On Any Given Sunday: A Life of Bert Bell Review

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On Any Given Sunday: A Life of Bert Bell ReviewAs one moves through On Any Given Sunday, A life of Bert Bell, it becomes clear that author Robert S. Lyons was holding back in certain areas to the extent it seems that he was "protecting" the story of a colorful, wonderful individual whose live needed no cover. It's not that Lyons did not get interesting stories. It is obvious that Bell's sons, Bert Jr and Upton did their best to convey their feelings about a father they loved. But Bell's live at home in no way covers the nuances of his professional career. It can't. It's the nature of families that children protect their parents - as they should - and they cannot know all a reader should want and get.
The big problem all who ever covered or knew Bell was his lack of a filing system, any system to run a business as the NFL. It is fair to say that Bert Bell acted as a transitory figure from the league's origins to the ultra-slick machine that his successor Pete Rozelle developed from the time he took office at age 33 in 1960. Bell never was the league strongman during his time as the unsuccessful owner of money-starved Philadelphia Eagles franchise, nor even as the commissioner that led the league into the television age. That man, of course, was Chicago Bears founder, owner-coach, and league founder George Halas who carried the league on his back for the first 40 years of its existence. Bert Bell understood that and he understood that all major decisions must be cleared through Halas. That Halas, a Godfather-like figure, operated for the good of the league, not just the welfare of his Bears, is the single salient point Lyons missed.
In his narrative Lyons missed the obvious connection in the television era - Bert Bell's long, close, and loyal friendship with W. Wallace Orr whose TEL RA Productions gave the league its first national exposure in a weekly highlights program to the nascent telvision audience. As long as Bell lived, Orr and Tel Ram thrived in a relationship with the NFL that Rozelle would end when he turnede over league business in 1962 to his own "guy" Ed Sabol and his Blair Motion Pictures that became NFL Films. That was a hard and real fact of Bell's life as his struggle to stay alive in a losing battle with heart disease that ended his life at a football game in 1959. It deserved exposure, explanation, and a the biographer's interpretation that Lyons did not provide.
Let there be no doubt that Bert Bell was a great and wonderful man, but Bob Lyons did not convey it to the detriment of his book.On Any Given Sunday: A Life of Bert Bell OverviewBert Bell, a native of Philadelphia, has been called the most powerful executive figure in the history of professional football. He was responsible for helping to transform the game from a circus sideshow into what has become the most popular spectator sport in America. In "On Any Given Sunday", the first biography of this important sports figure, historian Robert Lyons recounts the remarkable story of how de Benneville 'Bert' Bell rejected the gentility of a high society lifestyle in favor of the tougher gridiron and rose to become the founder of the Philadelphia Eagles and Commissioner of the National Football League. Bell, who arguably saved the league from bankruptcy by conceiving the idea for the annual player draft, later made the historic decision to introduce 'Sudden Death' overtime o a move that propelled professional football into the national consciousness. He coined the phrase 'On Any Given Sunday' and negotiated the league's first national TV contract. Lyons also describes in fascinating detail Bell's relationships with leading figures ranging from such Philadelphia icons as Walter Annenberg and John B. Kelly to national celebrities and U.S. Presidents.He also provides insight into Bell's colorful personal life o including his hell-raising early years and his secret marriage to Frances Upton, a golden name in show business. On Any Given Sunday is being published on the 50th anniversary of Bell's death. For more than 35 years, Robert S. Lyons has covered professional and college sports for the Associated Press and has contributed articles to numerous national publications. He is the author of "Palestra Pandemonium: A History of the Big Five", and co-author (with Ray Didinger) of "The Eagles Encyclopedia" (both Temple). He is the former director of the La Salle University News Bureau, editor of the university's alumni magazine, and an instructor in the school's Communications Department.

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Giants Among Men: How Robustelli, Huff, Gifford, and the Giants Made New York a Football Town and Changed the NFL Review

