I’ve endured, and I feel energized and clear.” “I feel lighter, not physically, but mentally. I don’t.”īut he does fast on Yom Kippur whenever possible, an act of atonement to which he devotes several paragraphs in the book. “Toward the end of a fast I usually feel great, like I’ve achieved something,” he writes. “Some people have a hard time with that concept. “I’m very clear that when I have to, I choose football over the holidays,” Geoff said. The brothers also grapple with some of the compromises they’ve had to make in pursuit of their careers. Only hours after signing his ketubah, Geoff would sign the largest contract of his career. Then there is the weekend in 2014 when two life-changing moments coincided: Geoff’s wedding - a traditional Jewish affair on the beach at Santa Monica - happened at the height of NFL free agency frenzy. There’s October 27, 2013: “The Schwartz Bowl,” the brothers’ first and so far only on-field meeting when Geoff, then with the Chiefs, faced Mitch and the Browns in Kansas City. The conversational memoir flows from one milestone to the next - personal, professional or often both. And if you’re hungry, just refer to the appendix of family recipes for step-by-step instructions on applying the perfect schmear (“Don’t overdo it too much cream cheese will melt and run on a just-toasted bagel”). Whether tackling football, their faith or food, the Schwartzes write with the interested but uninitiated in mind - readers will learn the finer points of proper blocking in one chapter, find a primer on the lunar Hebrew calendar in the next. This spring, free agency landed him a five-year, $33-million deal with the Chiefs, making him one of the highest-paid right tackles in the league. Meanwhile, after the Browns selected him with the 37 th overall pick, Mitch started every game over four seasons in Cleveland. Geoff was a seventh-round pick in 2008, and he’s a study of resilience: He’s endured multiple injuries and various ups and downs, from getting relegated to a practice squad, to getting cut, to getting signed to a big contract, to getting released again just before this season starts. Mitch credits his (slightly) bigger brother for paving his way on the field, in the kitchen and in life. “It’s a surreal experience to see my kids on the field, on TV.” And I started to kind of feel like maybe this was their destiny.’”Īs for their father, Lee Schwartz, a business consultant: “I just kvell,” he told Los Angeles’s Jewish Journal in 2012, on the eve of that year’s NFL Draft, in which Mitch would join his brother in the league when the Cleveland Browns took him early in the second round. “‘They were like trucks hitting small cars. In the book, the brothers quote their mother, attorney Olivia Goodkin, on her eventual acceptance of her sons’ football fate, given that each stood well over six feet tall at his bar mitzvah.“‘I started out worrying that they were going to get hurt - but then I realized it was the other players I should be worrying about,” she said. But neither started playing football until high school, in part because their parents didn’t want practices and games to interfere too much with Hebrew school. Growing up in West Los Angeles - and attending Adat Shalom, a Conservative congregation - the brothers were always involved in sports. “I mean, my whole family - we’re proud to be Jewish and to be raised in the tradition and going to temple.” “The people who know us know that’s a big part of our identity, but I think it was important to share as much as possible in the book,” Geoff Schwartz told JTA from Detroit, where he spent the preseason as a member of the Lions. But from the opening pages - a scene of the brothers frying up latkes on the first night of Hanukkah, following their bubbe’s recipe - their Jewishness is front and center. Sports fans will find plenty of insider info on the NFL and major-college football (Geoff and Mitch played for Pac-12 contenders Oregon and Cal, respectively). Co-written by the brothers, with novelist and humorist Seth Kaufman, it’s a lighthearted memoir about all the topics in the subtitle and how often they intersect. “ Eat My Schwartz: Our Story of NFL Football, Food, Family, and Faith” lands in stores and online September 6. The cover of “Eat My Schwartz,” by Geoff and Mitch Schwartz.
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