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Johnny U: The Life and Times of John Unitas

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I love reading about football, football history, and great players of the past, so I very much enjoyed this biography of John Unitas (1933-2002), one of the best quarterbacks in professional football history.

First a little bit about Johnny U. Unitas grew up in a hard scrabble environment in Pittsburgh. His father died when he was five and his mother and older brother worked hard to keep the family intact. Unitas was a bit light for a football player but was the starting quarterback for his high school. His dream was to play for Notre Dame but he couldn't get in so he went on to play at the University of Louisville in the early 1950's. While the team didn't do very well, Unitas did and his jersey number (#16) is the only one retired by that school. In 1955 Unitas was drafted in the 9th round by the Pittsburgh Steelers of the NFL but was soon cut and ended up playing in a semi-pro league around Pittsburgh. Through the football grapevine the Baltimore Colts brought Unitas in for a tryout in 1956 and was signed to back up starter George Shaw. Shaw went down in the forth game and Unitas held on to the starting job, except when injured, from 1956-1972.

Unitas won 3 NFL championships in his career - the first which many consider to be the most pivotal professional football game ever played - the 1958 NFL Championship where the Baltimore Colts defeated the New York Giants 23-17 in the first overtime game in NFL history. The game was televised nationwide and many credit the game for drawing the public's attention to the National Football League and as the launching pad for today's lucrative television contracts and the sport's wide popularity. Some still refer to this game as the "Greatest Game Ever Played." Unitas was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1979 and is one of four quarterbacks on the NFL's 75th Anniversary All Time Team. (Note I am counting the 1958 and 1959 NFL Championships, which preceded the creation of the Super Bowl, and Super Bowl V as the Colts 3 NFL Championships. I am not counting the 1968 NFL Championship as the Colts lost to the New York Jets in Super Bowl III and Unitas was hurt that year and rarely played.)

Callahan says in his introduction that he sets out to write not just a biography of John Unitas but also to give the reader a sense of what it was like to be a professional football player in the 1950's and 1960's. As a biography of Unitas, Callahan is quite successful. We see Unitas not only through his own eyes, but through the eyes of the players, coaches, family, and friends who knew him. He really brings to life the personality, toughness, smarts, and perseverance that made Unitas the great quarterback and team leader he was throughout his career. The biography also includes interesting short vignettes on other great players on those Colts teams like Gino Marchetti, Eugene "Big Daddy" Lipscomb, Art Donovan, and Jim Parker, to name a few.

Callahan is mostly successful at giving the reader an idea of what it was like to be a player in the 1950's and 1960's, although the way he does so is one of the biggest drawbacks of the biography. The structure and writing is sometimes rather disjointed and not well structured. There are too many asides, long parenthetical comments, or chapters that drift looking backward in time, or in the future, and then coming back to the main point, which was a little frustrating for this reader. While I do not expect a completely linear book - I felt the author could have done a better job of being a bit more seamless in the storytelling.

This drawback aside Callahan does provide one crucial insight - that the players of that era, unlike today, really were part of the community (at least the Colts' players were). Since players made much less money back then a lot of them worked in the off season. Thus they lived, and often worked, in the communities where they played football. Further, they often lived in modest homes among everyday citizens, not tucked away in mansions or high income neighborhoods. As a result, the community became very attached to the organization and the players, and often vice versa. The depiction of the long, historical, close relationship between the Colts and the city of Baltimore really brought home what an awful event losing the team was to the city.

Finally, I have to mention that probably the best chapter was the one dedicated to the 1958 Championship Game. It's told from the perspective of the Colts, not the Giants, and is a game that demonstrated Unitas' leadership in pulling out a victory.

Overall, despite the jumpiness of some of the chapters, I found the biography a worthwhile and interesting reading experience and would recommend it to those who want to know a bit more about Johnny U and his Baltimore Colts.

[Reviewer Note: Author Tom Callahan is a journalist and sportswriter. He has worked at both Time magazine as a senor writer and the Washington Post as a sports columnist.]

