Customer Reviews

Golden Boy

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

 

 

I have met Paul Hornung in person twice. The second time was in Green Bay when I bought this book at a book signing. Not only did Hornung charge full price for the book, he charged an additional $15 for his signature! I was the only person in line at the time and as a common courtesy I stuck out my hand to shake his after getting my book. At first it looked like he wouldn't even shake my hand. He finally relented and gave me a dead fish handshake without removing the Sharpie from his hand. Reading this book was about as satisfying as that handshake. Hornung is big on name dropping, but seems to have little use for the common fan.

This book reads easily, but is not rewarding. It contains many unflattering items about Hornung. He got his girlfriend pregnant in college and let her go off and have an abortion. Hornung told her whatever she did to keep it quiet to avoid any bad publicity. Certainly, everyone has heard about the womanizing and Hornung readily admits that much of it occurred while he was married to his first wife. He also admits to smoking marijuana on multiple occasions and trying cocaine once (he didn't like it). Gambling is justified as a way of life learned from his Louisville upbringing. An episode in which Hornung used insider information on a player's injury to place a large college bowl game bet is detailed. His embarassing comments regarding lowering Notre Dame's admission standards to get "the black athlete" are also discussed. Hornung seems truly amazed that just apologizing like a good Catholic going to confession (which Hornung doesn't believe in) hasn't enabled him to continue broadcasting Notre Dame football games.

I was astounded by the great number of factual errors in this book. It made me wonder if the publisher has any fact checkers on staff. Off the top of my head, I remember these errors:

Forrest Gregg was said to retire before the 1967 season to become an assistant coach at Tennessee. In reality, Gregg played for the Packers through the 1970 season.

Fred Williamson was said to be on the Oakland Raiders team that played in Super Bowl II instead of the Kansas City Chiefs team that played in Super Bowl I.

Hornung incorrectly states that the score of Super Bowl I was 37-10 instead of 35-10.

Frank Gifford is said to be on the original Monday Night Football team instead of Keith Jackson.

Hornung states that he didn't like Dan Devine because he crippled the Packers franchise by wasting several number one draft picks on Dan Fouts. It that were true, it might have been a good trade. Actually, Devine sent five high draft picks to San Diego for John Hadl not Dan Fouts.

Eddie Lee Ivery's last name is incorrectly spelled Ivory.

I think Paul Hornung still sees himself as a matinee idol. He has basically lived life on scholarship and I guess he figured he could cash in on this book without a great deal of effort. It is obvious that more effort should have gone into this book. For my money, Hornung is overrated. It never ceases to amaze me how he is given more credit for the Packers success of the 1960's than leading rushing Jim Taylor.

When writing a book like this - you simply MUST get your facts straight or no one is going to believe you... If you cannot even get the factual stuff right, then it is hard if not impossible, to believe the opinion sort of stuff... I can give a bunch of examples - He had the score of the first Super Bowl wrong - NOT 37-10 (it was 35-10) - He had the record of the first year of the New Orleans Saints wrong - NOT 3 & 8 (it was 3 & 11) and his own stats in the back do not add up properly...There are well over a dozen such errors & it would be too boring to list them all - Lots of the stuff may have been simple typos, but still, someone should be checking that sort of stuff before it goes to press - It creates some doubt over pretty much the entire work. But then there are even the other kinds of stories which are clearly more than just errors in data. One example is when he talks about his running mate in the Green Bay backfield, Jimmy Taylor. He states that Taylor played on a national championship team @ LSU, but was overshadowed by Billy Cannon. This is simply NOT TRUE!!! Taylor played on two VERY mediocre LSU teams and HE, not Cannon, was the star of those teams. Taylor graduated & went on to play in the NFL, Cannon remained @ LSU for two more years - it was THEN that Cannon became a star - LSU won the National Championship (AFTER Taylor had graduated) and then Cannon went on to win the Heisman Trophy the following year (again AFTER Taylor was in the NFL) - Hornung had some blockbuster things to say in his book - but the thing is... there are so many errors that I am sure of... it just gives me an uncomfortable feeling that he is just throwing things out there that are just plain wrong. I just wonder how much of any of it is true? ... Also... ol' Paul is pretty full of himself... it will only take you a few pages to realize this. I did enjoy reading the book overall, it brought back a lot of memories, but as I finished the book, "uncomfortable" is the best way I can sum up my feelings about it...

