PHOTO: ILLUSTRATION BY PAUL COLIN/WSJ (PHOTOS: ZUMA PRESS; GETTY IMAGES)

What do professional football players talk about in their locker rooms? If they play for the Indianapolis Colts, it might very well be the Napoleonic wars or the Iliad (“the funny stuff in there, the great action”).

The Wall Street Journal‘s Kevin Clark reported that quarterback Andrew Luck—known for offering sincere, enthusiastic, and totally baffling congratulations to his opponents after a good play, such as, after being sacked, telling the opponent who knocked him down “What a hit!”—has also earned a bit of a reputation among his teammates “as the Colts’ very own librarian.”

His recent locker room recommendations have included Rob Lowe’s autobiography Stories I Only Tell My Friends, Laura Hillenbrand’s major bestseller Unbroken, and The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, Jonas Jonasson’s novel about the adventures of a man who sneaks out of his own nursing home. Luck’s all-time favorite book, he told The Indianapolis Star in 2012, is Henri Charrière’s Papillon.

In another interview with Luck, The Indianapolis Star‘s Dana Hunsinger Benbow suggested that “not that many guys in the NFL” read as much as Luck, but Luck was quick to add, “You’d be surprised. . .I think it’s unfair. . .the stigma we don’t read or whatever, you know?”

Other NFL players are making their reading habits known, too. David Bruton of the Denver Broncos is the founder of Bruton’s Books, a foundation that provides books to underfunded schools and libraries. Oakland Raiders defensive end Justin Tuck is a children’s book author as well as co-founder (with his wife, Lauran) of  Tuck’s R.U.S.H. for Literacy, which has programs in Alabama, New York, New Jersey, and California.