Terrell Owens is not the first pro football star to have questions about an autobiography. When asked about the glaring errors - his father's name is incorrect, for example - in his 1960s autobiography, John Unitas told a reporter that he never read the book, let alone wrote it.

Such gems on Unitas, arguably the greatest quarterback in NFL history, is found in the outstanding biography by Tom Callahan. Portions of the book were recently excerpted in Sports Illustrated.

Callahan mixes past interviews and material on Unitas with interviews from teammates, opponents, family and friends to present a complete picture of the era of sports and culture. Particularly interesting are comments by ESPN college analyst Lee Corso concerning Unitas the college player and one whose recommendation carried as much weight off the field as in the huddle.

Callahan uniquely covers the landmark 1958 championship game between the Colts and Giants by using a play-by-play summary with comments from participants.

An interesting chapter covers the time Unitas spent with the San Diego Chargers; when illegal drugs and steroids began to replace beer and mixed drinks as tools for players to relax and bond. It was an end of an era in so many ways.

There are plenty of books chronicling pro football that hit the bookshelves in September, but Johnny U should be your first "draft pick."

First of all I am biased: I attended 95% of the Baltimore Colts games that JU played in (Section 32 Upper row 27) - I was a teenager and a fanatic Colts fan - Callahan captures just about everything I remember from 45 years ago. This book should be read by everyone under 50 who believe that Elway, Montana, Marino and Manning were the best QBs ever - if they read this book they'll know what we Colts fans (that's Baltimore not Indy) have known since 1958 - that Unitas was the best ever and Unitas We Stand!

His father died when he was five, leaving behind a hard-pressed family and a coal-delivery business. After school, Johnny helped out --- like, before he was ten years old, shoveling three tons of coal into a customer's basement while it was raining.

But then, Johnny Unitas dedicated himself to everything he did. Comic books: he could read them for hours. Later, he fell in love with the sports fiction of John Tunis. And, of course, he had infinite time to dream about playing football for Notre Dame.

Notre Dame wasn't interested. Louisville was. Notre Dame's mistake. In a game that Louisville lost in a 59-6 rout, Unitas completed 9 of 16 passes, returned 6 kickoffs, made 86% of Louisville's tackles (he played offense and defense), and ran 22 yards for his team's only touchdown. When it was over, he got a huge ovation. No one saw how, in the locker room, he could not raise his arms and his uniform shirt had to be cut off him.

If you didn't get goose bumps just then, stay with me. You will. In Johnny Unitas, we are talking about a genuine hero --- and not just because he is regarded, almost universally, as the greatest football player of the first half of the twentieth century. Unitas is thrilling to read about, and to think about, because his struggle took place in the open, in real time, with the outcome uncertain and physical pain guaranteed. Unitas never complained. He never made apologies. He had a job to do, and it was his responsibility to get it done.

In a time when college football was a big deal and the pros were a bunch of rowdies who earned $5,000 or $6,000, he did that job so well that, like Michael Jordan, he made sport into art. He didn't know about wasted moves. A dancer: watch him drop back to pass. A magician: see him spin and feint. And, above all, a kind of performance artist: the embodiment of leadership.

The final score of his first game as quarterback of the Baltimore Colts was a 58-27 loss. The mood on the team bus was sour. Except for Johnny Unitas, who sat with a sportswriter and coolly relived the game, explaining everything that went wrong and suggesting how he would fix it. That was confidence, not bragging --- at the end of the season, he had the best stats for a rookie quarterback in the history of the NFL.

The following season, his streak began: He threw 122 touchdown passes in 47 consecutive games. (The previous record: 22 consecutive games.) Any modern quarterback would have needed a new helmet --- to accommodate his swelled head --- early in that streak. Not Unitas. When a teammate bought a house, he helped him lay the kitchen linoleum. In the huddle, before calling a play, he would ask, "Do you need anything? How can I help? What can I do?"

Team first. That was Unitas. To sportswriters, after a game, he described everyone's goofs as his mistakes. He played hurt; he had a Terminator's tolerance for pain. Of course his teammates loved him. "Playing with Johnny Unitas," one said, "was like being in the huddle with God."

