The Last Headbangers NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s--The Era that Created Modern Sports

by Cook, Kevin

• ISBN13: 9780393080162
• ISBN10: 0393080161
• Edition: 00
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-09-03
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

Prologue: End over End	p. 1
Hup	p. 11
Dings, Dolphins, and the Back of God's Hand	p. 36
Brad's Bad	p. 47
Three for the Show	p. 65
The Raider Goddamn Way	p. 83
Sea of Hands	p. 93
Men of Steel	p. 115
Hail Marys	p. 127
"Knock Their Dicks Off"	p. 147
Trial and Error	p. 167
The Sickest Man in America	p. 186
Apocalypse Now	p. 196
Sprint Option	p. 222
After The Catch	p. 240
Epilogue: The Last Late Hit	p. 254
A Note on Sources	p. 259
Acknowledgments	p. 261
Select Bibliography	p. 263
Index	p. 265
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