Moving the Chains: Tom Brady and the Pursuit of Everything

This is undoubtedly one of the oddest biographies I have ever read. And one of the most intriguing.
Author Charles Pierce tries to uncover what makes Tom Brady tic. What makes him such a consummate team player and leader on the field? What made a player drafted in the sixth round, whom nobody but maybe Bill Belichick and Scott Piloli, thought would ever amount to much in the pros, become a Hall of Fame bound quarterback, one of the best to have ever played?

There are a lot of things.

First, Brady was never the most gifted athlete and he had to work for everything through high school and college. In fact, he was barely recruited and his father put together a video package and he ultimately ended up at the University of Michigan. He persevered despite not even being a full time starter, even as a senior, despite that he was a winner.

Second, in the pros his work ethic is infectious to his teammates. He is the first to arrive and the last to leave. His hard work put him in a position to take over for Drew Bledsoe when he was hurt during the 2001 regular season and progress. He became the team leader that despite his talents Beldsoe never really was.

Third, he is a team first player. He truly buys in to the Patriots’ modern day credo, there is no “I” in team. He doesn’t care about stats, he cares about wins. But that has propelled him to put up unbelievable stats.

And he his simply a nice person. He gives credit where credit is due. He doesn’t do a lot of endorsements. And when he had the opportunity to do one for a credit card company he refused to do it unless his offensive linemen, his protectors, were involved. He wanted them to shine to.

Don’t believe Tom Brady is a really good guy in a sport fraught with me first, selfish, athletes with an undertone of criminality? Read Charlie Weiss’s book about his near death experience and how Brady helped him and his wife out in their time of greatest need. Read Tedy Bruschi’s book that has a few anecdotes about what Brady’s friendship means. Or simply read this book about to hear what his family, friends, and teammates have all said about his leadership skills. There is a reason his teammates and coaches have the utmost confidence in him.

The oddest aspect of this book is Brady himself did not participate in it and it really takes somewhat of a psychologist’s approach at times in examining its subject. From the influence of his Catholic upbringing, the impact of his athletic older sisters who sometimes outshined him in his youth, to his perseverance in the face of sports adversity, you learn the inner workings of one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.

This is a recommended read.

Moving the Chains: Tom Brady and the Pursuit of Everything

Badasses: The Legend of Snake, Foo, Dr. Death, and John Madden’s Oakland Raiders

Love them or hate them, the 1970’s Oakland Raiders under John Madden were certainly an entertaining cast of misfits in the guise of one the best professional football teams of their era.  Here, Peter Richmond tells the story of this cast of characters, and characters they were.

The distinctive personality of this team that set it apart from all others of the 1970’s was the perception that this was a group of outlaws and rebels who thumbed their noses at convention.  Add to this the fact many were castoffs from other teams for behavioral or other issues, and you had a truly volatile band of misfits.  But somehow the affable John Madden, who was the perfect coach for this team, was able to take this group of irrepressible “adults” and mold them into a feared, championship football team.  Having read this account of the 1970’s Raiders, I almost liken John Madden to Santa Clause trapped on the island for misfit toys trying to using his magic to make them whole.

Many of the players on these teams are ones most football fans will remember in perpetuity.   You had Jack “The Assassin” Tatum, Gene Atkinson, Skip “Dr. Death” Thomas, and Willie Brown, aka The Soul Patrol, one of the  most feared set of defensive backs in the league who relished huge hits, clothesline tackles, and knocking their opponents out of games.  They also had characters like quarterback Ken Stabler, the bad southern Alabama boy, carouser and partier extraordinaire, linebackers Phil Villapiano and Ted Hendricks, and the truly crazy John Matuszak, along with the rest of the team full of similar head cases, creating a volatile mix of testosterone, craziness, and child like desire to have fun, on the field and off.

This was a hard partying team and not an insignificant part of the book talks about Raiders’ training camps that were part hard partying and hard practicing and all the pranks the players pulled while preparing for the season.  It was a fun loving and wild group of men who John Madden somehow molded into winners. Partially he did it by letting them have their fun and treating them like men, but making sure that they practiced and played hard.  While they might have been a wild, fun loving bunch, they also loved football and wanted to win.

This book is clearly told from an unabashed Oakland Raiders fan’s perspective, which really worked well in this case.  The author revels in the outlaw persona of this team, which went all the way up to the owner Al Davis, who also flouted convention and thumbed his nose at the powers that be in the National Football League.

And while they only won one Super Bowl in this era, a 32-14 win over the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl XI after the 1976 season, they were always in the mix.  They built up a strong rivalry with the Pittsburgh Steelers, who the author draws a clear contrast with.  Had they not had one of the greatest football teams of all time as their nemesis, the Oakland Raiders may have been the team of the 1970’s.

