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North Dallas Forty #1
North Dallas Forty
This book is a fictional account of eight harrowing days in the life of a professional football player.
314 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
About the author
Peter Gent
8 books8 followersGeorge Davis Peter Gent was a Michigan State University basketball player and National Football League wide receiver turned novelist.
After leaving professional football, Gent wrote several novels dealing with the sport. His first and most famous book, a semi-autobiographical novel entitled North Dallas Forty, was published in 1973. Its main characters, a quarterback and a wide receiver, are widely considered to be based on Don Meredith and Gent, respectively. The novel was one of the first to examine the NFL's hypocrisy regarding drug use.
Gent made his home in Texas for many years, where he was friends with many of that state's significant creative minds of the day, including Larry L. King, Billy Lee Brammer, Gary Cartwright, Bud Shrake, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Dan Jenkins. They called themselves the Mad Dogs.
Gent also explored the corruption in modern professional sports in a sequel volume entitled "North Dallas After 40", published in 1989, and in two unrelated football novels — "Texas Celebrity Turkey Trot" (1979) and "The Franchise" (1983).
Gent also wrote a novel about college basketball entitled " The Conquering Heroes" (1994). Bill Walton’s cover blurb states that the book is the "North Dallas Forty of college basketball. But it’s much more, it’s about a whole generation of kids who came of age in an America that I grew up in."
Gent resided in Bangor, Michigan at the time of his death from a pulmonary disease on September 30, 2011,and was working on a novel.
After leaving professional football, Gent wrote several novels dealing with the sport. His first and most famous book, a semi-autobiographical novel entitled North Dallas Forty, was published in 1973. Its main characters, a quarterback and a wide receiver, are widely considered to be based on Don Meredith and Gent, respectively. The novel was one of the first to examine the NFL's hypocrisy regarding drug use.
Gent made his home in Texas for many years, where he was friends with many of that state's significant creative minds of the day, including Larry L. King, Billy Lee Brammer, Gary Cartwright, Bud Shrake, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Dan Jenkins. They called themselves the Mad Dogs.
Gent also explored the corruption in modern professional sports in a sequel volume entitled "North Dallas After 40", published in 1989, and in two unrelated football novels — "Texas Celebrity Turkey Trot" (1979) and "The Franchise" (1983).
Gent also wrote a novel about college basketball entitled " The Conquering Heroes" (1994). Bill Walton’s cover blurb states that the book is the "North Dallas Forty of college basketball. But it’s much more, it’s about a whole generation of kids who came of age in an America that I grew up in."
Gent resided in Bangor, Michigan at the time of his death from a pulmonary disease on September 30, 2011,and was working on a novel.
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September 21, 2020
"I never saw a guy having so much fun and crying at the same time."
Drugs, sex, exploitation, and alcohol provide the octane for 8 days in the life of Phil Elliott an aging wide receiver for a Dallas professional football team. Hunter S. Thompson would have been holding his hand up by day four saying take me out coach. I might have lasted two days. Elliott not only lasts the entire span, but shows up to football practice every day and plays a professional game by day seven. If anyone is looking to write a dissertation on drug use in the early 1970s this book would be a great place to start.
Nick Nolte plays Phil Elliott in the 1979 movie
Nursing the aches and pains of an athlete quickly reaching his past due date Elliott relies heavily on legal and illegal drugs to keep his body and mind working. As Phil says to a trainer on the team. "I may have ten more years left in me if I could just master the chemistry of this game." He wasn't talking about the chemistry of the work place like the rest of us worry about. He was constantly experimenting with the proper dosages of a cornucopia of drugs to try and get through each day.
Phil can feel the end coming every time he straps on his cleats, every time he has another meaningless one night stand, and every time he wakes up feeling worse than when he went to sleep. He is in a constant state of survival. In fact Phil talks about that fact with the quarterback's girlfriend of the moment.
"He played a great game," she said, disappointed but not surprised by the thought that Maxwell was despondent.
"We didn't win," I pointed out.
"Does it matter that much?"
"To him it does."
"Not to you?" She seemed surprised.
"A little, I suppose. Mostly I'm just trying to survive." I was a little embarrassed by the drama in my statement.
"I'm just trying to get the job," I explained. "He worries about getting it done right, or what he things is right."
I paused for a minute and watched her fooling absently with is hair. "You really like him, don't you?" I observed.
"I really do," she said, keeping her eyes on Maxwell. There was a tone of hopelessness in her voice.
"Why?"
"Because he's a man," she said. "What I thought all men were supposed to be like."
"What about me?" I asked with mock indignity.
"You," she said, turning to look at me and smiling wryly. "You. You're what men really are. Like you said, just trying to survive."
Dust Jacket cover of the Hardcover edition
Even though Elliott is always worried about retaining his spot on the team he can't keep his head down in fact he keeps getting into trouble with management due to his hijinks and his disrespectful tone. What Elliott wants is more control over his life and with no union and no real security except how well he played on Sunday he finds himself questioning if management even sees him as a human being.
"I'm too used to seeing myself on a list-six-foot-four-inch two-hundred-fifteen-pound flankerback, right alongside the six and seven-eighths helmets and the size thirteen shoes. No, man, I not only feel like a piece of equipment. I know I'm a piece of equipment."
I know it has become almost fashionable to be anti-union, but the only reason that we can feel comfortable getting rid of our unions is because they've done an excellent job making us all feel secure. In the process we forget what made us secure in the first place. Phil Elliott didn't really know it, but what he wanted was a union, something to offset the god like powers of NFL owners.
Peter Gent
Peter Gent never played a down of college football. He was an outstanding basketball player for the Michigan State University. He turned down a pro NBA career (head scratching moment) and decided to show up to the Dallas Cowboys training camp when he heard they were offering $500 to anyone who showed up. Due to his athleticism he did make the team and contributed for a couple of years, but due to an accumulation of injuries his career was cut short. He passed away September 30th, 2011 from pulmonary disease.
I laughed out loud. I cringed. I felt Phil's fear and I wanted to put a restraining hand on his arm from time to time, but then nothing ever changes if someone isn't pushing the envelope trying to make not only the owners, but the players realize there is room for change. I was surprised at the profound impact this book had on me. Yes, it is a book about football, but actually very little football occurs. This book is more about the search for something more, for a life with meaning.
Drugs, sex, exploitation, and alcohol provide the octane for 8 days in the life of Phil Elliott an aging wide receiver for a Dallas professional football team. Hunter S. Thompson would have been holding his hand up by day four saying take me out coach. I might have lasted two days. Elliott not only lasts the entire span, but shows up to football practice every day and plays a professional game by day seven. If anyone is looking to write a dissertation on drug use in the early 1970s this book would be a great place to start.
