In a time ''when men played football for something
less than a living and something more than money,'' John
Unitas was the ultimate quarterback. Rejected by Notre
Dame, discarded by the Pittsburgh Steelers, he started
on a Pennsylvania sandlot making six dollars a game and
ended as the most commanding presence in the National
Football League, calling the critical plays and
completing the crucial passes at the moment his sport
came of age. ''Johnny U'' is the first authoritative
biography of Unitas, based on hundreds of hours of
interviews with teammates and opponents, coaches, family
and friends. The depth of Tom Callahan's research allows
him to present something more than a biography,
something approaching an oral history of a bygone
sporting era. It was a time when players were paid a
pittance and superstars painted houses and tiled floors
in the off-season--when ex-soldiers and marines like
Gino Marchetti, Art Donovan, and ''Big Daddy'' Lipscomb
fell in behind a special field general in Baltimore. Few
took more punishment than Unitas. His refusal to leave
the field, even when savagely bloodied by opposing
linemen, won his teammates' respect. His insistence on
taking the blame for others' mistakes inspired their
love. His encyclopedic football mind, in which he'd
filed every play the Colts had ever run, was a wonder.
In the seminal championship game of 1958, when Unitas
led the Colts over the Giants in the NFL's first
sudden-death overtime, Sundays changed. John didn't. As
one teammate said, ''It was one of the best things about
him.'' ''From the Hardcover edition.'' |
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