The Last Headbangers
NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s: the Era that Created Modern Sports
Published on 27. August 2012
304 pages
978-0-393-08950-9 (ISBN)
Description
The inside story of the most colorful decade in NFL history—pro football's raging, hormonal, hairy, druggy, immortal adolescence.
Between the Immaculate Reception in 1972 and The Catch in 1982, pro football grew up. In 1972, Steelers star Franco Harris hitchhiked to practice. NFL teams roomed in skanky motels. They played on guts, painkillers, legal steroids, fury, and camaraderie. A decade later, Joe Montana's gleamingly efficient 49ers ushered in a new era: the corporate, scripted, multibillion-dollar NFL we watch today. Kevin Cook's rollicking chronicle of this pivotal decade draws on interviews with legendary players—Harris, Montana, Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach, Ken "Snake” Stabler—to re-create their heroics and off-field carousing. He shows coaches John Madden and Bill Walsh outsmarting rivals as Monday Night Football redefined sports' place in American life. Celebrating the game while lamenting the physical toll it took on football's greatest generation, Cook diagrams the NFL's transformation from second-tier sport into national obsession.More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Kevin Cook
The Last Headbangers
NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s: the Era that Created Modern Sports
Book
10/2013
WW Norton & Co
€15.50
Shipment within 15-20 days
Kevin Cook
The Last Headbangers
NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s--The Era that Created Modern Sports
Book
08/2012
WW Norton & Co
€45.99
Article exhausted; check different version
Person
A former senior editor at Sports Illustrated, Kevin Cook is the author of Titanic Thompson, Tommy's Honor, Kitty Genovese and The Dad Report. He lives in New York City.
Content
- Intro
- Also By Kevin Cook
- Title Page
- Contents
- Dedication
- Prologue: End over End
- 1: Hup
- 2: Dings, Dolphins, and the Back of God's Hand
- 3: Brad's Bad
- 4: Three for the Show
- 5: The Raider Goddman Way
- 6: Sea of Hands
- 7: Men of Steel
- 8: Hail Marys
- 9: "Knock Their Dicks Off
- 10: Tria
- and Error
- 11: The Sickest Man in America
- 12: Apocalypse Now
- 13: Spring Option
- 14: After The Catch
- Epilogue: The Last Late Hit
- A Note on Sources
- Acknowledgments
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Photo Insert
- Praise for The Last Headbangers
- Copyright