Nick Nolte plays Phil Elliott in the 1979 movie
Nursing the aches and pains of an athlete quickly reaching his past due date Elliott relies heavily on legal and illegal drugs to keep his body and mind working. As Phil says to a trainer on the team. "I may have ten more years left in me if I could just master the chemistry of this game." He wasn't talking about the chemistry of the work place like the rest of us worry about. He was constantly experimenting with the proper dosages of a cornucopia of drugs to try and get through each day.
Phil can feel the end coming every time he straps on his cleats, every time he has another meaningless one night stand, and every time he wakes up feeling worse than when he went to sleep. He is in a constant state of survival. In fact Phil talks about that fact with the quarterback's girlfriend of the moment.
"He played a great game," she said, disappointed but not surprised by the thought that Maxwell was despondent.
"We didn't win," I pointed out.
"Does it matter that much?"
"To him it does."
"Not to you?" She seemed surprised.
"A little, I suppose. Mostly I'm just trying to survive." I was a little embarrassed by the drama in my statement.
"I'm just trying to get the job," I explained. "He worries about getting it done right, or what he things is right."
I paused for a minute and watched her fooling absently with is hair. "You really like him, don't you?" I observed.
"I really do," she said, keeping her eyes on Maxwell. There was a tone of hopelessness in her voice.
"Why?"
"Because he's a man," she said. "What I thought all men were supposed to be like."
"What about me?" I asked with mock indignity.
"You," she said, turning to look at me and smiling wryly. "You. You're what men really are. Like you said, just trying to survive."
Dust Jacket cover of the Hardcover edition
Even though Elliott is always worried about retaining his spot on the team he can't keep his head down in fact he keeps getting into trouble with management due to his hijinks and his disrespectful tone. What Elliott wants is more control over his life and with no union and no real security except how well he played on Sunday he finds himself questioning if management even sees him as a human being.
"I'm too used to seeing myself on a list-six-foot-four-inch two-hundred-fifteen-pound flankerback, right alongside the six and seven-eighths helmets and the size thirteen shoes. No, man, I not only feel like a piece of equipment. I know I'm a piece of equipment."
I know it has become almost fashionable to be anti-union, but the only reason that we can feel comfortable getting rid of our unions is because they've done an excellent job making us all feel secure. In the process we forget what made us secure in the first place. Phil Elliott didn't really know it, but what he wanted was a union, something to offset the god like powers of NFL owners.
Peter Gent
Peter Gent never played a down of college football. He was an outstanding basketball player for the Michigan State University. He turned down a pro NBA career (head scratching moment) and decided to show up to the Dallas Cowboys training camp when he heard they were offering $500 to anyone who showed up. Due to his athleticism he did make the team and contributed for a couple of years, but due to an accumulation of injuries his career was cut short. He passed away September 30th, 2011 from pulmonary disease.
I laughed out loud. I cringed. I felt Phil's fear and I wanted to put a restraining hand on his arm from time to time, but then nothing ever changes if someone isn't pushing the envelope trying to make not only the owners, but the players realize there is room for change. I was surprised at the profound impact this book had on me. Yes, it is a book about football, but actually very little football occurs. This book is more about the search for something more, for a life with meaning.
October 16, 2011
Treasure of the Rubbermaids 13: Are You Ready For Some Football Under the Friday Night Lights On Any Given Sunday?
The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containers previously stored and forgotten at my parent’s house and untouched for almost 20 years. Thanks to my father dumping them back on me, I now spend my spare time unearthing lost treasures from their plastic depths.
This book had crossed my mind several times over the past year before and during the NFL lockout while I heard many fans moan and wail about how it was greedy players ruining the game. I always disagreed with that, and Peter Gent’s novel has been a big influence on my thinking about it for years. You’ve got about 1600 guys on earth capable of playing at that level who generate tens of billion of dollars for a handful of owners, so it only seemed fair that they get a decent slice of that pie. While you’ll sometimes hear grumblings about ‘billionaires versus millionaires’, some people seem to think the players should go out and wreck their bodies for minimum wage and simple love of the game. Anyone who has romantic notions along those lines should read this book immediately.
Gent died recently and that gave me the nudge to dig this out of the Rubbermaids and reread it. He played for the Dallas Cowboys for several years in the late ‘60s, and this fictionalized account of a player named Phil Elliot was obviously modeled on his time there. Elliot is a talented receiver, but he’s injury prone. After just a few years in the league, he already needs huge doses of painkillers and hours in the therapy room just to get on the practice field.
Even more than his injuries, Elliot’s resistance to blindly follow the team’s mandates has gotten him in the doghouse with his coach and general manager. As a quasi-hippie with a love of marijuana and a habit of making smart ass comments, many of his fellow teammates don’t like him much either. Playing for the princely sum of $16,000 a year and routinely screwed over by the corporate side of the team, Elliot realizes he’s not a person to management, he’s a piece of equipment that’s rapidly in need of replacement. If he wasn’t a good drinking buddy and favorite receiver of the team’s star quarterback, he’d already have been cut or traded. Elliot copes with the pain and stress by indulging in heavy drinking, drug abuse and casual sex all while marveling at the hypocrisy and self-deception practiced by the team’s coaches and management. Phil‘s humor and compassion make a stark counter point to the serious violent world he works in.
Despite the injuries, the team’s bullshit and the insanely violent nature of many of his teammates, Elliot still loves playing and lives for those pure moments of athletic achievement where he can make a tough catch and fears the day when he won’t be able to compete any more.
You don’t have to be a football fan to enjoy this book. The broader theme of an individual being crushed by a system that can’t stand individuality is universal. Phil could have been a coal miner or a cop or a teacher or a cube farmer, and his plight would still be just as familiar to anyone who has held a job where the people in charge piss down your back and then insist that you say it’s raining. But for those interested in the football aspect of it, you’ll get the impression that nothing much has changed since it’s publication almost 40 years ago.
Oh, and the movie version with Nick Nolte is pretty faithful to the book although the novel ends on a much darker note than the film.
The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containers previously stored and forgotten at my parent’s house and untouched for almost 20 years. Thanks to my father dumping them back on me, I now spend my spare time unearthing lost treasures from their plastic depths.
This book had crossed my mind several times over the past year before and during the NFL lockout while I heard many fans moan and wail about how it was greedy players ruining the game. I always disagreed with that, and Peter Gent’s novel has been a big influence on my thinking about it for years. You’ve got about 1600 guys on earth capable of playing at that level who generate tens of billion of dollars for a handful of owners, so it only seemed fair that they get a decent slice of that pie. While you’ll sometimes hear grumblings about ‘billionaires versus millionaires’, some people seem to think the players should go out and wreck their bodies for minimum wage and simple love of the game. Anyone who has romantic notions along those lines should read this book immediately.
