A mesmerizing look at the year when American athletics went corporate, villains replaced heroes, and sports stars became superstars.
Greed and excess defined the 1980s, and the sports world was no exception. Shifting from the love of the game to the love of money, athletes made the transition from representing honor and humility to becoming brash and branded. Capturing the stories of headliners who capitalized on this trend, Bigger Than the Game charts the rise (and sometimes spectacular fall) of four athletes over the span of one of the most dramatic eras in sports.
Meticulously researched, with stirring, you-are-there reporting, Bigger Than the Game assembles a cast that includes Jim McMahon, who took the Chicago Bears to Super Bowl glory despite his penchant for partying and his aversion to following the game plan; Brian Boswoth, the university of Oklahoma linebacker who mugged for the cameras while calling the NCAA a communist organization; Bo Jackson, who pursued promising careers in both pro football and baseball; and Len Bias, poised to ensure the Boston Celtics' dominance but died of a cocaine overdose just one day after the draft. Also packed with portraits of folk heroes such as "Refrigerator" Perry and Michael Jordan, Bigger Than the Game offers a riveting ride for every sports fan.
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If the amalgam of athlete/pop icon was not created in the 1980s (Babe Ruth, anyone?), that era did produce a unique version juiced up by TV exposure and big money, with rebellion and drugs thrown in—traits all still found on pro rosters. Sportswriter Weinreb profiles four of the signature athletes of the day—former Bears quarterback Jim McMahon, University of Oklahoma standout linebacker Brian “The Boz” Bosworth, pro running back and All Star outfielder Bo Jackson, and Celtics first-round pick Len Bias, who died from a cocaine overdose the day after the draft. If they were their own men, they were also products of their times, and Weinreb does a fine job showing the symbiotic relationship between those athletes and the unfettered capitalism encouraged during the Reagan years. --Alan Moores
Michael Weinreb is the author of The Kings of New York (paperback title: Game of Kings), which won the Quill Award as the Best Sports Book of 2007, was named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly, Amazon.com and The Christian Science Monitor, and was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice. He is also the author of Bigger Than the Game: Bo, Boz, the Punky QB, And How the '80s Created the Modern Athlete, and Girl Boy Etc., a short-story collection, and has been a regular contributor to a number of newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, ESPN and Grantland. His work has also been anthologized in the Best American Sports Writing collection. He lives in Brooklyn.
Bigger than the Game is an outstanding treatise on the self-aggrandizement of the modern athlete. The author chose the year 1986 as somewhat of a watershed year. 1986 saw: Bo Jackson play two professional sports, a steroid laden and overrated linebacker at the University of Oklahoma, Brian Bozworth, become the face of the college football, the cocaine induced death of University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, and the crowning of the Chicago Bears as NFL champions behind the brash quarterback Jim McMahon, the outspoken coach Mike Ditka, and everyone's darling 330 plus pounder William "The Refrigerator" Perry.
The theme of this book is how the modern athlete in the media age has become bigger than the sports they play. It's about narcissist self promotion, the breakdown of the team concept where there is only "I" not "we." Or, as the dust jacket says, it was "the era when athletes evolved from humble and honest to brash and branded." There is certainly a little hyperbole to this description as there are scores of athletes in all eras that fit this mold, but there was not a 24 hour news cycle and the Internet for any but the greatest superstars to rise to such fame (or infamy)....
After reading this book we should have predicted the steroid scandals that have wracked baseball, track and field, and cycling, the despicable display of self adulation in the Lebron James reality TV hype surrounding his decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers, the sniping between superstars Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, the Allen Iverson type athletes with great talent that can't seem to find a way to play for anything other than themselves thus never fulfilling championship potential, the criminality of college athletes with the University o f Miami football team being exhibit A and B, and even the tiresome will he, won't he perennial retirement saga of Brett Favre. Maybe it didn't all start in 1986, but the stories the author tells are a prelude of what came after.
The book centers mainly on four athletes with ESPN and the advent of 24 hour sports coverage in the foreground of the revolution. First, Jim McMahon, the "punky QB" in the clunky title, is a fascinating case of self promotion and thumbing his nose at authority, especially because he readily admits he did and does care. He went to Brigham Young University for one thing and one thing only, to start at quarterback for the football team. He didn't go to get an education or graduate, and he certainly didn't go for any religious purposes. In fact, he almost openly flaunted the rules, drinking and carousing his way through a solid college career. And then with the Bears he was the unorthodox quarterback who defied and fought with his coach, thumbed his nose at NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, but was winner. And that's all that mattered.
