Robert Kraft Celebrates National Read Across America Day with Book Donation to Foxborough Middle School

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – In celebration of National Read Across America Day, New England Patriots Chairman and CEO Robert Kraft sponsored bestselling author Mike Lupica’s visit to the Ahern Middle School Wednesday to talk about the importance of reading and writing. Kraft and Lupica’s publisher teamed up to donate a copy of the author’s book, “The Extra Yard,” to every student at the Foxborough middle school.

“Thank you to Robert Kraft, the Kraft Group and Mike Lupica for putting a book in every student’s hands today,” said Ahern Middle School Principal Susan Abrams.

Lupica, who has written 20 sports-themed novels for young readers, credited Kraft for suggesting his visit to Foxborough.

“My good friend Mr. Kraft supports so much of what I’m trying to do,” Lupica said to the assembly of 855 students. “He told me his grandchildren read my books and that I should come to Foxborough to talk about my books.”

During the assembly, Lupica shared stories on how he has made a career out of his passion for reading and writing and the lessons and inspiration that can be found in sports.

“I have the greatest job in the world to write sports stories about friendship, teamwork and loyalty,” Lupica said. “For 250-300 pages, I get to make the world of sports come out the way I want it to. I reward the good guys in my books. I want the good guys to win.”

In Lupica’s world of sports, the common theme is adversity often comes before victory and it’s how his characters get back up after falling down that resonates with his readers.

“I’m going to ask my main character, whether it’s a boy or a girl, to overcome stuff,” Lupica said.

He also draws from real-life experiences. Lupica’s inspiration for his first young readers novel, “Travel Team,” came from when his 12-year-old son was cut from a seventh grade travel basketball team because the evaluators felt he was “too short.”

“For the first time, sports was going to knock [my son] down and try to break his heart,” Lupica said. “So I decided to start a team with all of the kids that got cut from the program and was going to try to give these kids a chance to collectively get back up after getting knocked down and give them a season that they weren’t going to have.”

Lupica has also channeled inspiration from some of the greatest moments in New England sports history, including the Boston Red Sox improbable comeback win over the New York Yankees in the 2004 American League Championships Series en route to the team’s first World Series championship in 86 years and, more recently, the game-saving interception by then-unknown cornerback Malcolm Butler to secure the Patriots’ victory in Super Bowl XLIX.

“In that moment, that fast, the Patriots went from losing the Super Bowl to winning it,” Lupica said.

For Lupica, the beauty of sports are the memories made, which he told students can be the start of any novel.

“Sports is in the memory-making business,” Lupica said. “Each one of you in this gym has a novel in you. If I asked you about the best day you ever had in sports or the worst day you ever had in sports, I’d start thinking about it as a novel.”

Following his talk, Lupica participated in a Q&A with students, signed copies of his book and likely inspired many aspiring writers to reveal the novel within them.

“I definitely think he motivated some writers here,” said Foxborough Schools Superintendent Debra Spinelli. “This was a fantastic assembly for the students.