A fittingly exhaustive history of a larger-than-life franchise.
Texas journalist and author Patoski (Willie Nelson: An Epic Life, 2008, etc.) delivers an oversized history of one of sport’s greatest franchises.
The Dallas Cowboys’ on-field achievements—five Super Bowl wins, 10 conference championships, 21 division titles and 30 playoff appearances in their 52-year history—have arguably been overshadowed by their impact on professional football and popular culture in general, earning them the nickname “America’s Team.” Patoski’s in-depth study gives readers everything they want to know about “The Boys” and much more, from the field to the front office, the media and, of course, the famous Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. The author also tracks the parallel development of the city of Dallas, with a focus on business and politics. For a book about a football team, there’s surprisingly little football, though the author briefly recaps the triumphs and tragedies of star players like Don Meredith, Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin and Emmitt Smith. Patoski barely mentions the subpar teams of the 1980s, though he does document the most recent edition’s struggles, highlighted by the drama surrounding talented and camera-friendly quarterback Tony Romo. Patoski spends a surprising amount of time discussing the media coverage of the team, but the majority of the narrative belongs to the ownership and front office, with the first two-thirds dominated by the man most responsible for the Cowboys’ success and for much of what an NFL franchise looks like today, team president and general manager Tex Schramm. Schramm and legendary coach Tom Landry got pushed out when “reptilian” Arkansas oil-and-gas baron Jerry Jones, a cartoon villain of a franchise owner, purchased the team in 1989, beginning the modern era of the Cowboys and keeping them in the headlines with controversy and equal measures of success and failure on and off the gridiron.
A fittingly exhaustive history of a larger-than-life franchise.Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-316-07755-2
Page Count: 816
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 8, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
Another work of Boston sports hagiography from one of the jock beat's leading home teamers. For nearly 40 years, Arnold ``Red'' Auerbach ran the show, trademark cigar in hand, for the emerald-clad Boston Celtics. Serving as coach from 1950 to 1966, then as general manager and unopposed despot until 1990 or so (he is still on the payroll as a consultant), Red guided the Hub's beloved Jolly Green Giants to 16 NBA championships, including an amazing streak of titles running from 195966. So successful was the team that Auerbach's effective coaching and astute talent assessment—he acquired many of the game's greatest players, including Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, John Havlicek, and Larry Bird (who wrote the book's foreword)—were dismissed by foes as ``The Celtics Mystique.'' During Red's time at the top, the NBA grew from a barnstorming curiosity to a multi- billion-dollar global enterprise, and it would be hard to overstate his influence on the game—but Shaughnessy (The Curse of the Bambino, 1990) very nearly succeeds. While he does show Auerbach's cantankerous and occasionally pig-headed side, the author essentially presents to readers little more than a mash note loaded with anecdotes about Red's cigar-chompin', ref-baitin', hell- drivin' virtuosity. Not merely a great x's and o's guy (the NBA annually presents the Red Auerbach award to its outstanding coach), he is in Shaughnessy's presentation basketball's Moses, the man who led the game out of darkness. Non-Celtics fans might want to skim many passages to get to the parts where Red sagely catalogues the game's changes—for example, his observation that ballplayers ``used to come to practice with gym bags; now they come with attachÇ cases.'' At 77, Red has slowed a bit: He's no longer the preeminent judge of talent, and he's down to two or three stogies a day. But as long as guys like Shaughnessy can hold a pen, it's always Red's game; anyone else just came to play. (8 pages photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 9, 1994
ISBN: 0-517-59680-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Weber (European History/UCLA; France, Fin de Siäcle, 1986; etc.) skillfully paints a somber portrait of France in decline. War and the threat of war shaped France in the 1930s. Though the nominal victor of WW I, France never recovered from losing over a million dead and over three million wounded. About the inert Depression-era French economy, Weber reflects that ``the spirit of Thomas Malthus ruled over the land.'' With a less dynamic economy and a significantly lower rate of postwar population growth than Germany, Italy, or Britain, France produced a succession of leaders, such as Edouard Daladier and LÇon Blum, who reflected the country itself: conservative, backward-looking, irresolute, and determined to avoid another war with Germany at all costs. Weber notes the familiar diplomatic, economic, and political indicators of France's decline in the 1930s—its fractured politics, its failure to oppose a resurgent Germany, the repudiation of its American debt from WW I, its fatal pacifism in the face of German aggression. But he focuses primarily on social and cultural history. A significant drop in the servant population, greater urbanization of what had been a predominantly agrarian economy, the falling value of the franc, and labor legislation all had transformative effects. Nonetheless, some things changed very slowly. The emancipation of women, Weber notes, was ``slow, patchy, and indirect,'' with women receiving the ability to take legal action without their husbands' consent only in 1938, and the vote in 1945. With France's decline as a great power, people became preoccupied with sports, films, and religion (Weber describes the religious revival of the period as the ``Indian Summer'' of French Catholicism); xenophobia and anti-Semitism became more pronounced as economic conditions worsened. In the end, the hollow years gave way to a war for which France was unprepared, and to years of occupation. An eloquent and thoughtful look at France in the interwar period.
Pub Date: Nov. 14, 1994
ISBN: 0-393-03671-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
