Personal and often heartfelt reflections from Butkus on his love-hate relationship with the game of football. During the nine seasons (196573) he played middle linebacker for his hometown Chicago Bears, Butkus was one of the most feared, hated, and respected players in the NFL. He was one of the rare players whose very presence on the field changed forever the nature of his position. And in this frank and understated memoir, Butkus reveals how he came to play this way. By his own account, he was able to bottle up anger from Monday through Saturday and release it on the gridiron come Sunday. Naturally, this anger occasionally needed to be vented in other ways, all of which Butkus makes sound both logical and interesting: He liked to engage occasionally in boozy hi-jinks with friends and colleagues; he goaded the many sportswriters he mistrusted, especially Sports Illustrated's Dan Jenkins, who, he says, ``blindsided'' him in an article that labeled him ``A Special Kind of Brute with a Love of Violence''; he often bickered during salary negotiations with the Bears' autocratic owner and coach-for-life, George Halas. Despite pain and indignities suffered on and off the field, Butkus's enthusiasm for the game seldom waned. He notes the lasting impact of other players and coaches, among them his Bears teammate, Hall of Fame tailback Gayle Sayers; Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas (``the best quarterback of my time—maybe of all time''); and his one-time Bears defensive coach, George Allen. Butkus's obvious love of the game infuses with drama the chapters describing his decline as a player. Thankfully, he does not belabor us with too much detail about his post-football life and acting career, topics that he seems tacitly to acknowledge are more interesting to him than to his readers. A perceptive and occasionally humorous view from the trenches of a great era in pro football. (20 b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 3, 1997
ISBN: 0-385-48648-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1997
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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