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

by Kevin Cook

Overview

The inside story of the most colorful decade in NFL history—pro football’s raging, hormonal, hairy, druggy, immortal adolescence.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393345872
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	08/26/2013
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	1,046,197
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Prologue: End over End 1

1 Hup 11

2 Dings, Dolphins, and the Back of God's Hand 36

3 Brad's Bad 47

4 Three for the Show 65

5 The Raider Goddamn Way 83

6 Sea of Hands 93

7 Men of Steel 115

8 Hail Marys 127

9 "Knock Their Dicks Off" 147

10 Trial and Error 167

11 The Sickest Man in America 186

12 Apocalypse Now 196

13 Sprint Option 222

14 After The Catch 240

Epilogue: The Last Late Hit 254

A Note on Sources 259

Acknowledgments 261

Select Bibliography 263

Index 265

Editorial Reviews

"A head-slap of a book. Whap, yeah, that’s how it was."

Roy Blount

"Kevin Cook celebrates the rough-edged heroes of the 1970s NFL, vividly re-creating some of the game’s unforgettable moments."

Jonathan Mahler

"Wired, crazy, hard-hitting, a pure winner."

Jeff Pearlman

"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

"About as subtle as a kick in the head."

Scott Simon