Brian Bozworth, the self-admitted steroid laden Oklahoma Sooners linebacker spent much of his college career trying to gain attention. His Mohawk and constantly taking his helmet off to play to the cameras and his brash mouth made him one of the faces of college football. Of course, he was a high draft pick in the NFL and was a complete bust. Bozworth built an image that had little substance, other than steroids, behind it. I will never forget the game where Bo Jackson ran over "The Boz" on national television.
And perhaps the saddest story is the untimely cocaine induced death of Len Bias. Weinreb completely dispatches all the myths surround Bias's death. It was clear from who he hung out with and those who knew and talked about him that he was not a first time cocaine user, but appears to have at least been an occasional, recreational user of the drug. After being drafted by the Boston Celtics he went on a little cocaine binge that killed him. Len Bias may have been a great player, but a certain myth built up around his innocence, suggesting even naivety, that doesn't stand up to reality.
Bo Jackson is mostly a foil to all this. Jackson was a quiet, mostly unassuming personality who chose baseball over football but ultimately decided he wanted to play both, and did. His rise to fame from a poor, rural childhood was marked by a shyness and lack of desire for the spotlight. But he parlayed his fame into endorsement opportunities long after his untimely retirement from sports because of an unfortunate, freaky hip injury. The ability to be a relevant marketing personality long after his career was over could have only happened in burgeoning electronic era.
Despite the unfortunate choice of title, this book is very readable and bring backs memories for those whose formative years were the mid-1980s. While ultimately the theme of the book is darker one, for better or worse we live in the era that might not have started exactly in 1986, but certainly that year is as good as any to point to the beginning of the aggrandizement of the modern athlete.Read more ›
This is a book about sports, but like all the best books about sports, it really isn't a book about sports. For those of us who came of age in the 1980s (or for thinking Americans of any age), this is a book about the profound cultural changes that shaped who we were then and who we have become: a generation of free agents for whom celebrity is currency, mass media is oxygen, and shrink-wrapped pop heroes are a drug of choice. Fascinating, and brilliantly written.
Thoroughly enjoyable. My favorite sports book of the year. As with Michael Lewis's The Blind Side, I don't think you need to be a sports junkie to enjoy it: The stories and connections to society/pop culture make it a fun read for even a casual sports fan. If you are a sports junkie, though, you're sure to be captivated.
This book by Michael Weinreb, is a great read! Those of us at Auburn University during the 1980's are especially interested in the Bo Jackson chapters. Weinreb's story on Bo's retirement is an inspiring one; as are the chapters on 'The Boz'[not willing to be interviewed for the book], Jim McMahon, and Len Bias.
I wish that the Michael Jordan story was covered here, as he was the first king of self promation in sports during the 1980's.
This book captures the American times [both in sports, and in the nation]. Even President Ronald Reagan's story is a good part of the book. I am not sure that Reagan's connection with the athletes profiled here is as great as this book maintains.
"Bigger Than the Game" provides for all of us who were around in the 1980's (and those who do not have any first hand experience of the decade) a historical starting point in understanding this important sports era.
Michael Weinreb has produced a brilliant read on a topic that binds all modern day sports fans.
Tracing the origin of the modern day sporting superstar back to the mid eighties and the existance of 4 key athletes - Len Bias, Bo Jackson, Brian Bozworth & Jim McMahon.
You couldn't get 4 better stories and Weinreb researches them all and intertwines them with great skill (maybe a little too light on Boz - of who i to this day know the least about..)
The drugs and especially Cocaine use was one of the key factors of 80's sports and is covered in detail - culminating in the death of Bias.
The fact that the 4 biggest stars of the decade all had their careers cut short and ultimately didn't create the legacies they were expected too isn't really covered (guess we know this and it isn't the point)
A thoroughly enjoyable walk down memory lane for me. I recommend very highly Michael Weinreb's terrific "Bigger Than The Game." A look at how several athletes from the mid 1980's changed the way we as a society look at athletes, there is plenty in here even for folks like me who were around back then. Interviews with all the major players save Brian Bosworth helps immeasurably.
A really good book, worthwhile to any sports fan or of popular culture.
This book was recommended to me and I really enjoyed reading it. I remember the athletes and games but was really to young to realize or care about the events that were going on during this period of time. It is interesting to read how everything came together at the same time to shift the sports world in such away to become what seems normal today. if you enjoy sports I think this book will be an interesting look at when sports changed in America.