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Giants Among Men: How Robustelli, Huff, Gifford, and the Giants Made New York a Football Town and Changed the NFL ReviewThis book is ostensibly about the NFL New York Giants from the mid-1950's to the early 1960's... rest assured the author surely provides you with intimate details about the Giants during this time period... but if that's all you're expecting... and believe me... that's plenty... you're going to be more than pleasantly surprised... you will be blown away. Any old-time-old-school football fan will think they're having a dream or a flashback... to the time when football was really football! The quarterback wasn't wearing a dress in those days... there were no GUARANTEED one-hundred-million-dollar-plus contracts. All the players had fulltime jobs during the winter, and some even had second jobs during the playing season.
The New York Giants football team of this burgeoning era had so many famous All-Pro and future Hall Of Fame players that the potential reader will understand without hesitation why this was the time... and this was the team... that helped lead professional football onto center stage... a stage that the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE still dominates today. Some of the Giant players that you will be introduced to (or... reintroduced to) include Andy Robustelli, Pat Summerall, Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, Charlie Conerly, Kyle Rote, Y.A. Tittle, Rosey Brown, Del Shofner, Emlen Tunnell, Alex Webster, Jack Katcavage, Dick Lynch, Rosey Grier... and many others.
OH YEA... Two of their ASSISTANT COACHES... THAT'S RIGHT I SAID ASSISTANT COACHES... ARE TWO OF THE MOST LEGENDARY COACHES IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL!
**VINCE LOMBARDI AND TOM LANDRY**
Though the core and the title of this book is built around the New York Giants, the author Jack Cavanaugh seamlessly integrates every team and every noteworthy player that had an impact on the historical coming of age of this monolith... that is today's NFL. The reader is right there when Jimmy Brown the greatest running back in the history of the NFL comes into the league with the Giants greatest rival the Cleveland Browns. Brown is given complete recognition for his unmatched combination of POWER-SPEED-ATHLETICISM and competitive nature. Another powerful part of this book is how it educates the reader on teams and accomplishments that lead to the current state of affairs of the league at the time the book depicts. Such as the fact that the Cleveland Browns from the late 1940's to the early 1950's PLAYED IN CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES TEN-YEARS-IN-A-ROW! "The first four of those ten championship games had been played in the All-America Football Conference, all of which the Browns won. But the last six had been in the NFL, whose title it had won three times - including 1950, the Browns' first year in the NFL. This came much to the astonishment of the League establishment, which had regarded the AAFC as inferior." There is also a detailed look at a young quarterback that was cut by the Pittsburgh Steelers without ever letting him get into a real game. This unknown quarterback then played semi-pro football for $6.00 per game. This football reject is then given a chance with the Baltimore Colts and becomes one of the greatest quarterbacks in history... Johnny Unitas. The author flawlessly weaves Johnny's story into the flow of the Giants tome... which dovetails into what is known around the world by any knowledgeable football fan as *THE-GREATEST-GAME-IN-THE-HISTORY-OF-FOOTBALL"... the 1958 World Championship Football game between the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts.
There are untold sub-plots and character studies that will keep the true football fan turning the pages faster than an Olympic sprinter going for the gold. But I would like to share one unique tale about one lesser known player named Hardy Brown. A chapter is named after him: "THE MEANEST MAN IN THE NFL". Hardy played for eight years "and had been the scourge of the NFL, knocking out scores of opponents and breaking as many, if not more, noses and jaws with his patented shoulder tackle. Though only six-feet-tall and about 190 pounds, Brown had a well-deserved reputation as the most devastating hitter in the NFL, a hell-bent-linebacker who flattened quarterbacks, running backs, receivers, and opposing linemen, usually by using his shoulder as a lethal weapon." Hall Of Famer Y.A. Tittle said. "He was a regular knockout artist and inspired us. I remember how in his first game with the Colts against the Redskins in 1951, he knocked out all three running backs. Altogether that year, he knocked out twenty-one players. AND WHEN I SAY KNOCKED OUT, I MEAN KNOCKED OUT COLD WITH HIS SHOULDER TACKLE TO THE POINT THAT THEY HAD TO BE CARRIED OFF ON STRETCHERS. I NEVER SAW A FOOTBALL PLAYER WHO COULD HIT AS HARD AS HARDY BROWN. HE BROKE A LOT OF NOSES BEFORE PLAYERS BEGAN WEARING FACE MASKS IN THE MID-FIFTIES, AND THEN, AFTER PLAYERS BEGAN WEARING FACE MASKS, BUSTED A LOT OF THEM WITH THAT VICIOUS SHOULDER TACKLE."
The historical information in this book will hit the old-school football fan like a Hardy Brown shoulder-tackle!
Giants Among Men: How Robustelli, Huff, Gifford, and the Giants Made New York a Football Town and Changed the NFL OverviewFrom the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, when basketball's Boston Celtics were piecing together a run for the ages, when Montreal's Canadiens were in the midst of notching a record-setting five straight Stanley Cups, and when the New York Yankees were the once-and-future kings of the diamond, one team boosted the NFL to national prominence as none other: the New York Giants. In Giants Among Men, Jack Cavanaugh, the acclaimed author of Tunney, transports us to the NFL's golden age to introduce the close-knit and diverse group that won the heart of a city, helped spread the gospel of pro football across the nation, and recast the NFL as a media colossus. Central to Cavanaugh's narrative, and emblematic of the Giants' bond with their followers, was a hard-nosed future Hall of Fame defensive end named Andy Robustelli. A World War II combat vet, a graduate of Arnold College, undersized and nearing age thirty, Robustelli nevertheless anchored a Giants defensive unit so ferocious that they were the first team to inspire crowds to chant "Dee-fense!" But Robustelli and the Giants were a hit on the gridiron, playing in six NFL Championship Games in eight seasons between 1956 and 1963, the most remarkable aspect of this team was perhaps its relationship to the fans. These Giants were largely composed of ordinary joes who were equally at ease hobnobbing with Gleason and Sinatra at Toots Shor's as they were rubbing elbows with working-class rooters on the IRT en route to Sunday games in the Bronx–like many of their fans, nearly all Giants players worked second jobs off-season to make ends meet. But the Giants of this era didn't merely affect the fans' relationship to the game; they changed the game itself. The team launched the careers of future head-coaching geniuses Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi, as well as those of a galaxy of stars and future Hall-of-Famers including Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, Emlen Tunnell, Roosevelt Brown, Y. A. Tittle, Charlie Conerly, Rosie Grier, and Pat Summerall. The Giants teams of this remarkable era were tagged with the soubriquet "Mara Tech" (for the Mara family, who had owned the franchise since its inception)–due to the number of players and coaches who later found success in the boardroom, the broadcast booth, and behind the bench.Filled with historical and cultural insight and vivid portraits of larger-than-life characters and indispensable everymen, Giants Among Men transcends nostalgia and sports trivia to faithfully depict a watershed era for both football and the American nation. Praise for Jack Cavanaugh's Tunney"Impressively researched and richly detailed . . . a long-overdue portrait of a fascinating fighter."–Sports Illustrated"A winning tale . . . Jack Cavanaugh brings Tunney, Dempsey and the fight scene of the Roaring Twenties back to life."–Fort Worth Star-Telegram"[A] sprawling new biography . . . The boxing scenes are spun gold."–The New York Times"Filled with vivid characters from one of boxing's most glamorous eras, this tale goes fifteen rounds and delivers plenty of punch." –Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"One of the primary elements to the greatness of this biography is Cavanaugh's ability to plumb the confusing depths of celebrity in America."–The Denver Post

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