Colts quarterback Andrew Luck is sharing his love of reading
After missing all of last season with a shoulder injury, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck has gotten his team to the playoffs for the first time since the 2014 season. While he has put together an MVP-caliber season, Luck also finds time to encourage fans young and old to join him in one of his favorite pastimes: reading.
"I don't think I have a conscious, revelation, memory of 'Oh the first time I read a book was here or there,'" Luck told "CBS This Morning: Saturday'" co-host Dana Jacobson. "I just always remember enjoying reading, and there were always books in our house."
Whether it was during his college years playing football at Stanford or now in the NFL, Luck said his passion for reading has never dwindled, even when his time to do so has.
"I certainly don't read as much when I'm in season," Luck said. "There is no time, maybe ten minutes before bed to just clear my mind, and I've always felt like it's helped me sleep. Obviously football, maybe, takes up more of my life, and that's OK because I love it and I enjoy doing it. I think like anybody, what you love doing, what you enjoy doing, it does become a part of who you are."
Luck is now sharing that part more formally. The Andrew Luck Book Club will celebrate its third anniversary this April.
The club has monthly reading choices for both "veterans" and "rookies," and since the club is based on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, interaction is easy.
"I just choose a book, or two books -- a rookie and a veteran book a month," Luck said. "I try to keep it very simple. Rookies generally are the books I read as a child. And then the veteran books are sort of what I'm reading now, and I thought that would be a fun way to maybe encourage people who wouldn't read, to read and pick it."
Some of those people being Luck's teammates. Punter Jeff Locke was with the Colts during part of training camp in 2017.
"He has so much going on," Locke said of Luck. "He has a huge playbook to study. He's helping players. He's doing all of these other things in the community and to picture him going home and reading a couple chapters every night and then being able to interact with his fans about the book. He actually interviews and does a podcast with the authors."
"The podcasts have really been a thrill, to talk to authors," Luck said. "I think it's such a cool thing. And I've become a fanboy pretty much, talking to an author."
But Luck said there's something that leaves a bigger mark on him than talking to authors.
"The most impactful thing for me has been the opportunity to go to a classroom, or nursery school, or somewhere in the community, and read with or to kids," Luck said. "The majority of the kids have no idea who I am. I think some of them, the older ones maybe do. When they know, I think they get very excited. But as soon as I start reading, they are into the book."
Ultimately, Luck hopes he can help people find their own love for books.
"The goal is that if one kid would pick up a book that maybe otherwise wouldn't have and they have fun reading it -- that to me would be a good day," he said. "It's just really truly, simply to encourage someone to pick up a book and read that maybe hasn't before for whatever reason."
