Legs Hearts Minds

Loss and Its Remedies

By: Chris Jones

Narrated by: Chris Jones

In this raw, potent memoir of heartbreak and the life-saving power of fandom, an award-winning sports journalist tells the story of how he hit rock bottom—and the unlikely, unlucky soccer team that would carry him through.

“Legs Hearts Minds might just be the greatest fan memoir ever written—blazingly honest and sneakily soulful, it finally captures in words the redemptive power of sports.”—Franklin Foer, author of How Soccer Explains the World

Returning home from a long trip for ESPN, too jet-lagged to sleep, Chris Jones opened his wife’s laptop to get a little writing done. Instead, he found a series of text messages that would burn his marriage—and his world—to the ground. “In the span of twenty minutes,” Jones writes, “I lost my wife and my best friend. In the coming weeks and months, I would lose my house, half my money, and some equal measure of my boys. That wicked morning, that terrible dawn, I watched the sun peel back the longest night of my life, and I felt my anger already making room for sadness, fear, disbelief. I was forty-two years old. Nothing true of my life would be true again.”

Overwhelmed by sorrow and rage, Jones contemplated suicide. He fought to carry on, for his two sons if no one else, only to end up in an emergency room. To return to himself, he embarked on a journey to understand who he is and the mistakes he has made, to let go of anger and find forgiveness, and to give himself over to something: an underdog English soccer team from an underdog northern town called Burnley, forever destined to also-ran status. Following Burnley mirrored the ups and downs of the rest of his life, and Jones began taking the team’s lessons as his own. Together, they would navigate the long journey from hope to despair back to hope again.

How do we rebuild a life? Can something as simple as soccer give us a reason to live, offering solace and ultimately meaning? In this searing memoir, Chris Jones reveals how his love for the game brought him joy, connection, and purpose when he needed it most.

Critic reviews

“Legs Hearts Minds might just be the greatest fan memoir ever written—blazingly honest and sneakily soulful, it finally captures in words the redemptive power of sports.”—Franklin Foer, author of How Soccer Explains the World

“How do you begin again—then again once more? In Legs Hearts Minds, Chris Jones doesn’t merely pose a universal question with the earnestness and fearlessness of one of our generation’s greatest writers. He turns it into a soulful journey, across continents and deep into his own psyche, with prose so precise, elegant, and sincere that his pain, joy, rage, love, truth—and, most of all, obsession with his English soccer club—serve as reminders that, no matter how often we must start over, we’re never truly alone.”—Seth Wickersham, ESPN Senior Writer and New York Times bestselling author

“Chris Jones has suffered dearly, and the pages you are about to read bleed it. Legs Hearts Minds is the blessed convergence of brilliant writing and blistering truthfulness. The tears come. First out of sadness, then out of joy.”—Jeff Pearlman, author of Only God Can Judge Me

“This is the truest book about sports fandom that has been or ever will be written. But that’s an almost incidental byproduct, so much narrative exhaust, of a story that is so much bigger. So much more universal. This is a book about being a human being on planet Earth.”—Wright Thompson, author of The Cost of These Dreams

“Legs Hearts Minds is an arresting account of humanity, making us dive headfirst into the dark chambers of vulnerability that cause us the most discomfort. Chris’ willingness to share such uncomfortable truths is an example of radical honesty and transparency. This book isn’t a guide, as much as it is an invitation to confront our deepest fears.”—Jemele Hill, Emmy Award-winning journalist, author of the memoir Uphill, and contributing writer for The Atlantic