God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype, and Hypocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys [Paperback]

Skip Bayless (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bayless, a Texas sportswriter who has covered the Dallas Cowboys for 12 years, is well qualified to write a history of "America's Team," a phrase used at one time admiringly but now sarcastically. And, although he appears to know where the bodies are buried, he is scrupulously fair. He concentrates on Landry, once a great coach, who failed to change with the times and who seemed more interested in God than in people; Gil Brandt, whose early use of computers made him the best drafter in the NFL, but who failed when computerized selection was utilized by all teams; and Tex Schramm, the general manager who hyped the team into a unique position, only to see reality catch up with the hype. No football fan will want to miss this one. (For another perspective, see review of Tom Landry: An Autobiography , Nonfiction Forecasts, June 29). Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Fireside (September 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671748653
• ISBN-13: 978-0671748654
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,149,624 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars You are better off SKIPPING Bayless, October 15, 2000

By 

scott_from_dallas (Irving, Texas United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype, and Hypocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys (Hardcover)

Bayless was run out of Dallas not because he wrote 3 negative books on the Cowboys. Out of season, and even during the glory years, most die hard Cowboy fans are intellectually honest enough to know that things have always been bumpy. But Bayless seeks to do a hatchet job on Tom Landry right from the start. Landry is portrayed by Bayless as a hypocrite because he professes to be a Christian but runs a coaches a professional football team by cutting players and motivating by fear of being cut. Huh? Basically a hypocrite for doing his job and doing it well.

Most of Bayless' key sources in this book are disgruntled Landry haters. Bayless became friends with Paul Hackett and didn't like the way Hackett was treated by the Cowboys. Never mind that Hackett couldn't adjust his offensive thinking for quarterbacks without strong intelligence (like Danny White) and who has proven that he is nothing but a run-of-the-mill college coach. Ironically, many of those so-called haters were present at Landry's funeral earlier this year and I began to wonder whether they really said what Bayless quoted them as saying.

Perhaps there are things in this book that are relevent to any Cowboys discussion, but the timing of the book was odd. It was written in 1989, the low point of the franchise. Had it been written in, say, 1980 (after many of the events portrayed here), Bayless might have some credibility. In fact, he has none.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Just skip skip, April 7, 2008

By 

S. Shelfer "Old Coach" (Lubbock, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype, and Hypocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys (Paperback)

A classic case of biting the hands - the Cowboy Organization and Coach Landry - that fed him.

While Landry's refusal to re-engineer Cowboy offense and defense may have contributed to their decline at the end of his career, it's much more likely that the "20 consecutive winning seasons" and the resultant 20 consecutive low-round drafts were the MAJOR cause.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Fair Description Of Greatness, And Then The Fall, May 18, 2005

By 

Brian Cates (Portland Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype, and Hypocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys (Paperback)

Tom Landry became a captive of his own image. In this book veteran sports writer Skip Bayless pulls back the curtain and shows how a decent man, and Christian, had 20 straight winning seasons as a coach in the NFL, while remaining cold and emotionally distant from his players, and then watched his team decline as the NFL changed while he refused to.

A Dallas fan since 1981, this reviewer was there for the Dallas fall from grace. He saw the decline, and could not account for it. This book answered many of the questions he had as to why Landry was still trying to run an offense and defense perfected in the 1960's in the 1980's; why Landry was never seen scouting players in the off-season; why did so many players and even coaches under Landry seem to have so many issues with him once they left the team.

An eye-opening book that shows how a humble Christian man from Mission, Texas, became for 20 years the winningest coach in NFL history........and then fell into the trap of trying to live up to his own imagae and tried to hang on too long as the league changed around him.

Discover the truth about Tom Landry's firing by Jerry Jones. Did Jones fly personally to meet with Landry on a golf course to rub his face in the fact that he was being fired? Or was Landry improbably trying to hide from the Cowboy's front office, delaying the inevitable? Was Jones chortling at telling Landry he was being replaced by Jimmy Johnson? Or did he want to personally assure Landry that he was going to get the $1 million dollars the last year of his contract called for?

Read the book and find out.