Sunday's Heroes: NFL Legends Talk about the Times of Their Lives

Just before Championship Sunday last week, I wanted to read something to get me in the mood for the two big games. Sunday's Heroes turned out to be a good choice. The book's concept is simple. Talk to the greats of the NFL game and ask them to share their favorite stories about their own careers and the other greats they have known. Then, generously illustrate those comments with black and white photographs that capture the game's most famous and grittiest moments. Although it's not the same as watching a game, Sunday's Heroes is a wonderful pregame show.Here are the chapters:Soft Helmets, Hard Heads; Curious Insights; Views from the Sidelines; Mayhem, Violence, and Pain; On the Wackier Side; Personalities; and The Ultimate Game. For anyone who is a fan of the old NFL teams, especially the Bears, Packers, Steelers, Giants and Redskins, this book will be seen as a gift from God. Of the newer teams, only the Cowboys get a full treatment. If you are a fan of the old AFL teams or the newer NFL franchises, you won't find much in the book about your teams. That's why I graded the book down one star. There were many interesting surprises in the book. You will learn what it was like to play with no helmet, play 60 minutes, to hear some pretty funny ways to describe plays in a huddle, and practice with some of the game's most violent defenders. The humor is sometimes very rewarding. When Joe Namath was asked by Howard Cosell how many great football commentators there were, Namath replied that there was one less than Howard thought there were. There's irony also. Mean Joe Greene is remembered for carrying a stricken Lynn Swann off the field in the 1975 AFC Championship game. Swann reports that the act wasn't the caring act it seemed. "Joe didn't care about me that much." "[Joe] just didn't want to waste a timeout. Joe was always trying to figure out how to win a ballgame." As I finished the book, I realized that we are fortunate whenever we can live in times when the greatest violence we see is in the game of football.Congratulations to the Patriots on their win in Super Bowl XXXVIII! Congratulations also to the Carolina Panthers for playing an outstanding game against them.