Customer Reviews

The Crunch

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Back before the proliferation of true free-agency and multi-million dollar bonuses for rookies, pro football players were still real people. Former NFL defensive lineman Pat Toomay provides a yeoman's perspective on The NFL of the early 70's and debunks any idyllic image of the Dallas Cowboys, which had characteristics of an evil empire, presided over by Tom Landry, Gil Brandt, and Tex Scrhamm. Raunchy humor and blatant character assasination -- but it's all real and all hilarious. Roger Staubach in his underwear with a pair of babes?!?!? Classic stuff. Much more enjoyable than Pete Gent's fictitious Cowboy send-up "North Dallas Forty", this book ranks with Roy Blout, Jr.'s classic "About Three Bricks Shy of a Load" when it comes to getting inside a pro football team. Even a quarter of a century later, this is essential reading for the true pro football fan.

The Crunch is the best look into the life of an NFL player that I have ever read. If you are a fan of the NFL than you will be a big fan of this book. It is well written, and it gives a good graphic look into the life of an NFL player. I loved it, and i'll bet you'll like it too!

Pat Toomay is a genius who's exquisite prose mirrors his life through a metamorphosis of being a piece of meat nurtured through the Dallas Cowboy persona and into an intellectual giant. He is a mystic and a new world leader and he will keep you laughing through the adventures of his potent mind.

This is a pretty good and forgotten book. If you are a Dallas Cowboys fan you will probably like this book. Toomay tells his story from getting drafted and going to training camp, all the things that happen there and what it was like to play for the Cowboys back in the day. Pat is a good writer and I liked hearing his story.

Pat Toomay wrote 'The Crunch' at a time when books like this were not written. What Jim Bouton did with 'Ball Four', Toomay does and more with this book.
This is an honest look at life in the NFL, a look that the NFL would have preferred not be seen. Toomay writes of his time on America's Team, the Dallas Cowboys, in often unflattering, but sincere, words.
Unlike other such attempts later, Toomay does not come across as bitter or fake. He comes across as an intelligent warrior who balanced his love of the game with the realities of the game.

If it is possible for a book to capture the humor of the chaos in football this book does it. I felt I was in the locker room with escapees from the local mental hospital trying to out perform rodeo clowns. The book captures the folly of our capitalist competitive behavior in this society.The characters in the book are developed as only someone who has played professional football could possibly do. It is rough humor mixed with emotional absurdities of modern day gladiators. I love the unglamorizing of such a hallowed pillar of american ideals.

While the content is interesting and amusing, the quality of the paperback is sub-par. This edition is a reprint by a reprint publishing house, and it appears that corners were cut. The photos that appear in the book, for example, are grainy and of such poor quality that it's difficult to recognize the players. It's very disappointing to have paid $16.95 for such poor workmanship. The publisher won't make any publishing Hall of Fame!