BEDNARIK: Last of the Sixty-Minute Men

Chuck Bednarik is just enough of a thick Slovak ox to conjure up dumb jock stereotypes, but he's also a football giant and much too decent a man to be patronized. It's fifteen years since his retirement from the Philadelphia Eagles and Bednarik is now a businessman, golfer, and public speaker who addresses groups like the Slovak Catholic Society. In narrating this convincing biography of a Working Class Hero who made good, McCallum can view him at home surrounded by the photos and trophies of his glory years without feeling sorry for him--a rare thing when you're dealing with an aging superstar. Bednarik's football talents--he was All-American for Penn and the #1 draft choice of the Eagles in the 1948 draft--were the only thing that saved him from fulfilling his destiny in the Bethlehem steel mills, like his father before him. On the field he played linebacker and center--one of the very few players who did double duty at offense and defense, an indestructible ""sixty-minute man."" Bednarik, whom McCallum calls one of the great ""primitives"" like Ruth or Didrikson, was never a glamorous figure and McCallum's bio glitters about as much as the concrete Bednarik now sells. But like the salesman and his product, this should be durable for the long haul.