A Raider's Life

Violet Forney

Raiders Night
Robert Lipsyte

       Is it ever acceptable to witness a wrongdoing and not report it?

       The story of Raiders Night explores the different approaches, ethical or not, that are taken by certain people when faced with this pressing question. After witnessing an extreme act of bullying and hazing towards one of the new players on his football team, the protagonist, Matt, struggles to decide whether or not he should tell someone. He knows that speaking about the incident would destroy the team and his own future opportunities, but he sees the effect that it has on the victim, Chris. Matt’s father, a former football star of the town who had his NFL dreams crushed by injury, attempts to keep him quiet for fear that the same thing will happen to his talented son. Matt lives a complicated double life before the incident between being the extremely popular captain of the football team who has a perfect life and being the boy who is verbally abused by his father and uses drugs and alcohol to cope.

       As a fan of sports stories, I very much enjoyed this book. Although the story took an in-depth look into the life of a star athlete, it still was able to make the reader think about important topics like drug use and peer pressure. As an athlete, I was able to relate to the main character Matt and was very intrigued by the ways he was able to change throughout the story.  I would recommend this book to any mature, sports fiction reader, wanting more from a story than just the cliche ending of the underdog team finally winning.

       Unlike the ever-popular storyline of many sports fiction books, Raiders Night is able to use it’s complex and thought-provoking plot to offer the reader an opportunity to connect with its characters and story. Even after you put the book down, the themes that it brings to life stay with you. From the moral questioning of Matt’s extensive drug use to the many insights into the severe consequences of bullying and verbal abuse, this story caused me to feel for the characters in the book as if they were real people. Many of the boys on the team take steroid injections together which causes Matt to feel closer to them; “Taking the shots proved their commitment to the team and to each other. We’ll do whatever it takes to get bigger, get better, to win”(Lipsyte 8). Incidents that happen in the story are able to offer new and possibly unique perspectives, on why people make the choices they do. Matt uses the steroids because he thinks it makes him better on the field, but when he does them with his teammates he feels a sense of brotherhood and extreme dedication to the players of his team. This book also provides the reader with insight into the ways Matt views what is going on around him. Although the story is told primarily by a narrator, the author cleverly includes plenty of voice from the main character. The protagonist is able to convey his feelings to the reader. This allows the reader to better understand the things that are important to the character. After a close encounter with his father, Matt speaks about his feelings toward the secret he is keeping in saying that, “Do I want someone to talk? Pop the blister, take the pressure off so I don’t have to keep all this inside?”(Lipsyte 175). Offering Matt’s perspective on certain situations further allows a reader to understand this character. If the author had relied solely on the narrator’s voice and dialogue, Matt’s character would not be as relatable because no one would know his perspective.

As a star football player, Matt lives a very complicated life. At the beginning of the book, we see how the pressure put on him by his father, sports, and college is able to interfere with his life. Matt starts off as the type of person who will do absolutely whatever it takes to win, even if that means trampling over other others. He abuses drugs and alcohol to either get stronger or calm himself down. He also allows his father to belittle and verbally abuse him and the other members of his family. However, Matt is able to evolve throughout the story and I very much enjoyed witnessing his journey. Watching this relatable character grow as a person and in a final act of defiance, stand up to his father, could not be more gratifying. Once Matt realizes what he wants to do about the bullying on his team, he speaks to his dad about it:

       “Because I didn’t do anything when I could have. I was a captain. I should have stopped it…”
       “Keep your eye on the prize.”
       “That’s your prize, not mine.”(Lipsyte 226)

The reader is able to watch Matt as he realizes the corrupt and selfish motives of the adults who support him and how the desires of others have dictated his own life. The way that Matt is able to overcome his fear of defying his father and do it in a way that is so final, causes the reader to experience great satisfaction when the story ends.