OUT OF CONTROL: Confessions of an NFL Casualty

by Thomas Hollywood & Peter Knobler Henderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 4, 1987

Hollywood"" Henderson, the hard-hitting, bad-talking Dallas Cowboy defenseman who was the first NFL player to go public with a drug problem, tells the compelling, often ugly tale of his rise and fall. After a slum-tough boyhood in Austin, Tx., Henderson talks his way into Langston Univ., where he distinguishes himself as a go-for-broke defenseman on an upstart football team. Drafted in the first round by the Dallas Cowboys in 1975, Henderson talks back to his coaches and scorns the three-inch-fat Cowboy playbook. But his speed and fierce hitting prevail, and he becomes a key man on the specialty teams (punt, punt return, etc.). The underdog Cowboys make the Super Bowl, and, about now, Henderson tries cocaine for the first time. For a while, life's a nonstop high: his power and drive are winning him respect and playing time, he's batting ""a thousand"" with the Dallas women, and his brash fighting words are splashed all over the newspapers. But cocaine proves the most tenacious of his hobbies, to the point that he brings a nasal inhaler of cocaine solution onto the field in the '79 Super Bowl. Edged off the Cowboys and ravaged by injuries, Henderson is freebasing while he does short stints with other teams. A first attempt at rehabilitation fails; a broken neck, a sex offense charge, and renewed freebasing precede his second--successful--bout of treatment. For those with the stomach to stand Henderson's still-voracious ego, there's much of interest: skillfully re-created football action, player's-view portraits of coaching legends (Landry, Ditka, Shula), and graphic accounts of the searing physical pain that prompted team doctors to pump their players full of pain-killers. But readers looking for an easy moral or an abject spirit of apology will be disappointed: Out of Control offers no soothing or simple answers, just a harrowing tour of a relentless addiction.

Pub Date: Sept. 4, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1987

Categories: NONFICTION