Seattle Seahawks veteran defensive end Michael Bennett is using his influence to start a book club for the players on the squad.
“Try to get a book and try to have a good conversation about it,” Bennett said, per Sheil Kapadia of ESPN. “Read a couple chapters and just go through it. ‘What’s your take on it? What’s your opinion on it?’
“It’s going to be pretty cool,” he added.
The first book the players will read and discuss is “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell.
“Outliers” is a book that explores what it takes to be successful from the perspective of what successful people have going on around them. It’s an outstanding choice that should stir up some conversation.
“I think the book is really good for all these young guys to read something like that and all the stuff that Bill Gates has been through, Paul Allen. All these guys and how they overcame the situation that they came through.”
Bennett has called out his peers in the NFL to be more vocal about social issues. But in order for them to be able to do that with a modicum of responsibility requires an educated approach — one he clearly advocates.
Seahawks vice president of player engagement Maurice Kelly, whom Bennett approached about the idea in the first place, offered this perspective on the loquacious defensive lineman.
“People think that he just talks, but he does research,” Kelly said of Bennett. “He reads a lot. He’s not just talking to be talking, just to hear himself. Sometimes it comes across as if he’s just talking just to hear himself talk. But he knows his history. He leaves his books all over the damn place. I see ‘em in my office all the time.”
This book club he’s starting doesn’t appear to be one that will feature spy novels and fantasy epics. But based on the subject matter of the first book it has some serious potential to open up the minds of the men participating to a greater perspective of the world around them.
The veteran defensive end says players have been “receptive” to the idea of the book club. Oh, to be a fly on the wall when they start talking about what they’ve read.