Gent died recently and that gave me the nudge to dig this out of the Rubbermaids and reread it. He played for the Dallas Cowboys for several years in the late ‘60s, and this fictionalized account of a player named Phil Elliot was obviously modeled on his time there. Elliot is a talented receiver, but he’s injury prone. After just a few years in the league, he already needs huge doses of painkillers and hours in the therapy room just to get on the practice field.
Even more than his injuries, Elliot’s resistance to blindly follow the team’s mandates has gotten him in the doghouse with his coach and general manager. As a quasi-hippie with a love of marijuana and a habit of making smart ass comments, many of his fellow teammates don’t like him much either. Playing for the princely sum of $16,000 a year and routinely screwed over by the corporate side of the team, Elliot realizes he’s not a person to management, he’s a piece of equipment that’s rapidly in need of replacement. If he wasn’t a good drinking buddy and favorite receiver of the team’s star quarterback, he’d already have been cut or traded. Elliot copes with the pain and stress by indulging in heavy drinking, drug abuse and casual sex all while marveling at the hypocrisy and self-deception practiced by the team’s coaches and management. Phil‘s humor and compassion make a stark counter point to the serious violent world he works in.
Despite the injuries, the team’s bullshit and the insanely violent nature of many of his teammates, Elliot still loves playing and lives for those pure moments of athletic achievement where he can make a tough catch and fears the day when he won’t be able to compete any more.
You don’t have to be a football fan to enjoy this book. The broader theme of an individual being crushed by a system that can’t stand individuality is universal. Phil could have been a coal miner or a cop or a teacher or a cube farmer, and his plight would still be just as familiar to anyone who has held a job where the people in charge piss down your back and then insist that you say it’s raining. But for those interested in the football aspect of it, you’ll get the impression that nothing much has changed since it’s publication almost 40 years ago.
Oh, and the movie version with Nick Nolte is pretty faithful to the book although the novel ends on a much darker note than the film.
October 9, 2018
A Classic on Par With Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
Yes - you heard me. This book is that good.
I opened North Dallas Forty with an open mind, thinking it would just be a quality title from the 70s.
It was more than just a quality title. Peter Gent, former Dallas Cowboy, writes with the authority that only a player can.
The injuries. The business. The women. The drugs. The fear. The constant need to survive.
You realize through Gent that this is not a game, this is not a high school team. You survive, you survive and you survive. Way after that is winning.
Winning does not help heal your body. Winning does nothing if you are cut afterwards.
You survive, and that's it.
But what a tale, and what a main character
Gent's Phil Elliott is a great protagonist. He's got great hands. He's an aging athlete. He reads a lot. He is beyond anti-social when it comes to anyone besides his love interest and his quarterback friend.
But oh is he anti-social when it comes to the equally anti-social management.
But wow does he provide insight.
On athletic friendships brought by competition
Phil on his Quarterback Friend Who Talks to Youth Groups
Phil on Competition
Phil Trying to Fit in to Society
In short - this book is incredible, but be warned
It pulls zero punches. Football is a horrible game, and through Phil's experiences, you can see the horrors that often surround us all.
You heard of this guy? Everyone is calling Le'Veon Bell names because he is negotiating a contract.
Read North Dallas Forty, and you'll start rooting for the Bells of the world. Make what you can or retire. There is no real middle ground in this game.
Yes - you heard me. This book is that good.
I opened North Dallas Forty with an open mind, thinking it would just be a quality title from the 70s.
It was more than just a quality title. Peter Gent, former Dallas Cowboy, writes with the authority that only a player can.
The injuries. The business. The women. The drugs. The fear. The constant need to survive.
You realize through Gent that this is not a game, this is not a high school team. You survive, you survive and you survive. Way after that is winning.
Winning does not help heal your body. Winning does nothing if you are cut afterwards.
You survive, and that's it.
But what a tale, and what a main character
Gent's Phil Elliott is a great protagonist. He's got great hands. He's an aging athlete. He reads a lot. He is beyond anti-social when it comes to anyone besides his love interest and his quarterback friend.
But oh is he anti-social when it comes to the equally anti-social management.
But wow does he provide insight.
On athletic friendships brought by competition
Our friendship was based on a mutual respect and envy of each other’s particular football skills and would end when either of us left the game. Competition needs an arena or it just degenerates into unbridled hatred.
Phil on his Quarterback Friend Who Talks to Youth Groups
“You sure are bitter,” Maxwell said. “What harm can it do?” “I don’t care, man. Go ahead, influence people.” I deepened my voice to affect an imitation. “Hi, kids. Seth Maxwell here to give you a little good influence. Don’t get your kicks doping. Get out on the ol’ gridiron and hurt somebody. It’s cleaner and more fun.”
Phil on Competition
“That’s why they love football, man,” I said, nodding toward Andy’s apartment. “Easy to understand. Win or lose. Simple. Direct. Not nearly so confusing as their lives. Have you noticed that nothing is quite so aggravating to a football fan as a tie?”
Phil Trying to Fit in to Society
At the end of the meeting they passed around pencils and paper and asked everyone to list people they thought might be Communists, use drugs, or otherwise act suspicious. I was afraid to hand in a blank sheet of paper, so I listed my wife.
In short - this book is incredible, but be warned
It pulls zero punches. Football is a horrible game, and through Phil's experiences, you can see the horrors that often surround us all.
You heard of this guy? Everyone is calling Le'Veon Bell names because he is negotiating a contract.
Read North Dallas Forty, and you'll start rooting for the Bells of the world. Make what you can or retire. There is no real middle ground in this game.
March 27, 2023
A ridiculously ambitious novel from a former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver (!) who I will always picture as Nick Nolte, in spite of the strange, wizard-like author photo on the back cover. This book is basically responsible for Any Given Sunday decades later, and, in fact, was made into its own deeply odd movie adaptation way back when. That movie lacks one important detail, however. Yes, I'm talking about the gory, action-packed, racially charged bloodbath of a conclusion. Wait, the what? Yeah, don't remember all those murders in the movie, do you? It's all more than a bit scatterbrained, and definitely a product of the '70s, but like I said, it sure is ambitious. Phil Elliot, the book's drugged-out/pain-addled hero, nobly endures the parties, hero worship, and senseless brawling from a fairly smug distance, giving us our cake and smashing our face into it, too. And the writing is a bit ragged (the prose reminded me of Ben Hamper's Rivethead narration, another "accidental" blue-collar writer), but it's not a hindrance. I've always said that I'll take sports movies over actual sports every time, so maybe I'll try another sports book one day. It could also be that I'm sick of "good" books, and sometimes this feels not only like a first book, but like a book from a guy who will never write another. But it's an honest, messy, beautiful disaster and full of bloody noses that are earned.
July 6, 2021
I was put onto this book by Hunter Thompson, who mentioned it in an article:
"Just before talking to Burgin, in fact, I read a savage novel called North Dallas Forty, by ex-Cowboy flanker Pete Gent, and it had cranked up my interest in both Dallas and the Cowboys enough so that I was right on the brink of dumping Oakland and heading for Texas."
