Old School Football Books

 The book above got me to love reading. It was written in 1971 and covers the first five Super Bowls. 

This encouraged me to share some old books that I own about the sport of football since a little game known as the Super Bowl is this weekend.

Football's Finest Hour was written in 1955 and is about the East-West Shrine Game. Growing up, the East-West Shrine Game was a big deal as it was held in the Bay Area from its inception in 1925 until 2006:

Len Dawson - Pressure Quarterback is Dawson's autobiography and was written in 1970 just after he was the MVP of Super Bowl IV

Broken Patterns - The Education of a Quarterback was future Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton's autobiography and was written while he was still playing in 1971:

What better way to learn about the history of the NFL then by one of the founders-Papa Bear. Halas By Halas written in 1979, gives a great account about the history of the NFL to that point.

Football Greatest Coaches is so interesting as the game as changed so much since it was written in 1955:

Pro Football At Its Best is another great look on how the game has changed since 1977:

This Game of Football is so classic because it was one of the definitive books on football when it was written in 1952. Pappy Waldorf coached at Cal and has a statue in his honor on the campus.

Tom Beer was an NFL journeyman who played in the NFL in the early 70's. Sunday's Fools (1974) is a great look of the life of a non-superstar in the NFL.

Out of Their League (1970) has been one of my favorites since I first read in high school. Such an amazing look at the brutally of the NFL during the 1960's. It was such a joy to meet Meggyesy a couple of years ago and talk to him about the book. 

RIP to one of the greatest figures in football-John Madden. Hey, Wait a Minute (I Wrote a Book!) was written in 1984 and it was his first book. What was so cool about this book is that I grew up in the heyday of his coaching about 17 miles from where the Raiders played.

The Super Bowl trophy is named after the great Vince Lombardi and Coach-A Season with Lombardi (1970) was written about his last season coaching. Lombardi came out of retirement to coach the Washington Football Club in 1969 for one season before cancer took his life the next season.

The interesting thing about this book is that I used to work with the author's daughter. We were not really friends at work but had to do one of those group get-to-know you deals during a training week and I was paired with her. She mentioned that she was D.C. and her dad was a sportswriter when she was growing up and I had a mentioned I had bought this book and found it her that her dad wrote it. Pretty cool.

Just some old-school reading material about football.