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Tom Callahan, a former senior writer at Time magazine and sports columnist at the Washington Post, is the author of eight books, including The GM and the New York Times bestseller Johnny U. He lives in Reston, Virginia.

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Associated Works

Dark City Lights: New York Stories (2015) — Bidragyder — 22 eksemplarer

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I was not familiar to Tom Callahan or his sports writing prior to this book. I did enjoy this book with stories about Muhammed Ali, Pete Rose, Arthur Ashe, Oscar Robertson, Roberto Clemente, Bill Walton, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and many others. The stories were not recaps of what the various athletes did on the field, or courts, or diamond etc . as they were personal glimpses into their personalities, motivations and how they dealt with the press and the public.

Callahan described the superstars as people more than athletes. The reader comes away admiring Roberto Clemente, Arthur Ashe, Ali and Bob Cousy for their humanitarianism and humility. 90% of the book was very interesting to me. I wasn’t interested in the horse racing stories for example.

I was particularly moved by how Bob Cousy took care of his wife who had suffered dementia for many years. Very touching...

261 pages. Very good read...Very good sports book and stories.
… (mere)
 
Markeret
writemoves | Oct 26, 2021 |
I love reading about football, football history, and great players of the past, so I very much enjoyed this biography of John Unitas (1933-2002), one of the best quarterbacks in professional football history.

First a little bit about Johnny U. Unitas grew up in a hard scrabble environment in Pittsburgh. His father died when he was five and his mother and older brother worked hard to keep the family intact. Unitas was a bit light for a football player but was the starting quarterback for his high school. His dream was to play for Notre Dame but he couldn't get in so he went on to play at the University of Louisville in the early 1950's. While the team didn't do very well, Unitas did and his jersey number (#16) is the only one retired by that school. In 1955 Unitas was drafted in the 9th round by the Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL but was soon cut and ended up playing in a semi-pro league around Pittsburgh. Through the football grapevine the Baltimore Colts brought Unitas in for a tryout in 1956 and was signed to back up starter George Shaw. Shaw went down in the forth game and Unitas held on to the starting job, except when injured, from 1956-1972.

Unitas won 3 NFL championships in his career - the first which many consider to be the most pivotal professional football game ever played - the 1958 NFL Championship where the Baltimore Colts defeated the New York Giants 23-17 in the first overtime game in NFL history. The game was televised nationwide and many credit the game for drawing the public's attention to the National Football League and as the launching pad for today's lucrative television contracts and the sport's wide popularity. Some still refer to this game as the "Greatest Game Ever Played." Unitas was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979 and is one of four quarterbacks on the NFL's 75th Anniversary All Time Team. (Note I am counting the 1958 and 1959 NFL Championships, which preceded the creation of the Super Bowl, and Super Bowl V as the Colts 3 NFL Championships. I am not counting the 1968 NFL Championship as the Colts lost to the New York Jets in Super Bowl III and Unitas was hurt that year and rarely played.)

Callahan says in his introduction that he sets out to write not just a biography of John Unitas but also to give the reader a sense of what it was like to be a professional football player in the 1950's and 1960's. As a biography of Unitas, Callahan is quite successful. We see Unitas not only through his own eyes, but through the eyes of the players, coaches, family, and friends who knew him. He really brings to life the personality, toughness, smarts, and perseverance that made Unitas the great quarterback and team leader he was throughout his career. The biography also includes interesting short vignettes on other great players on those Colts teams like Gino Marchetti, Eugene "Big Daddy" Lipscomb, Art Donovan, and Jim Parker, to name a few.

Callahan is mostly successful at giving the reader an idea of what it was like to be a player in the 1950's and 1960's, although the way he does so is one of the biggest drawbacks of the biography. The structure and writing is sometimes rather disjointed and not well structured. There are too many asides, long parenthetical comments, or chapters that drift looking backward in time, or in the future, and then coming back to the main point, which was a little frustrating for this reader. While I do not expect a completely linear book - I felt the author could have done a better job of being a bit more seamless in the storytelling.

This drawback aside Callahan does provide one crucial insight - that the players of that era, unlike today, really were part of the community (at least the Colts' players were). Since players made much less money back then a lot of them worked in the off season. Thus they lived, and often worked, in the communities where they played football. Further, they often lived in modest homes among everyday citizens, not tucked away in mansions or high income neighborhoods. As a result, the community became very attached to the organization and the players, and often vice versa. The depiction of the long, historical, close relationship between the Colts and the city of Baltimore really brought home what an awful event losing the team was to the city.

Finally, I have to mention that probably the best chapter was the one dedicated to the 1958 Championship Game. It's told from the perspective of the Colts, not the Giants, and is a game that demonstrated Unitas' leadership in pulling out a victory.

Overall, despite the jumpiness of some of the chapters, I found the biography a worthwhile and interesting reading experience and would recommend it to those who want to know a bit more about Johnny U and his Baltimore Colts.

[Reviewer Note: Author Tom Callahan is a journalist and sportswriter. He has worked at both Time magazine as a senor writer and the Washington Post as a sports columnist.]
… (mere)
 
Markeret
DougBaker | 3 andre anmeldelser | Jul 24, 2019 |
Being the General Manger of a National Football League team has to be one of the most fascinating and unique jobs. I suspect if you did a story on all 32 General Managers (some of which are also the head coach, some of which have a different title) you would end up with 32 fairly unique stories with similarity in themes. This particular book focuses on Ernie Accorsi, recently retired GM of the New York Giants.

I love reading about professional football because it is fascinating to me so I did really enjoy this book, for the most part, but frankly the book is somewhat of mess. It seems the author had a lot of material and didn't quite know how to put it together.

This book really is a mini-mini biography of Ernie Accorsi and a recap of the New York Giants 2006 season. The title is very misleading. It is not about "the inside story of a dream job" because it really does not give us a lot of inside stories about being a GM. There is really very little about the real nuts and bolts of being a GM, from player evaluation, hiring and firing head coaches, managing up (the owners) and managing down (coaches and players), trade and personnel strategy, drafting strategy, et cetera. There is, of course, a little bit on these things, but noting in-depth nor particularly enlightening. It's simply a book about Accorsi and the Giants 2006 season.

The book is also somewhat disjointed, jumping around in time or topics without a nice, steady flow. In fact, while the book follows the 2006 Giants season, the drama of it beyond player, coach, and Accorsi comments gets somewhat lost.

The good thing about this book is it is an inside story of the players and coaches and Accorsi but nothing in the book is particularly revealing for surprising. For football fans, however, it's always great to get the story straight from the people involved without the manipulations of the print and electronic media that try to make controversy where none exists.

But, in the end, I would have to rate this book as below average for its misleading title and somewhat disjointed organization.

And a note for the copyeditor - John Hannah is a Hall of Fame guard of the New England Patriots, not a tackle.
… (mere)
 
Markeret
DougBaker | 1 anden anmeldelse | Jul 24, 2019 |
I loved Johnny U growing up as did most kids in the 1960s. The author filled the book with information about Johnny growing up and then playing in the NFL. The author interviewed people who knew Johnny from his playing days. All interesting, but there was nothing in the book that captivated me or made me utter, "Wow!" when I read it. The biggest reason for a lack of Wow power in the book was Johnny Unitas was a pretty conventional fellow. He did not get in trouble and just kept his nose to the football grindstone which made some for some pretty boring reading. One thumb up.… (mere)
 
Markeret
branjohb | 3 andre anmeldelser | Aug 15, 2015 |

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ISBN
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