To my surprise, I found this book to be very moving, quirky, perceptive, grim and focused, with plenty of little scattered observations on Dallas around 1970. I love it because there's a tremendous sense of dystopia. Orwell's 1984 is great and all, I prefer to read about actual existing dystopiae. This is one of those books where you get that feeling of hopelessness in a world of extreme capitalism, racism and physical abuse.
The atmosphere of fear and pain, the sense of detachment from one's broken body, the constant abuse of uppers and downers, the team going out at night, the dialogues and idiosyncracies of pro-football; this book was a joy to read and I finished it in a few days.
"Just before talking to Burgin, in fact, I read a savage novel called North Dallas Forty, by ex-Cowboy flanker Pete Gent, and it had cranked up my interest in both Dallas and the Cowboys enough so that I was right on the brink of dumping Oakland and heading for Texas."
To my surprise, I found this book to be very moving, quirky, perceptive, grim and focused, with plenty of little scattered observations on Dallas around 1970. I love it because there's a tremendous sense of dystopia. Orwell's 1984 is great and all, I prefer to read about actual existing dystopiae. This is one of those books where you get that feeling of hopelessness in a world of extreme capitalism, racism and physical abuse.
The atmosphere of fear and pain, the sense of detachment from one's broken body, the constant abuse of uppers and downers, the team going out at night, the dialogues and idiosyncracies of pro-football; this book was a joy to read and I finished it in a few days.
October 15, 2023
Dated
This was rather famous book some decades ago. If my memory is correct, it was the first NFL tell-all. With today's 24 hour new cycle and the internet, it is mild by comparison.
I really did not enjoy ir
This was rather famous book some decades ago. If my memory is correct, it was the first NFL tell-all. With today's 24 hour new cycle and the internet, it is mild by comparison.
I really did not enjoy ir
January 24, 2011
I picked up Peter Gent's "North Dallas Forty" after Dr. Z (the formr Sports Illustrated columnist)'s recommendation. Always in the elusive hunt for a good football book, I excitedly hunted down a copy of the book which my favorite sports writer described in glowing terms.
It's not that Gent is a bad writer. In fact, his writing is impressive at times, showing conscious styling and acute literary sense. I genuinely admired how he structured the book so that the development, climax, and dénouement are presented as a week in the life of a football player, climaxing with battle Sunday and concluding with the painful Monday after. And, without any argument, the greatest strength of Gent's book is its portrayal of America in the 1960s. He deftly describes racial tension, drug culture, and counter-culture through the lens of the NFL, leaving the reader stunned by its raw honesty.
But with all that said, the narrator of "North Dallas Forty," a Philip Elliot modeled after Gent himself, is insufferable. Elliot/Gent is like the boy in high school who, after reading a Vonnegut or a Bukowski, insists that he's a writer, but also swears that he's as rebellious and badass as anyone else. And in this respect, other than some moments of excellent writing, Elliot/Gent sounds like any other hack who thinks lacing expletives with (laughably) profound thoughts is good rebellious literature.
Elliot/Gent describes nearly everyone as being dumb, vapid, cruel, and unredeemable. His portrayal of women is even more degrading, as all of them, in addition to being stupid and dull, are sex-crazed insecure shrews. Only four people escape this judgment-- himself, his quarterback, Charlotte (the grossly idealized woman with whom he falls in love with), and David, the man with whom Charlotte might also been sleeping (I'll leave it for you to decide if the vain homoerotic overtones of this were intentional). But sadly to say, he himself doesn't come off any more interesting.
All in all, I found this book incredibly difficult to get through, and I only willed myself to finish because of 1) masochism and 2) respect for Dr.Z. Not worth you're time-- unless you're 15, just discovered the Ramones, and really love both Bukowski and Ken Stabler sort of football figures.
It's not that Gent is a bad writer. In fact, his writing is impressive at times, showing conscious styling and acute literary sense. I genuinely admired how he structured the book so that the development, climax, and dénouement are presented as a week in the life of a football player, climaxing with battle Sunday and concluding with the painful Monday after. And, without any argument, the greatest strength of Gent's book is its portrayal of America in the 1960s. He deftly describes racial tension, drug culture, and counter-culture through the lens of the NFL, leaving the reader stunned by its raw honesty.
But with all that said, the narrator of "North Dallas Forty," a Philip Elliot modeled after Gent himself, is insufferable. Elliot/Gent is like the boy in high school who, after reading a Vonnegut or a Bukowski, insists that he's a writer, but also swears that he's as rebellious and badass as anyone else. And in this respect, other than some moments of excellent writing, Elliot/Gent sounds like any other hack who thinks lacing expletives with (laughably) profound thoughts is good rebellious literature.
Elliot/Gent describes nearly everyone as being dumb, vapid, cruel, and unredeemable. His portrayal of women is even more degrading, as all of them, in addition to being stupid and dull, are sex-crazed insecure shrews. Only four people escape this judgment-- himself, his quarterback, Charlotte (the grossly idealized woman with whom he falls in love with), and David, the man with whom Charlotte might also been sleeping (I'll leave it for you to decide if the vain homoerotic overtones of this were intentional). But sadly to say, he himself doesn't come off any more interesting.
All in all, I found this book incredibly difficult to get through, and I only willed myself to finish because of 1) masochism and 2) respect for Dr.Z. Not worth you're time-- unless you're 15, just discovered the Ramones, and really love both Bukowski and Ken Stabler sort of football figures.
July 8, 2022
It was very interesting seeing what the pro-football NFL players have to endure to keep playing. For a good deal of the book it just looked like lots of drugs, girls, drinking and parties. But as the book gets into a lot of detail during one of the games and what happens after that it’s all very exciting.
I saw the movie based on this book many years ago. Now I have to watch it and compare it to the book. Mac Davis and Nick Nolte were fantastic in it, I do remember that.
I saw the movie based on this book many years ago. Now I have to watch it and compare it to the book. Mac Davis and Nick Nolte were fantastic in it, I do remember that.
December 30, 2020
I thoroughly enjoyed this fictional account of the final eight days of a professional football player's career with a Dallas professional football team. The characters, if not the story line (who knows?), are based on the real Dallas Cowboys, for whom Gent played, its players, coaches, and owners of the mid-1960s. Phillip Elliot (Peter Gent), the protagonist through whose eyes the story is narrated is too independent, publicly profane, and cynical to fit the Dallas team's corporate mold and is eventually cast out not because he doesn't have the ability, but because he mocks and threatens the hypocritical facade of convention the team corporate management believes in. While the Dallas management talks about football as a game, they go about it as a business. While they strongly abjure use of marijuana, an illegal substance, they readily use stronger drugs just to get their players on the field every Sunday. And while they say players are valued members of and contributors to the "team," the players are really little more than equipment - machinery kept together with drugs, chemicals and modern medicine until they reach a point of deterioration at which they can no long perform well, when they are cut, discarded - scrapped.