On December 28, 1958, when the Colts played the New York Giants, a national television audience discovered what Baltimore fans already knew. The game was a nailbiter that went into overtime. "John told us, `We're going to go right down the field and score,'" Alan Ameche recalled. "No doubt about it. You could feel the confidence." And they did. When it was over, an unemotional Unitas turned and walked off the field.

That was, it is said, the game that put professional football on the map, the game that made celebrities out of quarterbacks. You'd never guess that from Unitas --- he was all about the game. (Once, with his nose "bleeding like a running faucet," he shouted at a concerned ref to get out of the way so he could call the next play.) Eventually, as it does to all athletes, his body betrayed him. He retired without fanfare. And died, in 2002, of a heart attack while working out on an exercise machine.

"Action is eloquence," Shakespeare wrote, and in a time when we mostly see exceptions to that truth, Unitas stands as proof. He didn't talk much. He didn't need to. Who he was and what he believed was displayed every time he walked onto the field.

So this book is for men who love the game and romance of football. And it is for women who want to be in relationship with those men. But more, it is for all who once believed in heroes and have been bitterly disappointed by the politicians and business executives who are fierce talk and no guts.

Here, at last, is a guy you can understand and respect. A field marshal who led from the front. A tough guy with heart. A leader who understood people and cared about them and looked out for them.

"Do you need anything? How can I help? What can I do?"

If you're looking for a role model, you could do a lot worse.

This book emphasizes the emotional impact of Johnny Unitas, and his place in the history of football. It skips a lot of his post-Colts career, his family, and his life after football. If you're looking for all of that (as many reviewers seem to be) you may not be enthralled by it as I was. A few lessons:

1. This guy was TOUGH--physically and mentally. I have a hard time elaborating on this. He's my hero in this regard. There's no current analogy. There was no "in the grasp" rule then. Maybe Bradshaw, if you can imagine an unassuming version of Terry.

2. Johnny U kept a certain small distance from his teammates. He felt that was important to the quarterbacking role. Nothing extreme--he hung out with them. He was a quiet sort of guy anyway, so this played to the nature of his personality perhaps.

3. Unitas was an artist at play-calling. He and his receivers would save plays for key parts of the game--set up the defenders early and snare them later on. This is a far cry from today's more regimented and more corporate game.

4. He back-pedaled after taking the snap, surveying the field of play and watching the defense unfold. Why doesn't anybody do that anymore?

I hasten to say that I HATED this guy as a kid. I was a Giants fan. And the famous championship game was blacked out in the NY area. My dad was a big fan, too, but for some reason we were in the City that day, catching snippets of the thing on cab radios. Strangely I must say that if I found one flaw with the book it was the treatment of that game, which seemed just a little bland.

Callahan's style may not be to everyone's taste. He has a way of saying a lot with a few words, and you have to pay attention. He came to my attention as the sports writer for Time Magazine in the early eighties, but I haven't read anything of his since.

Although I no longer follow professional football the names of the players of the 1950's and 1960's are very familiar to me. Yes, this is a book that has several anecdotes about men who played for the Colts during the time period when number 19 led the team that eventually had several Hall of Fame players. Author Tom Callahan provides insight into John's relationship with his first wife Dorothy, Don Shula, and others in addition to Lenny Moore's frustration in not being able to establish a friendship with Unitas. I have always felt a good biography about John Unitas was overdue, and I appreciated having the many anecdotes in the book to enable me to get to know many of his teammates such as Alan Ameche, Gion Marchetti, Eugene "Big Daddy" Lipscomb, Jim Parker, Art Donovan, John Mackey, Tom Matte, and several others. You don't need to be a football fan to enjoy the book, but at least in my case, being familiar with the many players who made up the Baltimore Colts during this time period helped a lot. This book should be a keeper in your library.

As a kid in the 60s, I would sporatically watch an NFL Sunday football game on our Admiral black and white television with my dad. Usually, I never lasted an entire game, because my interests would drift with my 14 year old attention span. I remember that the Green Bay Packers were "America's Team" back then, but I'll have to admit, to me, no single player on that team seemed to be that facinating.

