Happy New Year! For those who remember the "Over the Hill Gang" Washington Redskins, you'll recall their coach George Allen. A very good biography of this legendary coach has been published - here is my review.
Title/Author:
“George Allen: A Football Life” by Michael Richman
Rating:
4 of 5 stars (very good)
Review: The subtitle of this book is a perfect description of its subject – George Allen’s life was all about football. He was a highly successful coach at both the college and professional levels. It was in the latter area where he earned the most fame, coaching the Los Angeles Rams and the then-Washington Redskins from poor seasons to the playoffs. This biography of Allen by Michael Richman is a wonderful tribute to the coach.
Through many interviews of Allen’s former
players, family members and siblings, the reader can get an inside look at the
man whose obsession with football seemed to have no boundaries. When he was coaching, he was always searching
for players who might help his team. This
is the case whether it was his first coaching jobs at Morningside and Wittier Colleges
(Morningside is where he met his wife Etty), his goal of lifting the Rams and
Redskins out of their doldrums, his tenure in the United States Football League
with the Chicago Blitz/Arizona Wranglers franchise and even his tenure with
Long Beach State in 1990, which ended with his death in that year.
Allen always felt older, experienced players would help his teams during his time in the NFL more than rookies and he developed a well-deserved reputation for trading draft choices for veteran players. Between this practice and his requests for better equipment and facilities, he often clashed with the owners of his teams. While he was successful on the field, he ended up getting fired twice by the Rams (the second coming after only two pre-season games in 1978) and having an unhappy departure from the Redskins.
This provided a complete, contrasting picture of Allen with so many of his players speaking highly of him to be coupled with his critics in front offices and in the media – Allen never had a great relationship with the media. The interviews with his sons also shed much light onto the inner workings of Allen. While one must take into account these are family members, they still provide the reader with great information on one of the most successful football coaches in the second half of the 20th century. Any football fan or historian of that era will enjoy this book.
I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Link: George Allen: A Football Life: Richman, Michael, Vermeil, Dick: 9780803249684: Amazon.com: Books
No comments:
Post a Comment