Three-Week Professionals

Reviews / Votes

Veteran sportswriter Kluck recalls the drama and miscues of the 1987 NFL Players strike, when the owners put anyone who could suit up on the gridiron to give the fans their Sunday spectacle. As a boy of 11, he worshipped the National Football League mystique and its legendary players, and was stunned by the 24-day work stoppage as the teams demanded a better wage and the right to seek free agency. Kluck's wandering narrative captures the true spirit of the hapless recruiting methods of the 'scab' squads, the union's hardball tactics, the public's refusal to accept the game's amateurs, and the owners' reluctance to negotiate. Kluck profiles some of the strike breakers, including football vets Mark Gastineau and Lawrence Taylor and even future rap exec Marion 'Suge' Knight, and concludes the quality of play was 'painful to watch, with fumbles, bad punt snaps and dropped passes.' * Publishers Weekly * After a players' strike in 1982 cut seven weeks of the season, NFL owners decided not to allow that to happen again. When players went on strike in 1987, owners used 'replacement' players, or 'scabs.' These three weeks of replacement player football were among the strangest times in NFL history, according to Kluck, resembling a second preseason with regard to the quality of play. The author tracked down hard-to-find videos of the games and several participants who tell a tale of fleeting fame and, for some, a tangible career. Replacements ranged from men brought in from tryouts to players cut in training camp and veterans who crossed the picket line because they didn't believe in the strike. In his interviews, Kluck reflects on the experiences of the players, while also exploring the differing approaches of various coaches and teams. The author, a former minor league football player, goes far afield at times, inserting his own experiences and perceptions while decrying today's environment of social media, the NFL Network, and fantasy football compared to the less cluttered sport of 1987. VERDICT A short, enjoyable book on a niche topic of interest to professional football fans. * Library Journal * Ted Kluck has researched this three-week time frame back in 1987 and written one of the most comprehensive books on this brief interlude of the NFL history. Mr. Kluck combines many interviews with former players and by watching actual TV broadcasts of those games to develop this analysis of those three weeks. His interviews with former players were an exceptional read as we were brought back in time to understand more fully what was actually happening between the players and the owners. . . .This book was written in a crisp and concise manner. It also presented the true human face and condition of the replacement players and their quest for legitimacy for their brief careers in the NFL. This part of true NFL history has been overlooked for many years and in my opinion been kept quiet for too long. This book is an essential read for anyone who enjoys football and the NFL. * Gridiron Greats * Three-Week Professionals is significant because it evaluates the players' strike through the voices of those who lived it, recognizing oral history as an important methodology for the study of sport. . . .In the end, Ted Kluck's Three-Week Professionals: Inside the 1987 NFL Players' Strike, like The Replacements, makes us want to know more about this bizarre moment in NFL history. A period in which Sean Payton, now a Super Bowl winning coach, would become a Chicago Bear and previous NFL coaching great Mike Ditka would applaud such men and replacement play as the embodiment of the American Dream. Nightmare or dream, stain on the NFL or surprisingly interesting football, Kluck must be applauded for humanizing those who participated in this event. In a time when American pop culture is perhaps more interested in creating villains than upholding heroes, his work is a refreshing reminder of how NFL players - then and now - are foremost everyday people. * Sport in American History * Ted Kluck has captured the essence of one of the most important, and least understood, parts of professional football's history. His human examination of the replacement players and his honest appraisal of the union relationship with the league and blue collar America are fascinating. Great read! -- Nick Eyde, actor and former professional quarterback I grew up a few blocks from the Metrodome where the Minnesota Vikings played for over 30 years and have been a fan since I first saw John Randle with his crazy war paint. I knew that in 1987 there had been a strike and that replacement players were involved, but that's about all I knew. Turns out it's a fascinating story featuring a slew of interesting, admirable, and hard-working men. As a former football player in various professional and semi-pro leagues, Ted Kluck writes as someone who knows the lives of these players and respects their stories. Kluck has done the archaeological digging and artful telling of this important and little-known era of NFL history. It's a wonderful read for anyone who takes joy in pro football. -- Barnabas Piper, author and World Magazine sports columnist In Three-Week Professionals, Ted Kluck pulls back the curtain on a time that the NFL would like everyone to forget about: the 1987 players strike and the use of replacement players for three games. For those of us who remember that time, the book takes us back to a simpler time in sports when there was no NFL Network or 24-hour sports coverage on television or the Internet. For readers who are too young to recall the '87 strike themselves it will open their eyes to a disturbing chapter in NFL history. By viewing game footage from that three-week period and interviewing players who actually played in the replacement games, Kluck pieces together the long-forgotten events of October 1987 and sheds new light on the effects the games had on those who played, and those who walked the picket line. -- Randy Snow, member of the Pro Football Researchers Association and webmaster of TheWorldofFootball.com The story of the 1987 National Football League replacement games is one that deserves to be told, rather than swept under the rug. These were NFL players for a time, no matter if you or I or anyone likes how it happened. Ted Kluck is telling a story of professional football history that needs to be preserved. -- Dusty Sloan, Sports Information Director, Ashland University