The book can be read as not only a portrait of the professional football lifestyle circa 1960s, with its Christian, well-mannered facade overlying an unruly, decadent lifestyle, but as a parable inditing the 1960s (and later?) corporations in general, in which individualism is stifled to attain conformity to at least the appearance of the corporate values espoused while cynically treating employees as just another physical asset, to be reorganized or down-sized out, when they are no longer valued.
In many ways the book is dated, portraying racial and ethnic bigotry and sexism that no longer exists in the overt, publicly accepted ways exhibited in the book. But nonetheless it does correctly portray attitudes and language of that era and those attitudes do still underlie more than a little current public discourse. And the corporate, ownership attitudes while different in degree are not today that much different in kind. By the way, the 1979 movie version, starring Nick Nolte, is fairly faithful to the book's story line.
The book can be read as not only a portrait of the professional football lifestyle circa 1960s, with its Christian, well-mannered facade overlying an unruly, decadent lifestyle, but as a parable inditing the 1960s (and later?) corporations in general, in which individualism is stifled to attain conformity to at least the appearance of the corporate values espoused while cynically treating employees as just another physical asset, to be reorganized or down-sized out, when they are no longer valued.
In many ways the book is dated, portraying racial and ethnic bigotry and sexism that no longer exists in the overt, publicly accepted ways exhibited in the book. But nonetheless it does correctly portray attitudes and language of that era and those attitudes do still underlie more than a little current public discourse. And the corporate, ownership attitudes while different in degree are not today that much different in kind. By the way, the 1979 movie version, starring Nick Nolte, is fairly faithful to the book's story line.
September 17, 2016
I saw the movie made from this book years ago and that ignited my interest in reading the original story. There are ways that the book is better and ways the movie is better. Both are about 8 days in the life of a professional football player, a receiver. Most of the actions depicted in the book also show up in the movie, although the tone is much more light-hearted in the movie.
Although I've never played pro football, this book certainly had the feeling of authenticity. That being said, there were moments where the very nature of all that detail slowed the pace of the work down. It was interesting reading but not a page turner. In this way, I thought the movie was a bit better in its pacing.
On the other side, the ending here is so much more powerful than the movie ending. I can see why the movie makers altered it. The book ending quite likely would not have played well to the general audience. I much prefer the novel ending, though and it really hit hard. The power of it pushes the novel well out in front of the movie. I was set to give the book 3 stars but the ending pushed it up another star. I think pretty much anyone who likes football would find it interesting.
Although I've never played pro football, this book certainly had the feeling of authenticity. That being said, there were moments where the very nature of all that detail slowed the pace of the work down. It was interesting reading but not a page turner. In this way, I thought the movie was a bit better in its pacing.
On the other side, the ending here is so much more powerful than the movie ending. I can see why the movie makers altered it. The book ending quite likely would not have played well to the general audience. I much prefer the novel ending, though and it really hit hard. The power of it pushes the novel well out in front of the movie. I was set to give the book 3 stars but the ending pushed it up another star. I think pretty much anyone who likes football would find it interesting.
January 27, 2019
A sports classic, probably the most ground-breaking sports book of its generation. Mr. Gent changed the face of pro sports with this book, forcing owners to deal with issues like using painkillers to make players perform hurt.
I grew up with the Cowboys and in later years, emailed Mr. Gent a few times about various issues before he passed away too young. He was passionate about a lot of things, including politics and film. He was not your average jock type.
I grew up with the Cowboys and in later years, emailed Mr. Gent a few times about various issues before he passed away too young. He was passionate about a lot of things, including politics and film. He was not your average jock type.
December 30, 2011
Peter Gent's jarring Roman a clef about playing for the late-60s Dallas Cowboys still holds up well today. A no-holds-barred account on the violent life of an NFL athlete, it gives the reader pause for reflection that even in 2011, the players in the league are playing under less than optimal circumstances with their bodies as their only commodities.
November 19, 2023
Just act like you belong. It was the advice my older brother had given me to get into bars before my twenty-first birthday. It was the only thing he ever said that made sense. An All-American in high school and college, he graduated with honors and became a successful high school coach. Last spring he quit his job, left his wife and three girls and ran off with the senior-class valedictorian. She came back after three weeks. No one has heard from him since.
I first read this book about professional football in 10th grade and it became one of my favorite books. I was at an impressionable age, 16 at the time. Books about rebellious protagonists who will ultimately lose against authority resonated with me, as I would imagine they would with most teenagers. There is no honor. There is no loyalty and, in the end, your friends will not stick up for you when it's your ass hauled before the power structure. And the book is raunchy as hell. 70s novels seem to be way raunchier than we remember them to be. I don't think most of this novel would be given a pass today. There are too many racist and sexist passages in it to find an audience now. The characters all act out to an extreme that stretches credibility. Massive quantities of drugs and alcohol are ingested. Vice is rampant. Violence is ever-present. And the ending provides a complete 180 turn into an extremely dark resolution. There was a movie produced from it starring Nick Nolte as Phil Elliott, the lead protagonist, and Mac Davis as Dallas quarterback Seth Maxwell. The movie poster depicts a comedy vibe, full of sexy juvenile hi-jinx. Nothing like the book. I saw the movie after having read the book and was not surprised that so much from the novel wasn't translated in the Hollywood version. A few passages about the "faceless" business interest of sports over the respect for athletes were there, but beyond that it's a mostly forgettable movie. The book hits way harder.
With all of its flaws I still love this book for its early impact on me as a reader. Reading it again now, over forty years after having read it the first time, there were passages that I've never forgotten. And there were scenes and characters that were new to me. Things I didn't see or understand the first time. Decades removed I had forgotten how much of the Vietnam war shadowed the plot, for example. And how much professional sports has changed since the author, Peter Gent, played football. As far as recommending it to anyone now, I suppose I could, but not without a caveat that the content has aged badly. Much of the ugly racist and sexist content in this novel made me uncomfortable. It's a product of its time. It's not a pretty depiction of the culture and attitudes of those ugly decades. I'm still going to keep my old battered mass market paperback edition of it.
