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Book Cover for: The Last Headbangers: NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s: The Era That Created Modern Sports, Kevin Cook

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

Kevin Cook

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.

Book Details

  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
  • Publish Date: Aug 26th, 2013
  • Pages: 304
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.27in - 5.53in - 0.73in - 0.55lb
  • EAN: 9780393345872
  • Categories: FootballHistory

About the Author

Cook, Kevin: - 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.

Praise for this book

Wired, crazy, hard-hitting, a pure winner.--Jeff Pearlman, author of Boys Will Be Boys and Sweetness
About as subtle as a kick in the head.--Scott Simon, NPR
A head-slap of a book. Whap, yeah, that's how it was.--Roy Blount, Jr., author of About Three Bricks Shy of a Load and Alphabet Juice
Kevin Cook celebrates the rough-edged heroes of the 1970s NFL, vividly re-creating some of the game's unforgettable moments.--Jonathan Mahler, author of Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning
Featuring arguably the greatest collection of weirdos, maniacs, misfits, heroes and villains ever gathered under any dome other than the U.S. Capitol.--Greg Schneider "Washington Post"