Customer Reviews

Cowboys Have Always Been My Heroes: The Definitive Oral History of America's Team

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

An excellent book. Golenbock's style of having the players say what happened while he sets the outline is one of the reasons I love this book. The insights the players give about Landry and Schramm are eye-opening. The palyers themselves in the early 1970's didn't want to be called "America's Team", they thought it was too arrogent (and they were right). Schramm was the one who liked it. That's just one of the many insignts you get from this book along with the aspects of racism, the salary disputes, and how the social evironment changed and the players evovled. The only drawback is if you are a current Cowboys fan and only care about the last few years, you're going to be dissapointed because about 75% of this book deals with the first two decades.

Review: Cowboys Have Always Been My Heroes

Golenbock, Peter. Cowboys Have Always Been My Heroes: The Definitive Oral History of America's Team. NY: Warner Books. 1997 838p, illus. $27.00 ISBN 0-446-51950-2

This massive tome (838 pages) is written by a baseball fan from New York now living in Florida! At a recent booksigning, I asked Golenbock why write a history of the Cowboys. He said he had always been a Cowboys fan because they were to pro football what his beloved Yankees were to major league baseball.

When asked if he included material on the current Cowboys, he admitted he threw in a few chapters to attract current fans. But make no mistake: this book is about the Landry/Schramm Cowboys. The Jerry Jones, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer chapters read like the after-thoughts they are.

The strength of the book is the coverage of the early Cowboys from 1960 to 1979. Golenbock mixes original interviews with quotes from secondary sources to weave an "up-close and personal" look at players such as Don Meredith, Don Perkins and Pete Gent. In fact, Golenbock relies far too much on Gent. E.g., Gent (who was released after the '68 season) opines at length on the troubles between Coach Tom Landry and RB phenom Duane Thomas between during the '70 and '71 seasons. Golenbock never explains just how Gent (three years removed from the team) had any insight into the Thomas fiasco.

Meredith did not grant Golenbock an interview, which is unfortunate. Cowboy fans no doubt would have benefited from Meredith's views and insights on the very early Cowboys and his oftentimes rocky relationship with coach and taskmaster Tom Landry. The one impression that stayed with me from this book was how cold and impersonal Landry was with his players. He treated his stars no better than his rookies. For today's fan who views Landry as a kindly saint who led his team of choirboys to two NFL titles, this book is truly an eye-opener.

Golenbock speculates that Meredith refuses to grant interviews due to a continued resentment of the Dallas media who blamed him mercilessly for the teams' playoff failures, and of the fans in Dallas who showed him no loyalty in constantly calling for Craig Morton anytime Meredith failed to deliver. In truth, Meredith often followed Landry's play calls even knowing they would fail. When they did, Landry never accepted the blame and instead said publicly his QB failed to execute!

The level of detail grows steadily worse as the book progresses through the 80s and into the 90s. It appears Golenbock did not interview any of the current Cowboy players, coaches, staff or ownership. Nonetheless, his writing style makes for an easy read, despite the size of the book (78 chapters). The text consists mostly of player interviews or other quotes. Golenbock intersperses his own limited commentary to set the context. He does not flinch as he explores the racism experienced by black players when trying to find housing in Dallas of in the early 60s.

He also explores the drug use that was so prevalent around the team, beginning with Gent, through Thomas and culminating with the flame-out of Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson. Drew Pearson contributed extensive interviews for the book, saving his kindest words for "Captain America" Roger Staubach.

The one feature of the book that was most odd was Golenbock's footnote system. Footnotes and references are detailed in an eleven page appendix. Unfortunately, because Golenbock does not identify his footnotes with numbers, it is very difficult (but not impossible) to relate the footnote back to the text to which it refers. Worse yet, the text carries no indication of footnotes or references of any kind, leaving it to the reader's curiosity to look and see if a reference is available for any particular quote. I found usage of his footnote system to be very irritating and distracting to the point that I finally gave up on seeking out his sources.

In addition, the book suffers from sloppy editing and many errors of fact. Some of the mistakes are trivial: misspelling Texas State Senator Oscar Mauzy as "Mossi" (p. 348). Some are more significant: saying Jerry Jones has won four Super Bowls (don't we wish) at p. 808; saying Staubach won the Heisman his senior year at Navy (p. 395) when any Cowboy fan worth the Star knows Roger won it his junior year; and at p. 367, he says Perkins played nine seasons, when in fact, Perk played only eight years ('61-'68).

