Slo Mo!: My Untrue Story

A Spinal Tap for sports: the uproarious "autobiography" of Slo Mo Finsternick, 7'8" shooting guard and NBA sensation, by the author of the bestselling Missing Links--Sports Illustrated star columnist Rick Reilly

Seven-foot, eight-inch Maurice "Slo Mo" Finsternick knows nothing about the NBA while growing up in a bizarre cave-dwelling cult in Colorado. Shunned by his shorter peers, he spends lonely days at the cult compost heap tossing a found basketball through a wire hoop. He never misses. Through no fault of his own, he's discovered by the NBA and becomes the hottest sports icon in the country.

This is his story, told, like all jock autobiographies, in his own words. As this dead-on parody of big-time sports unfolds, Slo Mo gradually learns how a famous athlete is supposed to behave. Kind, truthful, polite, and self-effacing, at first Slo Mo is baffled by the attentions of Jacquanda "Jinx" Silver, the groupie with the world's worst condoms, and by the antics of teammates like Kinity "Death" Dedman, whose attempt at becoming the most outrageous and marketable NBA player is thwarted by the tattooist who thought "Ozzie" meant "Ozzie Nelson," not "Ozzy Osbourne." When the veterans on the team pull the old steal-the-uniform gag, Slo Mo warms up in the janitor's uniform left in its place, setting off a fashion craze on the streets.

Eventually, surrounded by an obligatory entourage of people he doesn't know, enticed into endorsing products he doesn't use, Slo Mo begins to lose his innocence, then his patented thirty-foot hook shot.

Nothing is sacred in this brilliant send-up of all that annoys in pro sports. Rick Reilly takes on shoe company vultures, egomaniacal athletes, Zen-spouting coaches, rapacious and corrupt recruiters, dumb-slob sportswriters, sleazeball agents, and mindless fans. Reilly shows again why he is the funniest, and best, sportswriter in America.