Going Long: The Wild Ten-Year Saga of the Renegade American Football League in the Words of Those Who Lived

Oral history books about baseball have been a tradition stretching back four decades to the pathbreaking book The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter. In that book, Ritter went back and compiled extensive oral interviews with a large number of aging major league baseball players, largely from before World War II. The book was a sensation, and this format has been followed by many others in baseball, such as Danny Peary's We Played The Game about players from 1947 to 1964. Such oral histories have not been as common about American football. A terrific recent contribution to this genre, however, is Going Long, by Dallas Morning News sports editor Jeff Miller. Miller has chosen an entertaining topic and has succeeded in bringing in a phenomenal array of those who made the old American Football league so interesting. Like many start-up sports leagues, the AFL was plagued by financial insecurities and, in many cases, poor facilities in which to play. But Miller does a fine job of bringing in stories about these elements of the AFL and making them seem entertaining and almost charming. Miller worked extraordinarily hard to interview AFL players, owners, writers and others involved in the league and their stories are delightful to read. While some AFL stars are noted for their absence-the tart refusals to be interviewed by George Blanda and others gets some discussion-they are hardly missed with a cast of interview subjects that includes Joe Namath, Lamar Hunt, Len Dawson, Bobby Bell, Ralph Wilson, Fred "The Hammer" Williamson, Floyd Little, Jim Otto, Ben Davidson, Merle Harmon and Jack Kemp, among literally dozens of others. Miller's interviews even include key National Football League figures the AFL faced in the early Super Bowls, such as Bart Starr and Bubba Smith. Miller has done a fine job organizing the interview material into thematic chapters that begin with the time before the league even started play to the aftermath of the NFL's merger with the AFL. The AFL was the right sort of league at the right time: it brought pro football to many growing cities left out by the NFL, such as Denver; it offered a high-scoring, flashier, more passing oriented game compared to the NFL or that time, and it came just as televised sports (and in particular televised football) were becoming much more popular. Not all of it was easy: Miller and his interviewees do not gloss over the rickety early stadiums, business problems. or moves to new cities seen in the early days of the AFL. One of the most interesting chapters of the book, "Taken for a Ride", discusses both another such challenging chapter for the AFL and a stirring victory for the civil rights movement: the player boycott of a 1965 All-Star game to be held in New Orleans due to poor treatment of black players such as Ernie Ladd and Houston Antwine there. When white players joined them, the game was moved to Houston instead and went forward, but not before national attention was given to

I moved to San Diego the year after they won their AFL Championship and immediately followed this team and the new league. Having followed this team weekly it was interesting to see the historical perspective of this upstart league. I fondly remember collecting the football cards of Jack Kemp, Keith Lincoln, Paul Lowe and Tobin Rote. But this league is more known for it's famous characters such as wrestler Ernie Ladd, Cookie Gilchrist and Joe Namath. This book allows the players to talk of their experiences, as there are liberal quotes throughout. It tells the story of a poorly financed league that played exciting football that eventually required the conservative, more established NFL to merge. A great example of how upstart the league was is the Miami Dolphins. Ownership was given to Minnesota attorney, Joe Robbie, who struggled to make payroll and among other mismanagement stories, managed to turn the franchise into the only undefeated team ever and make his family a fortune. Overall, I strongly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys football. Players such as Joe Namath and the owners and founders in this league did more than you can imagine turning football into the enjoyable shoot-out now enjoyed by everyone.

The AFL was a truly exciting and dynamic brand of football that came along just as the marketing of sports on TV was ready to explode into everyone's home. This book absolutely captures all of the great moments of the years of the AFL before the eventual merger with the NFL. The behind-the-scenes details and wheeling and dealing is all brought out with the many characters that made the league so colorful and engaging. For the vast majority of the baby-boomer generation who actually grew up with the AFL, and helped grow the legends of the new stars of the league, this book is just the right kind of read that brings back great, great memories of players who were the building blocks of the league.The day to day actions of those first owners, coaches and players and development of the basis for truly challenging the National Football League is all laid all for the reader to understand and enjoy with the build up to each year's championship games expertly played out just like the games themselves.Being able to go back to Lance 'Bambi' Alworth, Cookie Gilchrist, Floyd Little, Steve Tensi, Daryl Lamonica, Joe Willie Namath, and all of the rest of the great names, and to be returned to those turbulent 60's was a real treat and the book just grabs you and puts you inside some of those great old stadiums with names that the true fans just love to hear. Thanks to Broadway Joe, and as one who actually grew up as an early N.Y. Jet fan and was able to revel in the awesome victory that was Super Bowl III, it was a true pleasure to read of those days again and to share those great names and plays of the truly great American Football League.Mr. Miller's accounts of the AFL provide an insight into the incredible efforts of many who were able to go up against a very strong foe and yet succeed through many, many tough times. The Super Bowl is today an institution but would never have been had it not been for the color and excitement of the characters who helped form the AFL."Going Long" is the game winning play that superbly chronicles the history of a league and a kind of football that we just wish we could enjoy today!

There's nothing like hearing a story in someone's own word. Jeff Miller smartly lets a vast collection of old AFL characters tell the story of the upstart league, and does a masterful job of guiding the reader through a fascinating story. This book is full of insight, insider info, and lots of gems from probably the biggest collection of characters since the '62 Mets. My favorite moment is when original AFL commissioner Joe Foss is asked abut his football credenitals. "Did you coach?," Foss, a veteran of Korea and WWII, is asked. "Yeah, I coached," he says. "I coached where it was life and death." I thought Foss' words were especially poignant, for as Miller tells us, it literally was life and death almsot every year for the new league. This book covers everything, from the league's birth, the wars with NFL teams over players, Namath, the Raiders, the enigmatic Cookie Gilchrist, to the story behind the infamous Heidi game. It's a great romp down memory lane, especially for us boomers who fought with tried to pry Dad away from NFL telecasts of Sunday afternoons to watch a more hip, more fun league. I think every kid my age had a pair of white cleats after Namath came into the league.

This kind of does for the AFL what Loose Balls did for the ABA. In the same way, the AFL was definitely wilder. There are some stories in here that will make you laugh your a** off. The writer talked to something like 200 people who were there, most of them players, and there are some GREAT stories that I never heard, and I'm a big pro football fan. It's also a great story because when they started out most of the teams didn't have the facilities and equipment your average Little League teams have, and nine years later they beat the NFL, and there's a lot about that great Jets-Colts game in here that I never knew. Joe Namath . . . Lance Alworth . . . Bubba Smith . . . Jim Otto . . . Otis Taylor . .. all the great players are here, plus unforgettable characters like Wahoo McDaniel and Larry "Wild Man" Eisenhauer, who were bigtime wrestlers in the offseason, and Fred "the Hammer" Williamson and Ben Davidson and a ton of other colorful characters.