Said You Liked to Hear Me Talk, Told Me Not to Stop

Do you remember Pat Tillman? He was a former NFL player who famously quit football and joined the military after 9/11, only to die by friendly fire in Afghanistan a few years later. What I’ve always remembered about him was an anecdote from his memorial service which talked about his restless intelligence and omnivorous reading: Tillman talked about everything, with everyone. According to the speakers, he had read the Bible, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and he underlined passages constantly. Garwood recalled how he’d mail articles to friends, highlighting certain parts and writing in the margins: “Let’s discuss.” Another anecdote from a Sports Illustrated profile that I can only find quoted in a dissertation: “Who else showed up in a college assistant coach’s office at 1 a.m., asking what he thought of Mormonism with such zest that both ended up reading the Book of Mormon so they could discuss it in detail? Who else in the NFL or the U.S.…