Then, one Sunday afternoon my NFL football watching habits suddenly changed. The Baltimore Colts were playing the Detroit Lions, and a guy named Johnny Unitas was quarterbacking the Colts. I was riveted, watching Unitas' every motion, from calling the team to the huddle to throwing bullet passes to Raymond Berry, Lenny Moore, John Mackey and Jimmy Orr. He wasn't like any football player I'd ever seen. He seemed more akin to Superman. Taking nothing away from Bart Starr, but Unitas was more like Elvis and Starr was more like Perry Como. Starr was efficient and workman like, but Unitas was the dominant player on both sides of the ball.

After reading Johnny U: The Life and Times of John Unitas, I felt that same tug of emotion as I had had back in those days, many years ago, watching Johnny U. rip up the Detroit defense. When Unitas stood on the sidelines he looked like he could have easily been one of the trainers or a waterboy. But, on the field, he was master of the game of football. In "Johnny U.," Callahan takes us through the life of John Unitas, from a boy growing up in a very blue collar Pittsburgh neighborhood, a young man that struggled in school, a college career at the University of Louisville, back to the blue collar neighborhood and sandlot football, to eventual stardom as a Baltimore Colt.

Callahan paints this picture of Unitas by placing it over a background of the evolution of the NFL and the players that we heard about or saw back in the day. Johnny U:, is a book that any NFL fan could like. It is a great inside look at a game that is much different than today, not on a skill level, but on a media coverage level. In those days we had no look into the players lives off the field. Most of the players in fact, made little money and in the off season worked second jobs to make ends meet. Nobody was ever interested in the working stiff. But, in Johhny U:, Callahan, makes these players live for us again, while giving the reader some back ground as to who they were. It is not the journalistic voyuerism that we have come to expect from the tell all books today, it seems real, it seems true.

The book shows us an NFL that is on the brink of replacing baseball as the national pass time. It surpasses almost anything else that I have read on the history of the NFL, because it neither glorifies or vilifies the characters. Some of the coaches and players are portrayed as a little less than one might have thought, while others you come to respect and like a lot more than maybe you once did. But, there are no cheap shots, no airing of rumored dirty laundry.

If you are looking for a good retropective on the NFL and its foundations, Johhny U: is the book. If you are an unabashed Unitas fan like myself, this book is also for you. If you want the Terrell Owens story, stick to the internet, because that not what Johnny U: The Life and Times of John Unitas is about. By the way, the first time I asked my dad what that "U" on the Colt's helmets stood for, he said, Unitas.

In the preface to Tom Callahan's, "Johnny U---The Life and Times of John Unitas," Unitas and Sonny Jurgensen are reminiscing about the NFL of the 1950's and 1960's.

"I think you almost had to know all of us to know any of us," was Johnny's summation of those who played the game in those glory years.

And, that is how Mr. Callahan spools out this superb biography...with stories told by team mates from high school, college and the pros; coaches he played for and against; opponents who could not help but admire him; football front office types; sports writers, friends and family.

As with many who are emblematic of a time, place, and culture, the total (book) is greater than the sum of its parts.

In those days the game belonged to the players---the quarterbacks called the plays and truly were field generals.

They did not need a consortium of coaches acting as consultants to tell them what to do.

Back then, the game had both character and characters (face it, not even Hollywood could make up an Alex Hawkins or Joe Nameth).

Mr. Callahan brings these wonderful characters to life utilizing their convergence with Johnny U as the palette to paint the story of #19.

How many stories elicited an out loud "wow!" from me I cannot count. There are stories that made me laugh so long my side hurt. There are stories that brought a grin, stories that put a lump in my throat and those that brought tears (often, those ironic tears of joy).

Throughout the book, I could see the twinkle in Johnny U's eyes that he was so famous for...that is how expressively the book is written.

In fact, it reads like a novel, flowing from story to story at a comfortable pace...with the occasional two-minute-drill acceleration.