I'm sure Tex Schramm would love to read (p. 520) that he was fired in 1988 (while Landry was still there) instead of 1989 when Jerry Jones took over! He also says Danny White was the first Cowboys draft pick lost to a rival league (the WFL) since EJ Holub was lost to the AFL in 1962 (p. 559). In fact, after Holub the Cowboys lost eight other players to the AFL from 1962-66. And in several places, he says the Jimmy Johnson/Jerry Jones Arkansas Razorbacks won an SEC football title, when Arkansas was actually in the SWC at the time.

On the whole, however, the book is definitely worthy of a spot on the bookshelf of any Cowboy fan, especially fans wanting to fill-in their knowledge of the early Cowboys.

By the way: I asked Golenbock why didn't he title the book "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys" like the Willie Nelson song? He said he titled it the way he did so Cowboy fans like me would ask him that question! Copyright 1997 by Fred Goodwin

Any one who is a true football fan should read this book. It is realistic, surprising and sometimes shocking in its revelations of the inner feelings of the players during the early years of the Dallas Cowboys. It is written without taking sides; relating the men, their emotions and their relationships with fellow players in factual, graphic terms. You cannot read this and feel the same way you did before about America's Team. The only parts missing are the Cowboys who didn't want to tell their side such as "Dandy Don". These missing voices create a silence in the telling of the whole story. Still, one can relate to the events and emotions that shaped the Cowboys and that generation of Americans. 4.5 STARS

I enjoyed reading this book. I have been a Cowboys fan since the early 80's and the Danny White era. I was able to read the deep history of the team from the expansion in 1960 to the Superbowl runs of the 90s (although a large portion of the book is dedicated to the 60s and 70s). I am no critic but thought it was a very good long read. Mr. Golenbock explains the much talked about rivalry between the Cowboys and Redskins and why they love each other so much. That in itself was entertaining and surprising. A must read for any Cowboys fan in search of the history of their team.

I thought the Landry era was covered very well. But once the author got to the post Landry era, he seemed to wing and rush through it with very few interviews of players from that era. So once he gets to the Jones/Johnson era the detail and players insights plummet and I was left feeling that the last 1/3 of the book was no where as interesting as the part before it. I think I would have been left with a higher impression of this book if the author had ended the book after his great coverage of the Landry era.

lifetime cowboy who was impressed by the detailed interviews of the current and former players. some of the guys did not hold back in expressing their negative opinions of landry and especially of tex schramm. i was a little surprised that the author missed an important historical fact....staubach took the pokes to 4 super bowls not 3 as he stated on page 492. (miami win, pittsburgh loss, denver win, pittsburgh loss)

It is clear in this book that Golenbock is not a big fan of Landry and Schramm. There are too many quotes from malcontent ex-players like Pete Gent so the book is way out of balance. The book provides very little insight from Schramm and Landry themselves about many contentious conflicts between the players, management, and the coaching staff. Golenbock is very derogatory towards Landry for being "controlling" but yet takes quite a positive view towards Jimmy Johnson for doing the exact same thing. Players who were team players, did their jobs, and were respectful are characterized as afraid of Landry. Those who were disruptive and disrespectful are characterized as courageous.

I bought this book to get an inside view of how the Cowboys became the pre-eminent sports franchise in America. What a I got was a book that spent way too much time exploring every gripe from every drugged out players about Landry and Schramm. There are some really good quotes in this book so it does not deserve the worst rating. The concept of this book is a really good one, but all in all it comes off as a lot griping and moaning rather than objective analysis.

This is the real story of North Dallas Forty. I loved every page and loved hearing all my heroes tell their story. Especially loved the early days with Jack Patera and the mid to late 60's. Great stuff.

At first, i was telling to myself " oh no! not one of those books to make money!". WRONG! This book is fun and easy to read. It gives you an objective history of this team because of the way it is presented. It fun to hear about all those players from the birth of the team until today. I loved it so much that it pushes me to buy the Tom Landry Autobiography (in one chapter, they are talking about this book). A MUST!

My favorite thing about this book is the style in which it was written. It is not used as a platform for an egomaniacal sports critic to spout opinion. The story is told by the people that were there, in their own words. Cowboys have always been my heroes since I was five years old. This book is a great reflection of all that went on during that time, the good with the bad.