituality for McKay and for Auburn team chaplain Jeremy Napier. He has Scripture inked on his body and on his phone’s lock screen, and he leads the Tigers’ “aura group” of biblical scholars in weekly discussions. His best friends are brother John Jr. and sister Jade’a.
Broome spent hot summer days in Plant City, 24 miles east of Tampa, passing out flyers to market his father’s lawn-care company, and then he’d be the one cutting the grass on the family’s acre of land. When he transferred to Tampa Catholic for the final two years of high school, that meant a 6 a.m. daily drive of more than an hour. It meant getting home at 8:30 p.m. after practice and individual skill work with a trainer.
“He did his chores,” Julie Broome said. “He did his homework. He didn’t do knucklehead stuff.”
If he got a “C,” John and Julie took away his phone and video games for nine weeks.
“I think that happened twice,” John said.
“My family deserves a lot of credit for everything,” Johni said, and yet, even with priorities in order and pitfalls avoided, even with an opportunity to visit his football-playing brother at Florida International and get a taste of life as a college athlete, he was no lock to become one.
Basketball excellence was ordained when Broome was 3 by his late great-grandmother Ernestine Hughes, who looked at the long-legged, pigeon-toed toddler and declared he would be the next Shaquille O’Neal. He didn’t quite turn out to be 7-1 and twitchy, though.
He didn’t even make the first AAU team he tried out for. He missed on the Nike camps. He turned himself into a terrific high school player, 19.6 points and 10.9 rebounds a game as a senior, named Hillsborough County Player of the Year. He got himself up to No. 41 in Florida in the Class of 2020 in the 247Sports Composite and started receiving mid-major interest, though the knocks remained the same.
“Can’t move, too slow, can’t jump,” John said.
“I had no idea who he was,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. “Never saw him, never heard of him. What was he, No. 371 in the nation?”
Actually, it was No. 471.
Florida Atlantic’s Dusty May took an interest and that was Broome’s preference, but the open spots dried up in a recruiting class that included eventual Final Four participants Alijah Martin and Johnell Davis. He went with Morehead State over Bryant, to play for coach Preston Spradlin. The Broomes were thrilled — scholarship, room and board for their kid who had worked so hard to earn it.
“Morehead was a blessing,” Julie said.
And it was a launching point. Broome always loved the game, always had a special feel for it, but now he had college strength training. Now he had film study at the touch of an iPad and sophisticated schemes to absorb. He changed his body dramatically in a year, during which he was named Ohio Valley Conference Newcomer of the Year, destroyed Belmont with 27 points in an OVC title game upset and got his first NCAA Tournament taste with 10 points and nine rebounds in a first-round loss to West Virginia.
Johni Broome reshaped his body during his time at Morehead State. (Courtesy of Broome family)
The following November, Morehead State lost 77-54 at Auburn. Broome had 12 and eight. An Auburn fan chatted up the Broomes and joked that their son should consider transferring to Auburn in the future. They still laugh about it. Pearl got familiar with Broome for the first time in preparation for that game, noticing all the little things he did on both ends to make his team better — and that making his team better seemed to be the priority.
This was an outstanding player, a whiff for all who dismissed him on measurables and missed the nuances of his game. He passed like a guard, rebounded like a center and defended anyone who got in front of him.
“I’ve always said Larry Bird is one of the greatest athletes to play the game of basketball, and Larry Bird couldn’t jump over a line,” Pearl said. “But he had unbelievable balance, hands, timing, vision. All of it was unbelievable. That’s athleticism too. It’s kind of like a golfer who is able to strike the ball a certain way, over and over again. Just because Johni Broome can’t jump very high doesn’t make him a non-athlete. There are guys who can jump out of the gym who can’t catch a cold. Johni has a lot of those same traits that make him special.”
By season’s end, with Broome coming off OVC Defensive Player of the Year and Lou Henson Mid-Major All-America honors, money was flowing to players and players were switching schools like never before. Broome loved Morehead State but had the opportunity to start making serious money as a basketball player. John Calipari and Mark Few were after him. Penny Hardaway wanted a word.
“(Pearl) didn’t get in on the recruitment until like Day 3. I had heard from everybody else,” said Broome, whose eight finalists included Florida, Houston and Louisville as well. “He calls and it’s like, ‘Oh, Bruce Pearl! What’s up?’ The thing I really liked is that he kept it real with me.”
Yes, Pearl sold Broome on his career record of developing players into pros. He said he saw Broome as something stylistically in between the Tigers’ stars of the previous season, Jabari Smith and Walker Kessler. Also, Pearl admitted he didn’t have firm answers yet on roster and resources for the 2022-23 team.
“When we first talked, Walker hadn’t made his mind up yet about going,” Pearl said. “Rather than try to sell (Broome) on, ‘Hey, come play aside Walker,’ I made it clear we had another really good player in Jaylin Williams. I said, ‘Look, if Walker does stay, I don’t have enough for you.’ I think he and his family really appreciated that.”