Reading this book , one might conclude that only five things mattered to Paul Hornung: football, alcohol, women (perhaps sex with women is more accurate), gambling and nightclubs (and the entertainers and hoods who inhabited them). As a window into the personality of a rather shallow and non-reflective human being, this book might be worthwhile. On any other level, it is a failure. It offers little insight into the game of football, it's evolution over the 50's and 60's, or the people who played it for Notre Dame or the Green Bay Packers. (Instant Reply or Distant Replay are both far superior). What kind of school was Notre Dame? I can't remember any class even being mentioned? Did Hornung appreciate the unique environment of professional football in a small town like Green Bay, Wisconsin. Again, not a word.
The book reads like a quickie done for pocket change. Some of the factual errors are quite remarkable: Hornung states that Fred Williamson played for the Raiders and got "hammered" in Super Bowl II. Wrong: he played for the Chiefs in Super Bowl I. He states that Frank Gifford was on the original broadcast team for Monday Night Football. Wrong: Gifford joined in the second season, replacing Keith Jackson. One wonders if Hornung actually read the ghostwriter's script.

This was an entertaining and honest book by a football player who really knew (and I'm sure still knows) how to have a good time. Hornung makes few apologies in this book that details his drinking, womanizing and gambling--anhd of course football. He comes across as a truly likeable guy and a great teammate, but I also think that his party lifestyle had a detrimental effect on his playing career. While he was a Hall of Famer in both college and the pros, his pro career was relatively short and became filled with injuries. After recently reading autobiographies by Darryl Strawberry and Josh Hamilton, I couldn't help but think that Hornung played in the last era of party-animal athletes when alcohol and women were the main temptations and drugs hadn't quite hit the mainstream. Hornung does a solid job of detailing his playing career both at Notre Dame and Green Bay and his life after football, namely in broadcasting. As someone too young to have seen him as a player, I came away from this book with an excellent understanding of a larger-than-life character.

"Golden Boy" delivers on a lot of levels. It communicates how it felt to have the whirlwind career on the football field while enjoying the high-life off the field. Hornung fans will enjoy some of the new tales of the life and times of the "Golden Boy" as he hangs in Vegas, LA and Miami, doing what's right and doin' in his way.

The overall tone of the book is conversational. You can tell Hornung got the beats of these stories down around the bar in countless conversations around the world. The "belly up to the bar" tone of the stories gives a good feeling when reading this book. It's a great read, many times I felt like pouring a scotch to "get in the spirit" of this snappy tome.

A previous reviewer noted that this book fails to give a lot of depth and I think that's true. Paul comes off as a pretty superficial guy at times, based on his own "testimony". I would've like more on his thoughts about both ND & GB, not just a re-reading of the record book with a few anecdotes tossed in. The blurb advertises that the book is the story of Games, Girls, and Gambling, & it seems Billy Reed stayed on those themes. I think they should have shined their beam a little wider and told us the whole story of the man and not focus on the narrow areas that they did.

I'd like to recommend this book to one person in particular... Paul Hornung. There's no doubt in my mind that Paul never glanced at the finished manuscript. Author Billy Reed is a basketball guy from "Louvil" and didn't know enough Packer football to properly edit this thing. It's fulla errors that any Packer fan can spot.

- Viking Cliff "Tongue" Livingston tore up your knee in '62, Paul. There is no Bill Livingston.

- Willie Wood is a HOF free safety, not a cornerback as states in "GB"

- Many have pointed out the error in the score of the first Super Bowl, (35 - 10, not 37 - 10)

Errors like this show some of the sloppiest editing I've ever seen.

On a positive note, Paul is a little shy about his credentials as a non-racist. I've personally spoken to African-American Packers who were stunned by Paul's graciousness and kindness when they came to the Packers. Green Bay was just a little South of the North Pole in the Mid-Sixties. For Blacks coming there it was a distant scary place. Many African-American players recall the first white Packer that approached them and started to make them feel at home was the big star, Paul Hornung. Anyone that reads this book knows Paul ain't too shy to brag. But when he recounts the bad times he had in 2004, he doesn't toot his own horn about being a proponent of civil rights or whatever ya wanna call it. That shows me that Paul is a nice guy, he took his poor treatment without trying to cry about it. Hey, Willie Wood, Herb Adderly, Bob Brown and the rest of the guys, remember when you were a lonely rookie and the big dog took out to dinner and then a night on the town? Well, pay a brother back and tell 'em The Horn ain't no redneck!

