Link: http://www.ultimatefighter.com/blog/brian-stann-s-book-a-victory

Posted by Elliot Olshansky, August 23, 2010 – 5:45 PM

Heart for the Fight, Brian Stann’s story of how he went from Navy football player to U.S. Marine to UFC fighter, is like no other sports book you’ll ever read.

And no, that’s not hyperbole.

In a sense, it should go without saying that Stann’s book would stand out from the pack. After all, it’s hard to think of another athlete, in any sport, who’s seen and done what Stann has. However, it’s not just that Stann has a remarkable story.  It’s that it’s told in a remarkable way.

Where most professional athletes work with a sportswriter when putting their stories in print, Stann opted for John R. Bruning, a professional military historian. With Bruning’s help, Stann has crafted a memoir that reads like a movie, complete with plot twists, foreshadowing, and most of all, well executed non-linear storytelling.

Early in the book, we see Stann lose the WEC light heavyweight title to Steve Cantwell. As he recovers from the loss and takes the next steps in his mixed martial arts career, we follow him back to the U.S. Naval Academy, to Iraq’s deadly Anbar Province, and to Quantico, Virginia, where at one of the lowest points in his career, Stann took the first steps towards his career in the Octagon.

Before any of that, though, we follow Stann through a fight that takes place not in a cage or on the battlefield, but on the streets of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where Stann grew up. Surrounded by gang violence from a young age, Stann walked a difficult path between joining the gangs and becoming their victim, in his words, “mainly because I didn’t want to lose my individuality.” Individuality, however, came with a price, and on one night, the price was a fight with members of a gang known as the Valley View Terrace Boys.

“Fear,” Stann writes. “It starts in the pit of your stomach, then travels up and down your spine, making every movement an effort. Raising fists, dodging a punch.”

When the focus of the story shifts to Stann’s exploits in the cage, fans of The Ultimate Fighter will notice a few familiar faces. Season 3’s Rory Singer makes an early cameo as one of Stann’s trainers, and when Stann begins training at Greg Jackson’s camp in New Mexico, fighters like Rashad Evans and Keith Jardine become key figures in Stann’s acceptance there. As Stann grows within Jackson’s system, fans get a sense of what makes Jackson and Mike Winklejohn so successful as coaches.

However, while fans may pick up Heart for the Fight for the MMA content, it’s the stories from Iraq that resonate the most, and this is as it should be. As Stann states at several points during the book, the Marines he fought with in Iraq – both those who died, and those who came home with him – are the driving force behind his MMA career, and any understanding of who Stann is as a fighter has to include the horrors he endured in Iraq.

Today, Brian Stann fights in the UFC, an organization known around the world with its slogan, “As Real As It Gets.”

However, as Heart for the Fight shows, more so than anyone who has stepped into the Octagon, Brian Stann has lived those words.