An outstanding four-decade overview of American social history masquerading as an impossibly entertaining sports tell-all. Bestselling sportswriter Golenbock's (Wrigleyville, 1996, etc.) brilliantly conceived and executed chronicle of the Dallas Cowboys speaks volumes about modern America. Granted an expansion franchise for the 1960 season, Texas oil millionaires Clint and John Murchison set about building a top-flight organization. To this end, they hired former PR man Tex Schramm as general manager (the author calls him ``a businessman as tough as Jimmy Hoffa''), personnel manager Gil Brandt, and coach Tom Landry, a no-nonsense, fundamentalist Christian. This troika built one of the most successful—and profitable—sports franchises. But if winning was the Cowboys' trademark, then management's failure to adapt to changing times was their undoing. Through interviews and secondary sources, Golenbock charts football's evolution from sporting afterthought to big-money television spectacle; he also reveals how players metamorphosed from anonymous drudges to entertainment superstars and vocal community leaders. Golenbock's study demonstrates how players' activism helped promote social causes such as civil rights. And for this outspokenness, many Cowboys, including a large number of blacks, wound up in the coach's and managers' doghouse. Schramm's and Brandt's penuriousness occasionally derailed the Cowboys gravy train. (Had they rewarded the players who helped win the team's first Super Bowl after the 1971 season, they likely could have kept the team intact.) And Landry's inability to understand the new breed of player created deep, damaging rifts in the Cowboy organization. The comments Golenbock elicits from individuals (conspicuously absent is Landry) shows readers another side of sports, and makes the business seem tawdry and dehumanizing. If this book has one fault, it's that it seems mostly to side with the players. But if even half of what they say is true, then it's small wonder. Should not be missed. (16 b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Aug. 28, 1997
ISBN: 0-446-51950-2
Page Count: 848
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1997
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.
NBA legends Bird and Johnson, fierce rivals during their playing days, team up on a mutual career retrospective.
With megastars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and international superstars like China’s Yao Ming pushing it to ever-greater heights of popularity today, it’s difficult to imagine the NBA in 1979, when financial problems, drug scandals and racial issues threatened to destroy the fledgling league. Fortunately, that year marked the coming of two young saviors—one a flashy, charismatic African-American and the other a cocky, blond, self-described “hick.” Arriving fresh off a showdown in the NCAA championship game in which Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans defeated Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores—still the highest-rated college basketball game ever—the duo changed the course of history not just for the league, but the sport itself. While the pair’s on-court accomplishments have been exhaustively chronicled, the narrative hook here is unprecedented insight and commentary from the stars themselves on their unique relationship, a compelling mixture of bitter rivalry and mutual admiration. This snapshot of their respective careers delves with varying degrees of depth into the lives of each man and their on- and off-court achievements, including the historic championship games between Johnson’s Lakers and Bird’s Celtics, their trailblazing endorsement deals and Johnson’s stunning announcement in 1991 that he had tested positive for HIV. Ironically, this nostalgic chronicle about the two men who, along with Michael Jordan, turned more fans onto NBA basketball than any other players, will likely appeal primarily to a narrow cross-section of readers: Bird/Magic fans and hardcore hoop-heads.
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-547-22547-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.
A basketball legend reflects on his life in the game and a life lived in the “nightmare of endlessly repetitive and constant pain, agony, and guilt.”
Walton (Nothing but Net, 1994, etc.) begins this memoir on the floor—literally: “I have been living on the floor for most of the last two and a half years, unable to move.” In 2008, he suffered a catastrophic spinal collapse. “My spine will no longer hold me,” he writes. Thirty-seven orthopedic injuries, stemming from the fact that he had malformed feet, led to an endless string of stress fractures. As he notes, Walton is “the most injured athlete in the history of sports.” Over the years, he had ground his lower extremities “down to dust.” Walton’s memoir is two interwoven stories. The first is about his lifelong love of basketball, the second, his lifelong battle with injuries and pain. He had his first operation when he was 14, for a knee hurt in a basketball game. As he chronicles his distinguished career in the game, from high school to college to the NBA, he punctuates that story with a parallel one that chronicles at each juncture the injuries he suffered and overcame until he could no longer play, eventually turning to a successful broadcasting career (which helped his stuttering problem). Thanks to successful experimental spinal fusion surgery, he’s now pain-free. And then there’s the music he loves, especially the Grateful Dead’s; it accompanies both stories like a soundtrack playing off in the distance. Walton tends to get long-winded at times, but that won’t be news to anyone who watches his broadcasts, and those who have been afflicted with lifelong injuries will find the book uplifting and inspirational. Basketball fans will relish Walton’s acumen and insights into the game as well as his stories about players, coaches (especially John Wooden), and games, all told in Walton’s fervent, witty style.
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1686-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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