Kessler decided to go. A few weeks later, Broome chose the Tigers. He led Auburn in scoring in his first season. He was the program’s 14th All-American in his second. He’s jousting with Duke freshman sensation Cooper Flagg for National Player of the Year honors in his final collegiate season, and it’s shaping up to be one of the closest races of all time.
![go-deeper](https://static01.nyt.com/athletic/uploads/wp/2025/02/10173849/0211_CooperFlagg-1024x512.jpg?width=128&height=128&fit=cover&auto=webp)
GO DEEPER
Cooper Flagg is on the clock
“I’d like to win it — but mostly, I’d like to win a national championship,” said Broome, who has yet to experience the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, his 24 points and 13 rebounds not enough to avoid a first-round upset to Yale last March.
“The beautiful thing about the choice for player of the year is they both took such different paths, and neither path is better than the other,” Pearl said. “Since Flagg was 15 years old we all knew how great he was, and not just because he was so gifted but also because he worked so hard and played so hard. And then you’ve got Johni, not ranked, not known, no stars in front of his name. Not one year and then the pros, but five years of college basketball. And here they are, taking completely different paths and actually being in the same spot as players.”
Pearl will declare Broome the clear holder of one distinction in college basketball.
“He has to go down as the greatest player of all time ever picked up in the transfer portal at this point,” Pearl said. “Just look at his three-year run.”
It would have been a two-year run, but Broome was afforded an extra season of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, he’ll leave Auburn with a college degree and a better chance of going in the first round — The Athletic’s NBA Draft analyst Sam Vecenie projects him to go somewhere between picks 20 and 45.
“NIL allows people to come back and not have to rush to the league to help their families or help their loved ones or help themselves,” said Broome, who has gone through the draft process the past two years to test himself against other prospects. “It allows you to go when you’re actually ready.”
Broome’s readiness comes from the work ethic that gave him this opportunity in the first place, and from added investment that can enhance today’s college athletes. He has signed with sports agency CAA and has worked for the past two years with Minneapolis-based trainer Reid Ouse.
Ouse, who founded Catalyst Training and works with Andrew Wiggins, Mark Sears and Paige Bueckers, among others, is not merely a skills coach. He spent several years as a college assistant coach and attends Auburn games and practices, collaborating with the staff on Broome’s development and how it fits into the Tigers’ schematic priorities.
![](https://static01.nyt.com/athletic/uploads/wp/2025/02/12163549/Image-from-iOS-1-e1739396169765.jpg)
Johni Broome has worked with trainer Reid Ouse for two years. (Courtesy of Broome family)
He reviews the film of every possession of every game and shares notes with Broome. He works with him on details that can’t be part of every Auburn practice. Broome gets strength training courtesy of both entities, Auburn and his agency. He has always been resourceful; now there’s no resource spared in pursuit of greatness.
“And then there are some plays Johni makes on a nightly basis that people have no idea how difficult they really are,” Ouse said. “His hand-eye coordination? He’s the guy who can play at the YMCA when he’s 70, his hips don’t work anymore, but he’s still able to dominate just because of the way he plays.”
Pearl has almost as much appreciation for the way he leads. There’s no question who’s in charge when the Tigers are on the floor, on both ends. Off the floor, Broome has taken a particular interest in mentoring uber-talented freshman guard Tahaad Pettiford, in Biblical studies and beyond. Of that, Pearl said: “What fifth-year senior is best friends with what freshman?”
![go-deeper](https://static01.nyt.com/athletic/uploads/wp/2025/01/06091629/USATSI_22771336-e1736173004809-1024x682.jpg?width=128&height=128&fit=cover&auto=webp)
GO DEEPER
Meet the 30-year-old play caller behind college basketball’s No. 1 offense
“All the guy cares about is winning,” Pearl said. “He’s the ultimate example of what great support at home can do, and that Broome name? It’s tattooed on his back, it’s embroidered in his jersey, it’s in his soul. He just goes to work every day, trying to do something special for his family. To me, he’s the embodiment of the American dream.”
Broome doesn’t have to be at Auburn. He could have cleaned up in the portal last spring.
“He could have gotten between $200,000 and $400,000 more,” Pearl said. “I don’t mind stating that. He could have.”
But developing, winning and having a good time should count, too. And the Broomes have become close over the years with the coach they call “BP.” Broome said Pearl “says crazy things about four times a week” but also makes himself available to the Tigers at all times.
“A lot of coaches say that, but he means it,” Broome said. “Every time I call, he picks up the phone, whether it’s about something funny, something stupid or something serious. That means something. That makes you want to play for someone.”
Loyalty is serious currency in the Broome household. John and Julie get to McKay’s sermons whenever they can, though it’s tougher during the season with Saturday games and travel all over SEC country. They were on hand for his story about “David and Goliath,” smiling along with everyone else at the revelation that young Johni was his questioner.
Here’s what McKay didn’t tell the congregation: The large check the church had just received from an anonymous donor, to help it rebuild amid $12,000 in damage caused by Hurricane Milton? That was Johni Broome, too.
(Top photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
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