There's a lot more to this man that games, girls and gambling. Paul why don't ya write a book about it?, I'd be glad to read it.

Truly golden. Not Paul Hornung. He's a bit tarnished. His life is golden. Let's proceed as if this autobiography is not a piece of fiction. He truly had the luck of the Irish from the time he made it to Notre Dame, won the Heisman Trophy in a year that the Irish won only two games to landing on the Packers & being a pet of Vince Lombardi. No doubt about it, he was a great player, Hall of Fame caliber & Lombardi saw that. He was also a notrious bad boy & Vince made allowances for him. Even his most egregious error in judgement, gambling on games got him no more than a slap on the wrist. The year he sat out might have eroded his football skills but not his skill as a "player".
He continued to make more money outside of football with his good looks & product endorsement, Marlboro cigarettes probably being the most famous. Every body wanted to buy him dinner or drinks or women & he let them. It's all a good story & an entertaining book. That's probably what he wanted so many years after the fact & that what it is.

Paul Hornung was a great player on legendary Green Bay Packer teams in the 60's--tho his career was cut short by his gambling suspension (1963) and his injuries, his record 176 points (in a 14 game season or was it 12?) scored by passing, running and kicking still stands today. His playboy reputation and his candid no holds barred approach to life during the the burgeoning time of NFL TV marketing exposure (early sixties) captured the imagination of many football fans at the time. In the book is a photo of his ad sponsoring Marlboro cigarettes- smoking in the locker room and on the sidelines by coaches was commonplace back then. His exploits were probably of the same proportion as the late great Johnny Blood who also played for the Packers back in the ol days....Yet in this new media environment he served as a mythic catalyst to intense media hero worship that later resulted in Joe Namath and then all the rest...Hornung tells his tale in a personal manner, straight talk...really doesn't apologize for much (except for his recent remarks about Notre Dame football that were perceived as racist and got him fired from radio broadcasts of the game) and goes on to list numerous exploits, memories and good times with the high and mighty of Las Vegas showbiz...He talks about football past and present with insight and intelligence. Hornung does not dip into great exploitive detail about his off the field conquests which is refreshing. He clearly has led the charmed life and admits to most of his mistakes. I think his ongoing defense of gambling is a bit over the top but his assertion that it's not much different than wagering in the stock market also rings true. It was clear from the start his life was going to be much bigger than football and his off the field success has amply demonstrated this. He regrets not telling Vince Lombardi he loved him...thats too bad but Vince must have know that.. he had to. So as a football yesterday memory trip (especially to Packer fans) back to the real glory days of football this a very fine example. And there is no doubt this guy could score.

I knew Paul a bit at Notre Dame in the 1950s, and this account of his life there and later is frank, true-to-life, and thoroughly readable. In a modest, conversational tone, he admits his errors, enjoys recalling the good times, and generally comes across as a charming rogue.

Thank you for once again providing excellent service. I will continue to be a customer!

Growing up as the only girl with three older, sports loving brothers, I was very familiar with the on field triumphs of Paul Hornung. I actually grew to love football in the late 50's and early 60's, and was young and romantic enough to develop crushes on my favorite players. Of course, the blonde Adonis of Notre Dame was high on my list of heroes. Right before a long flight to a training session in Houston, I was delighted to find Paul Hornung's memoir of his days as football's handsomest and most eligible bachelor and it turned out to be the perfect book for the trip for this book was the next best thing to having Mr. Hornung as my seat mate. Talk about joie de vivre! His tales of exploits on and off the field are amazing and very entertaining, but the picture that emerges of this unique character is one of a charming, exciting and complex soul. So many people speak of his ability to light up a room with his good looks, charisma and good humor, and despite all his years in the limelight he is refreshingly free of arrogance. At the very end of the book there is a quote from Hornung's close friend and former team mate Ron Kramer that expresses quite well my own impression of the Golden Boy, "People always thought of him as a playboy because women loved him. That's true, they did. But his friends loved him, and their wives and kids, too, as well as anybody else who was lucky enough to meet him. He's charming and generous and just a beautiful guy to know." One warning to nine to fivers: be prepared to feel that your own life is so very prosaic by comparison! Live long and prosper, Paul Hornung, for there will never be another like you!