Not only was Unitas a great quarterback and teammate, he was a steadfast friend, devoted father and reliable husband. His influence on football, Baltimore and those around him is immeasurable.

As the narrative says, when Johnny U died, big Jim Parker cried and said, "It was the first time that I wasn't there to protect him."

" `When she (his wife) told me John was dead, I couldn't say anything. I just sat down,' said Gino Marchetti. He'd have cried if he wasn't Gino Marchetti."

I am grateful that Tom Callahan gave me a chance to remember those times I can never forget.

Moreover, you do not have to be a refugee from the "Diner Guys" era to appreciate this one. It stands on its own as a paean to a legend in black high tops.

Read this book!

Callahan sets out to provide a biography and a context for Unitas' career. At best, he tells a rather choppy story. The book will be most enjoyed by fans who are Boomer age or older, who will be able to fill in many of the books' obvious blanks and get beyond the rather out-of-date approach to sportswriting. Younger fans, especially those who are more casual fans or less historically minded will scratch their head in places. While the book brought back a long gone time for me and greats like Jim Brown, it was not difficult to to see the books shortcomings. For example, Callahan alludes to changes in the way football is played, but doesn't really explain how the game changed or where Unitas fit into that picture. We find out (not surprisingly) that Paul Brown was a micromanager, but not that he was responsible for much of the modern playbook. Vince Lombardi, a great team builder, but no innovator gets more sympathetic treatment (he was the largely sympathetic subject of another Callahan book).

As others have noted, the book skips large chunks of Unitas' career, particularly tthe 1960s. This would have been a good period for placing Unitas' evolution as a player in the evolution of the game. We are told that players lived next door to fans in the 50s & 60s, but never find out who lived next to Unitas or much else about his life during his glory years. There is much attention to changing racial attitudes and mores in football and thge larger society, but Callahan misses the most obvious context for Unitas and his peers--the social and economic advancement of "white ethnics" and changing attitudes toward Catholics. Until JFK and Vatican II, predjudice toward Catholics was "respectable" and crossed ideological spectrum of Protestantism. Pro soprts, espcially football, was one of the few places that one saw "people with names that ended in a vowel". At least one reviewer did not care for the frequent references to the football crucible of Western Pennsylvania, yet, I'd say he doesn't fully explain the importance of the region or the significant rivalries (e.g., Browns-Steelers) that grew from it.

Unitas comes across as a Gary Cooper type--a man of few words and quiet, not very public deeds, who didn't make waves despite his own sense of individualism. Yet there are hints that he was a more complicated person. Toward the end, there is mention of Unitas' concern with retirement and disability issues, his difficulties as a businessman, and a difficult first wife. Callahan may have been wanting to focus on Unitas the football player and avoid the appearance of "dirty linen", but like his neglect of Unitas' 1960-68 career, it makes an enigmatic man even more of a puzzle, and Callahan does seem compelled to spend quite a bit of time on Unitas' decline. A fuller picture of Unitas as a man, along with a better treatment of his full career would have made this a more interesting story. Callahan had access to many of Unitas' peers, but only some members of his family. John Unitas Jr is writing his own bio of his father and perhaps that will fill some of the gaps.

Callahan is at his best in the early chapters, where he describes Unitas' upbringing (with an obviously large assist from Unitas' sister) and Unitas' college years, as well as in his play-by-play description of key games. Elsewhere, he tends toward the most stereotypical sorts of cliched sportswriting with tortured metaphors, and a little too much worship of certain players and coaches. It seems like the kind of writing that went of style decades ago.

As an early hero of mine back in 1958 when I was ten,it was a real eye-opener to read about his life almost 50 years later. It was extremely interesting to get such a great feel for the times in other sections of the country and of how different our atheletes were back in those days. They truely were of the people then, living amoungst us, working with us in the off season and a great many of them serving in our armed forces, no questions asked. Reading this book makes you very nostolgic for that era. Although I know there were problems back then, particularly in the area of racial injustice, it still seems that times were so much better, maybe it's just 20-20 hindsight. This book was much more than a sports book, it was a real slice of history of a bygone time and I highly reccommend it.