Good Football Reads
 

I enjoy reading books about football, especially this time of year when the days grow shorter. I find that the books bring alive the players in the sets I build and keep them from being anonymous. Most of my football reading has been AFL-oriented. Right now, I am reading a book about the 1963 Chargers called the Uncrowned Champions. Another good book I enjoyed was The Little League That Could. I can't remember the exact title, but I also read a biography about Sid Gillman that I liked.

This thread could be a useful list of good football reads---and they don't have to be AFL. :)

What books do you guys recommend?

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Good thread. I would recommend these off of the top of my head, but may add more later as I read these and many others years ago.

Distant Replay -- Jerry Kramer
Paper Lion -- George Plimpton
Always on the Run -- Csonka-Kiick-Dave Anderson

A prior book discussion: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=219942

My top choices would be:

-Pigskin
-Breaker Boys
-The Games That Changed the Game (I think the OP will like the Sid Gillman chapter)
-The Sunday Game: At the Dawn of Professional Football

The book I read most recently was Ralph Hickok's bio of Johnny Blood (https://www.amazon.com/Vagabond-Half...k+johnny+blood). Hickok knew Blood and travelled with him, but agreed not to publish the book until after his death. It was excellent.

Love Johnny Blood! He's on the front of one of my favorite 1930s Packers programs.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/J6...Z=w679-h949-no

Gonna definitely pick up that book.

jeff

Jeff, awesome Spartans program! :)

There's also another book on Blood with almost the same title. This post explains it: http://nflfootballjournal.blogspot.c...-booklist.html. I enjoyed both, but if you can only read one, I recommend the Hickock book. It has a really nice flow to it, excellent season by season summaries of each team Blood played for, etc. - plus the author had direct access to the source - we don't get that much for players from the 20s.

Thought you might like that, John. Called it a Packers program just to raise your ire ;-)

jeff

There is a book on Dutch Clark that I thought was a great read about that early era of football. One story I thought was interesting (and I hope I get the details right) was that when the Portsmith Spartans were having trouble they hadn’t paid him a game check for the last half of the season, so before the last game he walked into the ticket office and demanded his money or he wouldn’t play that day. Well they paid him and he played but after the game he had take the train back home to Colorado with 700 silver dollars in his pockets. If you’ve ever dealt with silver you know how awkward that must have been.

Not the greatest prose ever but decent info and some nice pictures included. Issued in 1970.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...c6a16a2179.jpg

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When Pride still mattered (about the Lombardi Packers) by Marani
America's Game (about the growth of the NFL from the early days until today--the definitive read on the sport) by McCambridge
The Last Headbangers (70's Football focusing on the Raiders, Steelers and other top teams of the decade) by Cook
would give all of them 5 stars!

Two very readable books that add great color to the game in the 1950's and 60's are;

WHEN THE GRASS WAS REAL by Bob Carroll

THE GOLDEN AGE OF PRO FOOTBALL by Mickey Herskowitz

The last FB book I read was, "Off Guard," by Walt Sweeney. Walt was a local SD Charger icon in the old AFL days. He was pretty much physically destroyed by all the pills / shots so-called "team doctors" pushed at him and in him. Great read for insights on what it was like to be player back then, with Sir Sidney as head coach.

Has anybody read Chris Willis's new book on Walter Lingo and the Oorang Indians? I did a book review of it for the upcoming issue of Gridiron Greats Magazine. If you like early NFL stories, it's a really interesting one.

jeff

An older book that lets the pioneers speak for themselves
The game that was;: The early days of pro football
by Myron Cope

A classic, Mike! One of my all-time favorites.

jeff

I didn't read the new Oorang Indians book because based on Thorpe's bio - it seemed kind of a sad chapter. The players were past their prime and lost a lot. Probably didn't help Pete Calac's HOF chances any. I did read the Columbus Panhandles book and a few other good books by Willis who does an excellent job.

I wish someone would write a book about the Canton Bulldogs or Massillon Tigers, but I think the reality is other than newspapers, there aren't that many sources out there to really get the inside story. An Amazon review of the new Memphis Tigers book mentioned that and I still haven't picked that one up yet even though Memphis was a good independent around the time the Ironton Tanks were i.e. it aligned pretty well with my interests.

This is a good read

https://web.archive.org/web/20120311.../09-An-320.pdf

Thanks Mike - that is a good one. It shows up in Pro Football's Rag Days too.

I only wish someone had interviewed Cusack's counterpart on the Massillon side.