Detroit Lions Weblog

Book Review:Golden Boy, Catch This!, Namath

I have recently read three NFL-related biography/autobiographies. All were quite enjoyable. First off, I read the massive Namath by Mark Kriegel. This book was exhaustively researched and unfortunately unauthorized. Namath says he will never read it. The book was quite in similar in tone to the recent Ted Williams by Leigh Montville in the sense that both of the protagonist’s are incredible sports hero’s who have major flaws in their lives that they are able to overcome to achieve greatness. Namath was raised solely by his mother after his father left the family for another woman. Namath liked to run with the wrong crowd and from an early age enjoyed drinking. Namath was the first major modern athlete to exert the pop culture influence that most do now.

A similar athlete to Namath was featured in Golden Boy:Girls, Games and Gambling at Green Bay (at Notre Dame, too) the Paul Hornung autobiography. Hornung details the highs and low of being associated with one of the greatest profesional sports franchise’s in the high point of it’s history. He tells of he and Max McGee’s exploits ducking curfews and rabble-rousing on game nights. He is very candid about his suspension for gambling and the circumstances surrounding the associations he made within that world. Hornung also addresses the controversy that lead to him losing his job as a color commentator for the Notre Dame football radio broadcasts. Hornung also had no father figure in his life. He was similar to Namath that his family had to scuffle to survive. Hornung was also a forerunner in coalescence of sports and celebrity.

Terrell Owens’ Catch This! was a book I finished just today. Owens stresses throughout the book that everything he has done has been for faith and family which take precedence over football in his life. He addresses the various media firestorms that have surrounded his career and has attempted to win over the reader to see things from his viewpoint. He wants us to see how his motivations are misunderstood. Thus his continued stressing of the importance of his faith and his family. The funny thing is with all of Owen’s ridiculous antics on the field what he reveals of himself off the field isn’t really all that interesting. He is not much of a partier and doesn’t appear to have much of a social life. This was still an interesting book, but it was written without the benefit of time having passed or the value of hindsight which help us to better understand and evaluate the careers of Hornung and Namath.