Tampa Bay Bucs cornerback Ronde Barber, 33, has teamed up with twin brother Tiki for their fifth book, a tweener chapter book called "Go Long!'' Ronde is still picking off passes on the Bucs defense, while brother Tiki is in his second year as a broadcaster after retiring from the New York Giants."Go Long!'' takes place in Tiki and Ronde's second year on their junior high football team. The team has hopes for a state championship but then their coach moves up to the high school team. The science teacher is tapped for the coaching job, the quarterback is being a jerk and team morale is in the pits.We talked with Ronde Barber by phone from New York, where the wonder twins were on a media blitz for the book, which came out this week.-- Question: So this is your fifth book with your brother. How did this start?-- Ronde Barber: It was Simon & Schuster that first approached us and we did three picture books. This is our second chapter book dealing with that tween age, that confusing age. It's loosely based on our life. Our junior high coach went to be head coach of high school, so that actually happened.-- Q: There's a scene where you switch jerseys and you go to a team meeting pretending to be Tiki. Did you guys ever pull a stunt like that?-- Barber: Sometimes we switched jerseys to go see what they were talking about in offensive meetings and defensive meetings in college. But we didn't get away with it much. And we were too shy to do that when we were younger.-- Q: So where do you stand on dressing twins alike?-- Barber: Hate it. My mom, at least she dressed us in different colors. It might be the same outfit, but different colors. You should be your own person.-- Q: What's the writing process like?-- Barber: We work closely with Paul Mantell, our ghostwriter. We lay out an outline and how we want the book to go and he tailors the story to it. We make corrections to make sure it seems plausible. But really it's an easy process. I'm just a glorified proofreader. Paul does the hard work.-- Q: Well, that's honest.-- Barber: Are you kidding me? I'm not over here sitting at a computer hammering it out. It would be a complete disservice not to honor what Paul has done.-- Q: So does it still seem odd that your brother is retired?-- Barber: Last year was more of an adjustment. One of the hardest parts for me was that when we were playing together, him playing football motivated me. People don't really get that since we didn't play on the same team, but that was hard for me.-- Q: But you don't have any thoughts of retirement yet?-- Barber: I think retirement just comes and punches you in the face one day. (Tiki) knew what he wanted to do when he retired. I still love the game and I don't have that second part quite so planned out. I'm not ready for Plan B.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service www.scrippsnews.com)
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