I first read this book about professional football in 10th grade and it became one of my favorite books. I was at an impressionable age, 16 at the time. Books about rebellious protagonists who will ultimately lose against authority resonated with me, as I would imagine they would with most teenagers. There is no honor. There is no loyalty and, in the end, your friends will not stick up for you when it's your ass hauled before the power structure. And the book is raunchy as hell. 70s novels seem to be way raunchier than we remember them to be. I don't think most of this novel would be given a pass today. There are too many racist and sexist passages in it to find an audience now. The characters all act out to an extreme that stretches credibility. Massive quantities of drugs and alcohol are ingested. Vice is rampant. Violence is ever-present. And the ending provides a complete 180 turn into an extremely dark resolution. There was a movie produced from it starring Nick Nolte as Phil Elliott, the lead protagonist, and Mac Davis as Dallas quarterback Seth Maxwell. The movie poster depicts a comedy vibe, full of sexy juvenile hi-jinx. Nothing like the book. I saw the movie after having read the book and was not surprised that so much from the novel wasn't translated in the Hollywood version. A few passages about the "faceless" business interest of sports over the respect for athletes were there, but beyond that it's a mostly forgettable movie. The book hits way harder.
With all of its flaws I still love this book for its early impact on me as a reader. Reading it again now, over forty years after having read it the first time, there were passages that I've never forgotten. And there were scenes and characters that were new to me. Things I didn't see or understand the first time. Decades removed I had forgotten how much of the Vietnam war shadowed the plot, for example. And how much professional sports has changed since the author, Peter Gent, played football. As far as recommending it to anyone now, I suppose I could, but not without a caveat that the content has aged badly. Much of the ugly racist and sexist content in this novel made me uncomfortable. It's a product of its time. It's not a pretty depiction of the culture and attitudes of those ugly decades. I'm still going to keep my old battered mass market paperback edition of it.
October 5, 2021
The book had a subversive reputation I later read that in the movie version there was talk of Don Meridith playing the quarter back..... which would have been well too tasty. I knew of this book I think he did a radio interview 1984 or so about the Franchise. The book lived up to its hype reading it I could see why any male living in the DFW would have preferred gettng caught with Playboy or Hustler between the mattress and box spring than this book the butt whupping would have been less severe for the porn than being caught with the book which makes hamburgers out of the sacred cow of the cowboys. The book is loaded with moments of absurd laughter and lines that make you laugh and cry at the same time. As a Christian yeah I have philosphical disagreements with Peter Gent ..... but he is brutally onest about football I know several former college football players and others.... Classic line a nubile coed is asking the main character what he does for a living he replies I am a folk hero. The book and movie diverge the book is more violent more drug riddled than the movie ......at times more surreal.
November 24, 2021
North Dallas Forty was slightly different with some of the pitfall of sports. Even though, the movie did touch drug use and promiscuous behavior by players. The book made both issues more Prevalent in the movie did. There was key points in the movie that were not in the book. Phil Elliot’s relationship in the movie painted him as a monotheistic individual the book painted him much more loose when it came to women. The movie made it look as though North Dallas Forty was about a fictional league. The book made it clear that the league was the National Football League as forth naming the league and players in the league such as Tarkington with the New York team. The book did use fictional characters for the Dallas Cowboys fictional team. Team nicknames were never used. A lot of the Characters on the fictional Dallas team could easily be identified. The attributes of the head coach, B. A., of static driven, cold, Christian and others could easily be seen as the same as the Cowboys’ legend Tom Landry. One of the key endings of the movie where Elliot after being released from the team refused to catch a ball thrown by Maxwell is missing from the book. The book was worth reading and enjoyable.
January 26, 2023
I found this book to be somewhat entertaining, and interesting as an artifact of the early 60s. However, I thought that the endless scenes of drug use, partying and sexual antics (not sure whether they're accurate or not), became repetitious by the end of the book. One item in the book that particularly struck me, and will stay with me, is that the main character negotiates a 3-year contract for $13,000 per year. Contrast that with Tom Brady driving a $3 million Bugatti Veyron (among other supercars), and you have an indication of just how much the NFL (and sports in general) has changed (not necesssarrily for the better) in the intervening 60 years. I also felt like the characterization (or lack thereof) and the overall plot and pacing of the book could definitely have been better. I also don't particularly care for books about real organizations like the Dallas Cowboys and the NFL that use fictional characters to represent real-life people, and then you can play the game of who represents which real-life person. So, overall, I'd only recommend this book to someone interested in sports in general and the NFL in the early 1960s in particular.
July 23, 2017
North Dallas Forty by Peter Gent is a novelized equivalent of baseball's non-fiction Ball Four by Jim Bouton. Protagonist Phil Elliott tells the story of the Dallas Cowboys of the 60s who party, drink, use drugs, womanize, endure terrible pain, suffer racism, and feel fear. Phil "finally realizes that opponents & teammates alike are his adversaries, & he must deal & dispense with them all. He is on his way to understanding the spirit that underlies the business of competitive sport. There is no team, no loyalty, no camaraderie; there is only him, alone. Phil is much more intelligent than most of the players in the league. He realizes that for him winning is not everything or the only thing. Playing the game well is important to him. “And even if all the reasons for playing, were a mass of fictions & personal contradictions, the thrill of playing was no less real & that thrill is indescribable. Doing something better than anyone else in front of millions of people. It is the highest I have ever been.”
July 15, 2018
Peter Gent must have really had it in for the NFL. A former wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, he wrote this best seller about a team suspiciously like the early 70s version of America’s Team, with thinly-veiled versions of Coach Tom Landry, Quarterback Dandy Don Meredith, and himself represented. Gent was a talented writer, and his book does a good job exposing the league’s hypocrisies, particularly regarding drug use by its players, its racism, and its way of using up and casting aside players like so much broken-down hardware. It’s also an eye-opening look at the physical toll of football on one’s body, as Gent’s alter-ego Phil Elliott must rely on a litany of drugs and therapies to function, much less continue to play the game. It’s all presented in a clever, often humorous style. A lot of ink goes to the debaucheries of the players’ lives off the field, which is probably what made the book a best-seller. I found those portions tiresome, like a frat boy bragging about his latest party antics. And the ending seems out of place. But it’s a well done story.
May 17, 2023
I didn’t loathe this book by any means, but it definitely wasn’t what I expected. It really wasn’t about football, per say but it had interesting and often times amazing tones around individualism and perseverance. For what it’s worth, the writing was tremendous. It did brush on some themes that I wasn’t fond of having to read at great length; most notably blatant racism, misogyny and heavy drug usage. These were hammered away at times. That being said, it’s quite the history lesson on some things that have changed and maybe a few that haven’t changed at all. It’s a peek behind the curtain, with all its good and bad. Really, this should be closer to four stars but the ending honestly was so odd and shocking that I couldn’t quite give it a four. I’d be interested in reading more of Peter Gent’s work and while I found myself a little out of my depth, there’s no taking away the fact that this book will stay with you for some time.
March 10, 2024
Definitely the third time I have read North Dallas and possibly the fourth. After a little over a half century the novel still holds up and while the players are bigger, stronger, faster, richer and what resides in locker rooms, team headquarters, and coaches offices may have changed only slightly with immediate news cycles and the digital age, Gent's message is the same: professional football is the modern day Roman bloodsport and is going nowhere soon; as a matter of fact, with the legalization of sports gambling (check of how prescient Gent's The Franchise is too) and speed of light information, pro football and the NFL in particular will continue to crush the spirit of the participants who do or don't play the game at the desired level and the pieces will continually be replaced and billions will continue to be made regardless.
