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From The Iron Curtain to the Grid Iron
Tom Klaban’s father told him to jump – he did. Over the Iron Curtain and into the Free World. It made his entire family into Cold War refugees.
With his eye on America and its dream, Tom’s journey took him from refugee camps, the trauma of immigration and to play for Ohio State Buckeyes.
The Iconic Woody Hayes didn’t play a kicking game… until he saw the sidewinder.
The Sidewinder is the true story of the Klaban family’s ten-year plan to escape the oppression of communism from behind the Iron Curtain, only to find themselves in the grueling refugee camps of free Europe. Channeling an unwavering hope and hiding a double life, Oldrich guides his family through Cold War Europe to the land of his dreams: America.
In Karlovy Vary in a picturesque corner of Soviet occupied Czechoslovakia, the Klabans are persecuted for their religious beliefs, pelted with rocks by mobs and stalked by the secret police. The devout Brigitte watches in horror as her children are indoctrinated into the communist ideology. Still, the promise of freedom beckons the family to embark on a dangerous escape and a great leap of faith.
The Sidewinder is the story of the price of that dream for young Tom and his family – the hunger, the loneliness, and the ongoing struggle to assimilate – and its rewards. Unlikely, funny, tragic and poignant, it is the story of a refugee who’d never seen a football until high school yet was determined to kick for the Ohio State Buckeyes. The legendary Woody Hayes called him “the sidewinder” and it changed the way he’d coach the game of football.
This book is dedicated to refugees the world over. Those that uprooted their families and sacrificed everything for a chance at freedom. and those who are still living under oppressive regimes. May they find the strength to follow their dream.
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