First and Last Seasons: A Father, A Son, and Sunday Afternoon Football [Hardcover]

Dan McGraw (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 10, 2000

Reminiscent of Frederick Exley's A Fan's Notes and James Dodson's Final Rounds, First and Last Seasons is not only a courageously confessional memoir but a work of resounding originality-a Rust Belt requiem for a father written by the black sheep son he leaves behind.

Dan McGraw did not plan to go home to help his father die. To the thirty-nine-year-old Texas-based senior editor for U.S. News & World Report, Cleveland, Ohio, was a million miles away. Dan was the prodigal middle son within a large Irish-Catholic family, and life never really got going until he was far away from the city and his dominant father, Richard. But the gravitational pull of his hometown grew stronger as each year passed by. The final tug home came when the NFL announced that the Cleveland Browns football franchise would be resurrected for the 1999-2000 season. All McGraws and Clevelanders are die-hard Sunday afternoon football fans, and Dan decided to take a leave of absence and cover the Browns' first season. Soon thereafter, Richard was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Dan came home to a press pass and the caretaking chores for a father intent on dying the way he lived, on his own terms.

First and Last Seasons is a heart-wrenching work about fathers and sons, the binding influence of community, and how emotionally disconnected men find a common language in sports. It is also a poignantly funny and charming celebration of one man's life and how his sacrifices and mistakes helped his son find the best part of himself. A beautifully written, intensely personal story, this cathartic chronicle of how Dan participated in his father's final season is sure to speak to the millions of fathers and sons who have trouble finding the voice to express their love for one another.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the beginning of this memoir, McGraw leaves his position as an editor at U.S. News & World Report to spend time with his dying father in Cleveland, and to investigate the resurgence of the city's beloved professional football franchise, the Browns. The book awkwardly encompasses aspects of autobiography, biography, social commentary, history and sports-page analysis, leaving McGraw pondering a range of death-bed emotions on one page and the Browns' depth at linebacker on the next. Though McGraw clearly respects and loves his father, his portrait of a no-nonsense Catholic always ready with a sardonic smirk suggests where McGraw inherited his dislike for cloying sentimentality. His tone is biting and blue-collar, as are many of the old friends he encounters in the neighborhood bars he frequents. He portrays their abuse of drugs and alcohol with no apologies, as if such behavior were a necessary survival skill to overcome the city's cold Lake Erie winds and humiliating losses in all fields of professional sport. The barroom wisdom of his writing is comfortable, though it occasionally grows tiresome, as when McGraw opines that women hold grudges because "they have never had the experience of fighting hard against each other on the football field and then putting that aside." But most of McGraw's insights, particularly into Cleveland itself and the Browns' smarmy new management, are funny enough to carry readers through the book's many clumsy transitions. The book's brown-and-orange cover will draw Cleveland fans, but it may not be enough to catch the eye of other football devotees.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This disturbing yet moving memoir of a brave man facing his own mortality is set around the author's coming of age, his struggle to come to terms with his family and his father, and the rebirth of the football team both father and son loved. McGraw, a senior editor at U.S. News & World Report, took a leave from his job and returned to his boyhood home of Cleveland to write about the "new" Cleveland Browns. At the same time, his father was diagnosed with inoperable, terminal cancer. In the author's youth, both he and his father had loved the old Browns as only Cleveland fans can. The new Browns seemed to bring them together as the father slipped away and the son tried to come to terms with his death. Anyone who has experienced the death of a parent will cry. Highly recommended for all libraries.DWilliam Scheeren, Hempfield Area H.S. Lib., Greensburg, PA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1ST edition (October 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385498330
• ISBN-13: 978-0385498333
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,183,908 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mandatory Reading for any Clevelander, October 19, 2000

By 

Jim M. Van Cise "My Pen is Huge" (Mentor, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: First and Last Seasons: A Father, A Son, and Sunday Afternoon Football (Hardcover)

I bought it a week ago, I couldn't put it down and tonight I went to the author's signing at the local mall. If you're from Cleveland and you follow sports, if you're a fan of the grit and character of the Old Browns, if you've ever lost a loved one who had a shared memory of sports with you, this book is a keeper. I was first in line tonight and Dan's face was glowing red as he signed my book: "Thanks for being #1." The book is funny, brutally honest and an east sider's analysis of why things are the way they are in Cleveland. The author is a wild, yarn spinning, beer chugging Irishman who's father smirks right back on death when it smiles on him. I know I'll pick this up again next fall and possibly every fall because it's a piece of history. Dan doesn't paint an optimistic picture of the future of the Browns, but hey, us Clevelander's have embraced losing for decades. We can handle the truth!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book struck very close to home - literally. MUST READ!, February 22, 2001

By 

Andrew Downey (Columbus, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: First and Last Seasons: A Father, A Son, and Sunday Afternoon Football (Hardcover)

I didn't think it possible that anyone could really describe what it was like to grow up in the small Cleveland suburb of Euclid, Ohio, and how it feels to return there as an adult. But Dan McGraw has done just that. Cleveland has been referred to as 'the Land of Oz,' and Dan McGraw's book gives the reader a bitter-sweet taste of what it means to be called a `Clevelander.'

Although I don't personally know Dan McGraw, I grew up right on the Lake Erie lakefront about a mile from where he and his family lived.

His accurate, colorful descriptions of the locations and people in and around the Cleveland area are right on the mark. The book really `tells it like it is' when one is faced with the illness and death of a parent, and one's identity as it relates to their parents and their neighborhood.

What is it like going back to your old neighborhood and finding things have changed but yet remain the same? It is an interesting paradox that really comes out in the story, as does Dan McGraw's attitude as he experiences a myriad of mixed emotions toward life and the city he both loved and hated.

It is a book certainly everyone can identify with, and forces one to raise questions about their own experiences with family and friends, as well as one's upbringing. The book expresses the feeling held by many Clevelanders that growing up in the city by the lake was depressing yet exhilirating, dull yet exciting, comforting yet agitating.

Don't miss this interesting biography of a man who saw through to the inner meaning of what it is to be a son, a father, a caregiver, and a resident of what has got to be the strangest, most unique area in America.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Can you go home again?, November 25, 2000

By 

Mary G. Longorio "Texasbookgirl" (Eagle Mountain, UT) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: First and Last Seasons: A Father, A Son, and Sunday Afternoon Football (Hardcover)

Dan McGraw returns to his hometown to write about the return of a Cleveland Browns team. Somewhat a prodigal son, he also returns to a father dying of cancer. This is the anti-Morrie book, the story of a father and son who didn't ever seem to remain on common ground for long, and their coming to grips with death and their differences. It is not a feel good book, it is filled with depression, fear, profanity, pain, drinking and self examination seems to be closer to self-loathing at times. It is the story of a father and son and the differences that could completely tear them apart, and the compassion and struggle that binds them. It is an honest book, the feelings expressed by McGraw about seeing his father laid out for the wake and the confusion, relief and anger that accompany the grief of death ring true. Paralell to this story is the story of the Browns struggle to reestablish their place in pro football...not a pretty sight.