Before he penned the blockbuster hit Black Hawk Down, Kennett Square author Mark Bowden covered the Philadelphia Eagles for years in a rather unusual way, writes Mike Sielski for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Bowden followed the team from 1990 through 1992. He mostly ignored the usual transactions, position changes, and press conference quips that make a huge part of daily NFL reporting. Instead, he focused on learning as much as he could about how the athletes and coaches lived and played.

In his recurring column, Inside the Game, the author would choose a particular player to focus on each week. After the game, he would sit down with that player to try and understand and help his readers understand what was going on on the field.

“They know their job better than I ever could,” said Bowden. “So if I wanted to understand their world, I needed to listen to them.”

He rounded out his tenure with the 1994 book, Bringing the Heat. It is his chronicle of the franchise’s history at the start of the 1990s and the second of his 16 books.

Read more about author Mark Bowden and his accomplishments in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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