Cowbell Kingdom Podcast Ep 59: Pat Forde of Yahoo! Sports talks new book on Jimmer Fredette

Alan Draper

Sports Editor

September 21 2012 2 min read

by Jonathan Santiago & James Ham

Since bursting onto the national scene with his breakthrough performance in the 2010 NCAA Tournament, Jimmer Fredette has been one of the most scrutinized athletes in the country. A lackluster rookie campaign may have tempered Jimmermania a bit, but it’s about to ramp up again with the release of a new book about the life of Sacramento Kings guard. Pat Forde of Yahoo! Sports is the author of “The Contract: The Journey of Jimmer Fredette from the Playground to the Pros” and joins us on this week’s Cowbell Kingdom Podcast.

Excerpt

As one of the new kids on the block, Jimmer tried a little too hard to blend in with his Kings teammates last season. We asked Forde if Jimmer could set aside enough of his nice-guy attitude to reach his potential:

I think so. He’s competitive. He’s very, very competitive. He doesn’t want to fail. He’s got an enormous amount of self-pride. I guarantee, (and) we haven’t had really any major discussions about this, but I guarantee it chafed him to play not very much last season and to not do as well as he expected to do. So, I would imagine his offseason has been a very intense amount of working on his game with the sole goal of “I’m going to show you I belong and I’m going to get myself on the court and I’m going to play better.”

And yeah, does he have to maybe be a meaner guy? I don’t know. But can he be? Yeah, I think so. First of all, he’s growing up. And while his family is obviously still involved in his life, he’s on his own. He’s married. He’s moving into a new chapter in his life. And I don’t think he’s the baby brother persay as much anymore. He’s now a professional athlete with a job to do and I think he can be as hard-edged as he needs to be if that’s what it’s going to take to get him on the court.