Although the prose can plod, the information and insights engage in a rousing race for the end zone.
Three academics from Marquette University, one of whom (Koonce) is a former NFL player, apply some sociological techniques to analyzing the situations of ex–NFL players.
Readers hoping for either excoriations or excuses will find both in the authors’ reasoned and reasonable approach. “When a player leaves the league, everything changes,” write the authors. But those changes are neither uniform nor particularly predictable. Some, of course, end up in dire financial straits; others (OJ Simpson, “Mercury” Morris, Lawrence Taylor) appear in criminal courts; still others (Jim McMahon, Earl Campbell) suffer serious, lingering physical and mental consequences of participation in their violent sport. But the authors—though they shine a harsh light on the cases of failure (including an entire chapter on injuries)—also highlight the success stories of many retired players, Koonce’s included (he went back to school, earned a doctorate and served as the athletic director at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). Koonce’s story remains a touchstone throughout. We hear about the cases of ex-players who earn advanced degrees, succeed in the business world and participate heavily in philanthropy. But we also learn some facts about standard NFL contracts (once players are released, their salaries end), health insurance, retirement benefits (which commence at 55) and the amazingly short careers of most players: The average is 3.5 years. The authors also expose the enormous peer pressure among active players to spend their money and live large. Few young men (especially since many of them come from modest, often poor backgrounds) can resist such temptations. The authors also look at the family lives of players (perhaps surprisingly: Most remain married)—and at the difficult experiences that players’ wives have: They are responsible for just about everything quotidian during a player’s active career.
Although the prose can plod, the information and insights engage in a rousing race for the end zone.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1479862863
Page Count: 336
Publisher: New York Univ.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
The athletes and their story deserve better.
An American doctor covers the trials of the men who bioengineered East Germany’s champion swim teams.
Ungerleider, a sports doctor and consultant who obviously knows his way around international athletics, sets out to document the prosecution of the East German officials responsible for plying hundreds of teenage athletes with steroids during the cold war. Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, the East German state developed a program of “supportive measures”—a euphemism for drug and doping treatments—that were used to turn promising teenagers into überathletes who dominated Olympic and international competitions. In addition to broad backs and low swim times, however, the drugs also led to exaggerated male sexual characteristics in women, devastating psychological traumas, serious long-term health problems, and a rash of birth defects. Now, led by Professor Werner Franke, a crusading scientist, and Brigitte Berendonk, a former swimmer, many of the doped athletes are bringing civil and criminal suits against the doctors and trainers who gave them the little blue pills in the first place. Ungerleider has a great story: a tragedy with ties to the Holocaust, communism, nationalism, science, justice, feminism, and the other epic themes of the 20th century. Unfortunately he botches it terribly, and the end result is little more than an overblown, repetitive magazine article with no apparent organizational principle and writing so bad one wonders if it was just shoddily translated from German. The legal context of the trials is never explained, the narrative is nearly impossible to follow, and even the medical science dissolves into static. It makes things only worse that the babble is interspersed with snippets that strive for the heroic and fall miserably short.
The athletes and their story deserve better.Pub Date: July 20, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-26977-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
Football star Joe Don Looney—an All-American running back in the early 1960's—had, according to Oklahoma attorney Clark, ``the tools to be the next Jim Brown.'' But as Clark shows in this smoothly written, riveting biography, Looney's brand of nonconformity and manic temperament was not readily accommodated 30 years ago. An early advocate of weightlifting and steroids for football training, Looney was also ahead of his time in his devotion to yoga and meditation. Even so, he indulged in drinking and brawling that, despite his prowess as a runner and punter, got him dismissed from several secondary schools. Arriving in 1962 at the University of Oklahoma, Looney—a ``fun-loving reckless hell-raiser'' who was also a ``melancholy existentialist''—clashed with Coach Bud Wilkinson, whose football program still ``had a distinctive military air to it.'' Looney's penchant for guns and fighting, his petulant refusals to practice, and his bridling against becoming ``a mindless grunt'' led to his dismissal from the team—but his extraordinary potential and on-field record convinced the New York Giants to draft him. Looney balked at the pro regimen, however, and was soon traded to the Baltimore Colts, where his ``performances were awesome.'' But after a series of disturbing incidents— including his arrest for kicking in a neighbor's door—he was traded again. Nagging injuries, lack of interest in playing, and further off-the-field difficulties pushed Looney out of football by 1967. A brief stint in Vietnam renewed his interest in Buddhism but also led him to marijuana and psychedelic drugs, and his life became one of messy relationships and marital problems, of drifting to India, Peru, and back to Texas—although, before his death in 1988 in a motorcycle accident, he found some peace as a disciple of the mystic Muktananda. A well-researched, in-depth study of a most unusual athlete: one of the best—and most fascinating—sports bios in years. (Sixteen-page photo insert—not seen)
Pub Date: Aug. 16, 1993
ISBN: 0-312-07870-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1993
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