Elvis Don't Like Football / Tom Landry

Glanville, Jerry & Landry, Tom

From the publishers of MediaWatch, a new book. And That's the Way It Is(n't) provides 350 pages of summaries, excerpts and reprints of more than 45 studies that demonstrate the media's liberal bias....

...This book ought to be assigned reading in every journalism school in America...
...This is a guy who paid his dues...
...His jokes aren't funny, his influence on the game is slight, and his co-author writes such lines as: "Finally, my thanks to Roy Ex-um and all the other insecure people in my life who attempted unsuccessfully to harness my drive and desire...
...Miller...
...Months and months go by without the words "Houston Oilers" turning up in conversation...
...18.95 Joe Queenan 46 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 1990...
...Noll, of course, has four Super Bowl rings on his fingers...
...As a defensive back, he not only played in the Giants' 23-17 overtime victory over the Colts in the 1958championship game, which put pro football on the map, but even carpooled to New York with a young lawyer named Howard Cosell...
...Gary...
...Alexandria, Va...
...Glanville has little knobs of pudge on his...
...years and years go by without my running into anyone wearing a Houston Oilers sweatshirt...
...Because the Cowboys were so successful for so many years, it is easy to forget that Landry did not have a winning season until his sixth year, and at one point had a 15-43-3 record...
...Or the Falcons...
...a Dallas sportswriter suggesting a new statistic (Yards Lost Attempting to Live...
...This became apparent last year when even the sportswriters in Washington, New York, and Philadelphia began writing furious articles denouncing his ignominious firing...
...R. Emmett Tyrrell...
...Its dispassionate and well-documented review of bias and tendentiousness in mainstream journalism ought to be examined -- and can't be ignored...
...Most Outspoken Coach is the work of the self-important Glanville and the apparently talentless Sport magazine editor J. D. Miller...
...Mercifully, it did not...
...If we throw out the 1-15 and 3-13 years he posted in his last two seasons, we find that between 1966 and 1988 the Cowboys compiled an amazing 252109-3 record...
...I don't know how the rest of you feel about it, but I don't lose much sleep wondering what's going on with the Houston Oilers franchise these days...
...ELVIS DON'T LIKE FOOTBALL: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE NFL'S MOST OUTSPOKEN COACH Jerry Glanville with J. D. Miller/Macmillan/189 pp...
...For starters: the Houston Oilers...
...Eric Breindel, New York Post editorial page editor...
...Elvis Don't Like Football: The Life and Times of the NFL's...
...All of which was conveniently forgotten when a new owner took the reins and chucked Landry out onto the street...
...Just for the record, what's your idea of abject failure...
...Elliott Abrams, former Assistant Secretary of State...
...A legend several times over—in high school, in college, as an All-Pro defensive back with the New York Giants, and as one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game—Tom Landry is the history of big-time professional football...
...To put a fine point on it, Glanville has written a fourth-rate book about a third-rate franchise whose second-rate coach now works for a fifth-rate team...
...Sure, coaches' autobiographies tend to be swamp-dredge, but this affair is pure gator poop...
...Kicking me from the snug security of the nest taught me to fly, thereby pushing me to heights I never dreamed possible...
...Who's Gary...
...by HarperCollins) 302 pp...
...a thorough, thoughtful and altogether judicious study...
...When it comes to professional sporting franchises for which the heartbeat of the Republic is not throbbing, the Houston Oilers rank right up there with the Utah Jazz, the New Jersey Devils, and the Seattle Mariners...
...Tom Landry: An Autobiography is the very opposite of Glanville's fetid offering: thoughtful, intelligent, and surprisingly funny...
...Frank, you were out of position on that play...
...The quintessential Landry anecdote reveals how the Man in the Hat, while serving as player-coach in his final seasons with the Giants, once scampered fifty yards downfield to scold Gifford, who had just returned an interception for a touchdown...