Solid book and if you are even just a casual sports fan, get on it, it is more than worth it. Peace.
Solid book and if you are even just a casual sports fan, get on it, it is more than worth it. Peace.
November 9, 2023
Book still holds up despite its age
I first read this book as a teenager. It was one of the first "adult" novels I had ever read, and I was struck with the darkness it revealed about the world of professional football. I empathize with Elliott. Hiis way of looking at playing the sport meshed with mine. Sure, I wanted to win, but it was the sheer joy of playing that I loved. I even loved practicing, as he does. After seeing several shows about Don Meredith, it is obvious Gent nailed him with his portrayal of Maxwell. Meredith eventually tired of the persona he had created and lived out the last third of his life in seclusion. He seemed to finally find peace after he stopped trying to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. This was a fantastic book, despite the dark ending. It is the finest piece of sports fiction I've ever read.
I first read this book as a teenager. It was one of the first "adult" novels I had ever read, and I was struck with the darkness it revealed about the world of professional football. I empathize with Elliott. Hiis way of looking at playing the sport meshed with mine. Sure, I wanted to win, but it was the sheer joy of playing that I loved. I even loved practicing, as he does. After seeing several shows about Don Meredith, it is obvious Gent nailed him with his portrayal of Maxwell. Meredith eventually tired of the persona he had created and lived out the last third of his life in seclusion. He seemed to finally find peace after he stopped trying to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. This was a fantastic book, despite the dark ending. It is the finest piece of sports fiction I've ever read.
February 5, 2018
North Dallas Forty seemed like an appropriate book choice during Super Bowl Week. I have only seen bits of the movie with Nick Norte and Mac Davis. Certainly much has changed in NFL football in the approximately 50 years since this book was conceived by Peter Gent yet the bodily sacrifices of the players is likely similar with better medical care and more careful control of pain killing drugs. Phil Elliot is just trying to survive in the league another week. He gives his body but will not surrender his mind to the whims of the league coaches, owners and officials. Phil Elliot is still not a fully likeable guy and is something of an antihero character. A low three star book.
November 19, 2020
A look into the life of an aging professional football player. The book strips away the glamour and the allure and depicts a tragic and destructive lifestyle that is driven by fear and desperation not fame and fortune. The era the story is set in is illustrated well. The post Vietnam 70s full of drugs, angst, misogyny, racism and a coming to terms with the reality that the “American Dream” in practice is a soulless job and a house in the burbs with an emotionally shallow set of relationships is all captured through the experience of the main character. A comic tragedy that is worth the time to read.
October 16, 2015
*** Here Be Spoilers ***
Peter Gent broke open the secretive world of pro football just as Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" had peeled back the horsehide of pro baseball. By the way, Gent, his last name, is pronounced with a hard G, as in 'gator' or 'gavel' (as he explained on an NPR interview since the interviewer commonly mistakenly used the soft G pronunciation as in 'gentleman').
Gent's path into the NFL was an odd one in that he didn't play college football but was an all-Big Ten basketball player at Michigan State University. But the Dallas Cowboys were a team that didn't look only 'inside-the-box' for players, but looked for smart and talented athletes who could play football such a Bob Hayes, the world's fastest man who broke the world 100 meter dash record at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Hayes played college football and was good but mainly because of his blazing speed and not for his receiving hands or patterns. Either he would run past defensive backs or DB's would play so loose and deep he would cut off the route short and get an easy catch with no one around. I'm not trying to diminish Hayes' raw power and speed of which he had a huge amount, but he was far more a 'burner' than a receiver like Gent. But the combination of both, Gent at tight end/flanker back, and Lance Rentzel as the 'possession receiver' make a threesome all teams strived for back in those days when DB's could ride a reciever downfield until the ball was in the air. Quite the opposite of today when receivers have nearly complete hands-off rules protecting them and when DB's are getting fined for 'hitting too hard'. Gent in the above-mentioned NPR interview stated this was a main reason he didn't watch football any longer and found it boring. I agree. Thinking of my years as a high school and college receiver before the 'chuck-rule' (the DB could only touch of give the receiver a "chuck" within the first three yards of the line of scrimmage and then it is hands off til the thrown ball is touched) came into effect, it was hand-to-hand combat just to try and stay in the relevant proximity of the assigned pass route. Clothes-lines, forearms to the head, spearing all were run-of-the-mill defensive techiniques against receivers ... hard to believe these were outlawed while steroids and chemical enhancements are still overlooked and allowed to flourish these days. Of course there is the occasional hand-wringing over chemicals and the high-powered hits they provide and the players 20-years retired who are now suffering dimensia and other brain trauma from concussions and blows to the head and liver, testicle, kidney, and heart damage from the steroids. Even though they outlaw aiming for the QB's head, it hasn't dropped off the number of concussions since the hit is so chemical enhanced it makes no difference ... a QB's head hitting artificial turf is all that need happen for a concussion. That's cheap field covering so they're not outlawing that ...
ok so i'm rambling as always ...
this is the book on life in football ... and every NFL player who was an 'advisor' on this film was out of football within the next year ... nice act of blackballing by the owners ... this included the greatest reciever of all-time and future Hall-of-Famer, Fred Biletnikoff, who was sent packing to Canada by the Oakland Raiders, the team that loved the misfits, outlaws, and wild men ... (John Matusak, who had a surprisingly well-acted part of a wild lineman was also another one involved in the film who was out of football within a year) ... thank god the NFL, as they stated publicly, didn't take the film seriously and it was completely fictional and had nothing to do with the truth of professional football ... yeah ... that's why they're so damn petty ...
as for the rest of the movie, Nick Nolte is of course completely in this role as the battered but erstwhile receiver who is still trying to fight his way back into the starting lineup consistently while head coach (read: Tom Landry) is playing head games with him by alternating benching him for a less-talented and younger receiver, quoting him passages from Scripture ... "When i was a child i spake as a child but when i became a man i put away childish things" ... yeah, inspirational ... but Nolte makes the role his own as only he can and when you read the book, assuming you have seen the movie but not read the book, which is common with this book and movie, you'll see the differences and simplifications made for the movie and appreciate the intricate psychological study the book brings to the main character, Phil Elliot, and the pain and torture that men willingly put themselves thru for the game ... and in this book, the game wasn't the multi-million dollar giveaway it is now ... this book was in the days when the average and most players had off-season jobs to try and make ends meet ... i know most people don't remember those days but the players were treated like cattle and repaired only enough so they were useful to the team and any way at all they could cheat a player out of any money in their contract, they did ... this was before the player's union and agents (mostly) and players could be sent packing without a dime of promised money and unless they wanted to get a lawyer and take on the entire gaggle of NFL lawyers, they had no chance of recovering any money ...
a great book, a sad tale, and the book to read of when football was football
Peter Gent broke open the secretive world of pro football just as Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" had peeled back the horsehide of pro baseball. By the way, Gent, his last name, is pronounced with a hard G, as in 'gator' or 'gavel' (as he explained on an NPR interview since the interviewer commonly mistakenly used the soft G pronunciation as in 'gentleman').
