Title/Author:
“Remembering the Stars of the NFL Glory Years: An Inside Look at
the Golden Age of Football” by Wayne Stewart
Tags:
Football (American), professional, history
Publish date:
July 13, 2017
Length:
238 pages
Rating:
3 of 5 stars (okay)
Review:
Professional football
has undergone many changes since the “Golden Age” of the game, a twenty year
time frame from 1955 to 1975, give or take a few years. Many of the great players from that era are
remembered in this book by veteran sportswriter Wayne Stewart.
Stewart doesn’t try to
rank players from that time in a numerical pecking order. Instead, he divides the book up by other means
and writes a page or two on each player mentioned. There is a chapter for offensive players, a
chapter for defensive players, one for funniest moments (my favorite chapter), one
for the toughest, one for some other players not mentioned earlier, then
finally a comparison of the game then to now.
In all chapters, the reading
is easy, quick and flows well. Because
he doesn’t use too many statistics, that makes the book more of an anecdotal
read than an analytical one. That is
good for a reader who wants to simply learn a little bit more about each of
these players, especially if that reader never saw them play during their
careers.
Many of the stories
are told from only a few sources. It
appears that Stewart obtained much of the material from a few interviews, most
notably Gino Marchetti and Myron Pottios.
Both of these men are mentioned and quoted frequently. While the information from these stories is
good and entertaining, it does give the book a feel that this is mainly about
how these men feel about who was the best during the era.
The other matter that caught my attention was that the chapter on defensive players included other positions. The most notable example was the mention of former offensive center Mick Tinglehoff near the end of the chapter on defensive players. Since he was an offensive player, I wondered why he was included in the defensive chapter. The tie-in was that he snapped to Vikings teammate Paul Krause for many years when Krause would be the placeholder for kicks. Krause is deservedly mentioned in the defensive chapter as one of the best defensive backs (he still holds the career record for pass interceptions), but including Tinglehoff on the pages with him was a head-scratcher for me.
Nonetheless, this is a decent book that football fans who watched the game during that time will enjoy reading. It is like a time machine, taking the reader back to a time when professional football was played in a much different manner than it is today.
I wish to thank Rowman
& Littlefield for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest
review.
Book Format Read:
Hardcover
Buying
Links:
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