...Co-authoring a book called Elvis Don't Like Football with an ex-coach of the Houston Oilers is a height you never dreamed possible, Mr...
...Glanville wanted to know...
...Unlike Glanville, who drops names like Buddy Brister and Alan Pinkett, Landry played with Frank Gifford, defensed Johnny Unitas, worked with Vince Lombardi, and coached Don Meredith, Drew Pearson, Tony Dorsett, Bob Hayes, Roger Staubach, and countless other monsters of the game...
...22314 B the time he got around to L i writing his autobiography, Tom Landry had guided the Dallas Cowboys to two Super Bowl victories in five attempts, had led his team to twenty consecutive winning seasons, and had revolutionized professional football several times over, introducing the flex defense and reviving the shotgun formation...
...And now they don't even have Glanville...
...and John Cougar Mellencamp, "the last true rebels of our time" (I would still give the edge to Pol Pot), Glanville's magnum opus is short on inside football, long on talking trash...
...By the time Jerry Glanville got around to writing his autobiography, he had served as assistant coach with the cellar-dwelling Detroit Lions and Atlanta Falcons, guided the not-so-legendary Houston Oilers to three consecutive early exits from the playoffs, coached his squad to a 61-7 defeat a week before the 1989-90 season ended, and earned a reputation for teaching dirty, stupid football...
...As for Landry's trademark fedora, a hatmaker originally supplied him with the natty items in the hope that all the TV exposure would spark a fedora craze...
...Gregg Lewis, who co-authored the book, has done a fine job of capturing Landry's familiar drawl: reserved, dispassionate, self-deprecating...
...L andry, like Lombardi before him, was the sort of coach whose genius enabled him to transcend the hatred fans from other cities would direct toward his swaggering teams...
...A marginally successful coach whose teams choke in the big games—not unlike those of the NFL's second-most outspoken coach, Buddy Ryan of the Philadelphia Eagles—Glanville uses his book as an excuse to tee off on the competition, particularly Chuck Noll of the Pittsburgh Steelers...
...14.95, including shipping and handling...
...Get those remaindered racks ready...
...Easy one, Jerry: some guy from the Oilers...
...lollapalooza running back Duane Thomas turning up for training camp in a dashiki and insisting that a friend he brought along be given a tryout...
...His idea of rebelliousness is to attack the referees, always a daring thing to do when there are 75,000 other people in the arena who share your opinion...
...Fresh intelligence on one of the most boring industries in America from some of the liveliest media critics in the Republic...
...Or the Lions...
...he moved to Atlanta in the off-season...
...18.95 TOM LANDRY: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY Tom Landry with Gregg Lewis/Zondervan (dist...
...Finally, a one-stop resource containing all the facts and figures, examples and quotes you'll need to prove the media's bias to your friends and colleagues...
...Highly recommended...
...In an inadvertently illuminating passage, he recounts how he once shook Landry's hand after a Houston-Dallas game...
...Every conservative should buy one and mail it to an anchorman...
...No high five for Frankie-Boy...
...lb order by Visa or MasterCard, call 1-800-346-BIAS (346-2427) Or send check (Va residents add 67 cents sales tax) to: Media Research Center Book 111 S. Columbus St...
...Great game, Gary," said Landry...
...Although, like many NFL coaches, he goes a bit overboard on the Jesus-ismy-defensive-coordinator stuff, Landry mostly sticks to football, some of it pretty funny: a menaced quarterback signaling for a fair catch before each handoff...
...Like all true rebel poseurs, Glanville is a fan of Willie Nelson, guys who hit after the whistle, and scab football players...
...Dedicated to Kris Kristofferson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Joe Queenan is a frequent contributor to Barron's and other publications...
...But certainly nobody important...
...Talk about chutzpah...
...Forget about America's team—they're not even Texas's team...
...Glanville is unlikely to elicit similar sympathy when the axe falls on him for the final time...

Vol. 23 • November 1990 • No. 11


 
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