Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 10/8/2009

Echoing a harrowing axiom of big-time college football, head coach Steve Kragthorpe admitted: "People don't care if you're graduating 90% of your players if you're not winning 90% of your games."

Birthdays:
Billy Conn b. 1917
Fred Stolle b. 1938
Paul Splittorff b. 1946
Rashaan Salaam b. 1974
Amos Zereoue b. 1976

Packers Fact:
Vince Lombardi (in 1959 and 1961) and Lindy Infante (1989) are the two Packerse to earn NFL coach of the year honors.

AN ENCHANTED CARPET RIDE

In this gorgeous tale set in 17th-century Persia, the unnamed narrator, a girl of 14, is sent with her newly widowed mother to live with an uncle who is a rugmaker to the shah. Grudgingly at first, he teaches the young girl his craft, and she becomes a skilled artisan. But can she buy her way out of a poor marriage and the lackluster poverty that seems to be her fate?

THE BLOOD OF FLOWERS: A NOVEL, by Anita Amirrezvani (Little, Brown, 2007)