On Any Given Sunday [Paperback]

Patrick Toomay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2001

This is a novel about football-professional, that is-in something of the way, say, Bernard Malamud's The Natural is a novel about baseball. In it you can discover the essence, the truth of the warzone the players inhabit that can only be invoked by Pat Toomay, a man who was there."Pat Toomay, for many years a lineman with the Cowboys and the Raiders, has mixed fact and fiction to produce a story that will make every armchair quarterback laugh and wince-and worry at his exposition of 'the game's' most insidious reality: the prospect-on any given Sunday-of a fix."-John Seignthaler, Editorial Director, USA Today

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...will make every armchair quarterback laugh and wince--at his exposition of 'the game's' most insidious reality...a fix." -- John Seignthaler, Editorial Director, USA Today

About the Author

Pat Toomay played in the NFL for ten years. He makes his home in South Salem, New York.

Product Details

• Paperback: 292 pages
• Publisher: IUniverse (January 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595169562
• ISBN-13: 978-0595169566
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,715,530 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Pat Toomay was born in Pomona, California, the son of a career military officer. He found his way through the US military ethos via a career in professional football, playing ten years in the National Football League for such teams as the Dallas Cowboys and the Oakland Raiders. A series of wrenching personal experiences accompanied his professional ascent, ultimately depositing him at the feet of spiritual teachers who provided guidance. The perspective gained from these encounters informs his published work. He is the author of numerous articles about professional football, and two books: The Crunch and the novel On Any Given Sunday. "Clotheslined," his account of working with Oliver Stone, Y. A. Tittle and Jim Brown on Stone's football epic Any Given Sunday, was selected for inclusion in Houghton Mifflin's Best American Sportswriting 2000. Pat currently lives in New Mexico, where he enjoys the friendship of Acoma Pueblo spiritual elders Gilbert Concho and Becky Chino and his relationship with Tibetan Lama Karma Rinchen. Wandering New Mexico's charged terrain is an important pastime. He has two sons, Seth and John.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From John Seabrook, writing in Sports Illustrated:, May 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: On Any Given Sunday (Paperback)

When it comes to fiction by and about defensive ends, I'll admit I'm a rookie. Pat Toomay's novel On Any Given Sunday caught me off guard. The prose is vivid, the dialogue rings true and the plot, though porous in places, usually holds water. But more surprising is the psyche of Toomay's main character. The author was a member of Dallas' Doomsday Defense who spent 10 years messing up the other team's Sunday afternoons. You would expect Toomay's fictional persona, Washington lineman Brad Rafferty, to be equally fearsome, or at least aggressive. But no, Brad is a 250-pound paranoid, in and out of uniform.

Is Toomay making this up or are defensive linemen really this, well, defensive? Brad's anxiety seems too pervasive to be wholly invented-but the reader must figure it out for himself. The puzzle is well worth the price of the book. Brad is haunted by that biggest bogey in sports fiction, the fixed game. At least Brad suspects a fix-he can't prove it. His suspicions light first on the officials, but spread to include his coach, teammates and girl friend. Come the play-offs against Chicago, Brad feels he alone can defend the integrity of the game.

"The game" has two meanings in this book. First, it is football, and by the end of the book, Brad's vision of football is definitely warped. Take his description of the scrimmage line: "The creature snapped to life, burst apart, shattering into a tumult of armor-clad fragments that tore in a vicious assault against its own midsection..." But the game is also a metaphor. We all play the game, Toomay suggests, be it sports, business, law. We all need rules, bounndaries and a clock to live by. We try to control the game through our actions. But in fact, as Brad realizes, the game controls us. We're all hunkered down in a figurative goal-line stand.

Well, maybe not all of us. But if you've ever wondered how the world looks through a face mask, On Any Given Sunday is for you.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Football how it used to be, December 30, 2006

By 

Sandra Watkins "Sandy Watkins" (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: On Any Given Sunday (Paperback)

I "discovered" Pat Toomay as a writer quite by accident. I had just watched North Dallas Forty and my mind travelled back to fun childhood memories of watching the Oakland Raiders play each week. We lived in Atlanta (and were Falcons fans EVEN then) but there was something magical about the Raiders: Stabler, Matuszak, Biletnikoff and even Madden and Al Davis. Mr. Toomay's articles brought back great memories of a game that "used" to be -- for better or worse. Also, memories of when teammates continued to play together for many years so they were YOUR team and you didn't have to take pre-season to learn all the new players.

So I bought both "The Crunch" and On "Any Given Sunday" and was SO happy reading both books! I only wish Mr. Toomay would write more ... because playing during those times and experiencing it all, he has first hand knowledge AND conveys the feelings, frustrations, and love of the game to all football fans -- whether it's fiction or non-fiction.

Any football fan will love his books ... older fans because of how it "used" to be. Younger fans because it's important to know the history of the game and Mr. Toomay -- through both books -- makes it so.

I hope you enjoy these books as much as my friends, family and I have (I bought a lot of copies as gifts!)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another winner from Toomay, October 17, 2010

By 

John "J-Cokes" (Illinois) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: On Any Given Sunday (Hardcover)

I grew up a big fan of Pat Toomay on the football field. I thoroughly enjoyed his book "The Crunch", but that was pretty much an autobiography, which while it was fascinating, it is a whole different concept than this book. This book is fiction (although I have suspicions some of it is real). This book revolves around football, but yet football isn't the main idea. It is a great book, with some subplots, some interesting messages and some unexpected turns. It delivers all without being preachy, without being repetitive and without getting bogged down in football.
My only complaint is that Toomay doesn't write more!