The author starts the book with the “Immaculate Reception,” one of the most famous plays in NFL history.  With the Steelers desperately trying to stage a comeback in the 1972 playoffs against Oakland, down 7-6 with 22 seconds left in the game and hardly a prayer, Bradshaw threw a pass that careened off a receiver and was picked up off his shoe tops by running back Franco Harris who ran it in for the go ahead score.  At that time, if an offensive player touched the ball while it was in the air, another offensive player could not catch it.  Argument ensues to this day whether they ball bounced off “Frenchy” Fuqua, the Pittsburgh running back, or Jack Tatum, who nailed him just as the ball arrived.

The author marks this as the beginning of the rise the Oakland Raiders whose “rebel image, their defiant owner, had stamped them as an enemy of civilized football.”  He contrasts the “staid, old-world NFL Rooney’s franchise” with the “rebels of Al Davis, a man who bowed to no higher power.”  He also throws words around like “benevolent” versus “demonic” and the “dark side.”  That was the Oakland Raiders image, and they came to revel in it.

While this book chronicles the Oakland Raider’s seasons of the 1970’s, it as much about the unusual character of the team as it is their exploits on the field.  The author conducted extensive interviews with players from that era and has crafted a well done and very interesting read, really a must read for Oakland Raiders fans, but one that all football fans can enjoy.  The only real drawback to the book is the author only had a very short and not very illuminating interview with Al Davis, who did seem very cooperative.  But his perspective can be rather easily gleaned from his own actions and public pronouncements, so this has little impact on the completeness of this work.

Badasses: The Legend of Snake, Foo, Dr. Death, and John Madden’s Oakland Raiders

Bulger looked like a starter in the preseason last year, and frankly I thought he looked better than Joe Flacco.  Granted he was playing against other teams second team, but he had good command of the huddle, threw crisp, accurate passes, and moved the chains.  The end of his stint in St. Louis was marred by injuries and ineffectiveness but his offensive line was so porous no quarterback could have been successful.  He also ended up not only playing hurt much of the time, and having no protection in the backfield.

Kevin Kolb, on the other hand, when given the opportunity to start, has looked anywhere from awful to mediocre at best.  To me he has not proven he is a viable starter in this league.  That’s not to say he may not be, but Bulger looks like a more attractive and proven candidate to lead a team.

I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to The Blind Side and Beyond

Michael Oher has had so many other people tell his story that he must have felt he finally had to tell his own story in his own words.

Michael Oher may be the most well known offensive lineman in the history of the National Football League after the movie, The Blind Side, based on the best selling book of the same name by Michael Lewis. The Blind Side tells of an inner city Memphis kid who grew up virtually homeless but rose to become the first round pick of the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League.

Anyone who read or saw The Blind Side knows the basics of Oher’s story. He grew up in drug infested neighborhoods in Memphis with an indifferent mother addicted to crack cocaine, who often left her many kids to fend for themselves and was at times homeless.

Oher grew up often not knowing where his next meal was coming from or even where he would sleep. In an out of foster care, sometimes homeless, always destitute in if not the basics, direction and care, his character and work ethic, along with a lot of help from some very generous people, eventually landed him at a private school in well to do part of Memphis.

The amazing aspect of Oher’s success beyond people like the Tuohy family who took him into their home and made him part of their family, is his work ethic and perseverance through severe disadvantages.

Yes, Oher got lucky that there were enough people to help him along the way achieve his dreams. But it takes more than being huge and athletic to take those opportunities and turn them into success. While there are many, many, better off, less disadvantaged athletes that never graduate from college or achieve any level true success in professional sports, Oher graduated and had had success as a pro. Regardless of talent and background, that takes a lot of hard work. And despite the unbelievable disadvantages, Oher took the opportunities in front of him and made a success of his life.

In this book Michael talks about his life growing up, his love for his siblings and his adopted family, the Tuohys, but he also has a message. And that message is to those in similar circumstances not to give up, work hard, and take the opportunities afford and make the best of them. While not all kids in Oher’s situation will be quite as lucky, and probably not have quite the perseverance, Oher’s success creates a model and gives hope to others.

And another amazing thing about Oher is how self aware he is. He notes that the life of a professional football player is short, so he doesn’t live lavishly and plans to save and have a plan for the future. He understands that he doesn’t know everything about football and the professional game and understands he has to continue to learn and improve. It’s a rather refreshing perspective.

This book is readable, interesting, and while it will not really tell much that is not basically known about Oher’s life and success, it is his message of hope and perseverance that makes it a worthwhile read.

I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness, to The Blind Side, and Beyond

For avid football fans this book is pretty much useless. It’s too basic and really not that interesting. Almost everything in the book the avid fan will already know.

There are some decent chapters in the book. Chapter 4 on running backs, especially the differences in skill sets and what makes one running back better suited to a team’s scheme than another was well done.

Chapter 6, with it’s explanation of zone blocking schemes was well done as well and should help the average fan understand the differences in line technique.

And Chapter 8′s explanation of the differences between a 3-4 and 4-3 defense were nicely done.
Otherwise, if you know your football, there is not much here for you.

Take Your Eye Off the Ball