Gent's path into the NFL was an odd one in that he didn't play college football but was an all-Big Ten basketball player at Michigan State University. But the Dallas Cowboys were a team that didn't look only 'inside-the-box' for players, but looked for smart and talented athletes who could play football such a Bob Hayes, the world's fastest man who broke the world 100 meter dash record at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Hayes played college football and was good but mainly because of his blazing speed and not for his receiving hands or patterns. Either he would run past defensive backs or DB's would play so loose and deep he would cut off the route short and get an easy catch with no one around. I'm not trying to diminish Hayes' raw power and speed of which he had a huge amount, but he was far more a 'burner' than a receiver like Gent. But the combination of both, Gent at tight end/flanker back, and Lance Rentzel as the 'possession receiver' make a threesome all teams strived for back in those days when DB's could ride a reciever downfield until the ball was in the air. Quite the opposite of today when receivers have nearly complete hands-off rules protecting them and when DB's are getting fined for 'hitting too hard'. Gent in the above-mentioned NPR interview stated this was a main reason he didn't watch football any longer and found it boring. I agree. Thinking of my years as a high school and college receiver before the 'chuck-rule' (the DB could only touch of give the receiver a "chuck" within the first three yards of the line of scrimmage and then it is hands off til the thrown ball is touched) came into effect, it was hand-to-hand combat just to try and stay in the relevant proximity of the assigned pass route. Clothes-lines, forearms to the head, spearing all were run-of-the-mill defensive techiniques against receivers ... hard to believe these were outlawed while steroids and chemical enhancements are still overlooked and allowed to flourish these days. Of course there is the occasional hand-wringing over chemicals and the high-powered hits they provide and the players 20-years retired who are now suffering dimensia and other brain trauma from concussions and blows to the head and liver, testicle, kidney, and heart damage from the steroids. Even though they outlaw aiming for the QB's head, it hasn't dropped off the number of concussions since the hit is so chemical enhanced it makes no difference ... a QB's head hitting artificial turf is all that need happen for a concussion. That's cheap field covering so they're not outlawing that ...
ok so i'm rambling as always ...
this is the book on life in football ... and every NFL player who was an 'advisor' on this film was out of football within the next year ... nice act of blackballing by the owners ... this included the greatest reciever of all-time and future Hall-of-Famer, Fred Biletnikoff, who was sent packing to Canada by the Oakland Raiders, the team that loved the misfits, outlaws, and wild men ... (John Matusak, who had a surprisingly well-acted part of a wild lineman was also another one involved in the film who was out of football within a year) ... thank god the NFL, as they stated publicly, didn't take the film seriously and it was completely fictional and had nothing to do with the truth of professional football ... yeah ... that's why they're so damn petty ...
as for the rest of the movie, Nick Nolte is of course completely in this role as the battered but erstwhile receiver who is still trying to fight his way back into the starting lineup consistently while head coach (read: Tom Landry) is playing head games with him by alternating benching him for a less-talented and younger receiver, quoting him passages from Scripture ... "When i was a child i spake as a child but when i became a man i put away childish things" ... yeah, inspirational ... but Nolte makes the role his own as only he can and when you read the book, assuming you have seen the movie but not read the book, which is common with this book and movie, you'll see the differences and simplifications made for the movie and appreciate the intricate psychological study the book brings to the main character, Phil Elliot, and the pain and torture that men willingly put themselves thru for the game ... and in this book, the game wasn't the multi-million dollar giveaway it is now ... this book was in the days when the average and most players had off-season jobs to try and make ends meet ... i know most people don't remember those days but the players were treated like cattle and repaired only enough so they were useful to the team and any way at all they could cheat a player out of any money in their contract, they did ... this was before the player's union and agents (mostly) and players could be sent packing without a dime of promised money and unless they wanted to get a lawyer and take on the entire gaggle of NFL lawyers, they had no chance of recovering any money ...
a great book, a sad tale, and the book to read of when football was football
February 6, 2017
The recreational drugs and sex scenes are tedious, but, hey, it was the 70s. Which also explains the paranoia and hippie pseudo philosophy. Sadly, the pain, sexism, and general nastiness of the NFL seem unchanged. Extra star for being early to tell the truth, and to try to explain why they play the game (and for spawning what's actually a better movie than the book).
January 16, 2018
The athlete as commodity.
Well, this isn't a book filled with sweetness and light, for certain sure. Mostly, it made me sad about life in the sixties, together with a sneaking suspicion attitudes haven't necessarily changed in some respects. Also? This is a good description of why athletes get the big bucks for their commercial life.
Well, this isn't a book filled with sweetness and light, for certain sure. Mostly, it made me sad about life in the sixties, together with a sneaking suspicion attitudes haven't necessarily changed in some respects. Also? This is a good description of why athletes get the big bucks for their commercial life.
July 28, 2018
The more things change
The more they stay the same. Racism, misogyny, violence, injury both physical and psychic, drugs and money - that's the NFL and Texas. Published in 1973, Gent's book and trenchant insights hold up almost frighteningly well. And his description of the football game between Dallas and New York is almost as riveting as watching a close game.
The more they stay the same. Racism, misogyny, violence, injury both physical and psychic, drugs and money - that's the NFL and Texas. Published in 1973, Gent's book and trenchant insights hold up almost frighteningly well. And his description of the football game between Dallas and New York is almost as riveting as watching a close game.
January 16, 2019
I picked this up for less than a buck and read it as part of my read-myself-a-boyhood/manhood project. It's fiction but echoes Alex Karras's bio about the harsh realities of pro football in the 1960s. The misogyny, drugs, and physical brutality of the sport are intense. Definitely not the kind of manhood I have any interest in living.
February 7, 2019
Brutally honest and ultimately depressing. Gent tells it like it was, and probably still is...violent, sick, and real. The followup is a must if you come away from this battered like a wide receiver after a rough game. Absolutely remarkable and more than a small part responsible for my never pressuring my son to play sports...especially football.
August 30, 2022
North Dallas Forty is an old favorite of mine. The descriptions of the game of football are spot on. Unlike the games of today, this story is about the blood, mud, and politics around who plays. Drugs and sex are prominant throughout the book.
The movie was good, but didn't do justice to the book.
The movie was good, but didn't do justice to the book.
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