Customer Reviews

The Ones Who Hit the Hardest: The Steelers, the Cowboys, the '70s, and the Fight for America's Soul

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2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm a Steelers freak, and I thought I knew a lot about Bradshaw, Franco, Swan, Jack L and the rest of the crew. But I didn't--not until I read TOWHTH. The background on the coaching and ownership side was fascinating. I also loved the Pittsburgh history, especially the stuff about the growth and collapse of the steel industry, and the corresponding demise of the union. It really gave me a sense of the desperation with which these guys played ball--not just to feed their families but also to honor the underdog who was getting his head kicked in during the 70's: the working man. When you're a kid, you see these gladiators on tv, and you think they're all millionaires, but many had second jobs. And as somebody who loved to hate Dallas, I found that side of the story remarkable as well. My worst fears were confirmed--The Cowboys were a money machine--but I found a new appreciation for them, especially in Tom Landry. I'd thought he was a cold-blooded pragmatist, but he was much more nuanced than I'd imagined. And again, not every Cowboy was a millionaire, I learned. Many came from Steelers-type backgrounds. I think my favorite parts were when Shawn Coyne's family history ties into the major events going on at the time. It gave the book a "you are there" feel. Seriously great read--and a fast one too.

This is a good read for any Steelers fan, but particularly those of us who grew up in the 70's and watched this team grow to dominate the NFL.

The authors do a good job of explaining how Chuck Noll's unique personality and drive were instrumental in building the Steelers dynasty. The football narrative smoothly interweaves with the decline of the steel industry and its impact on Pittsburgh. The chapters contrasting the origins and development of the Cowboys provide enough detail to reinforce my dislike of "America's Team". Landry was uptight and unable to connect with his players, and the Cowboys had some jerks like Cliff Harris and Thomas Henderson. The good guys definitely did win in Super Bowls 10 and 13.

The only issue I had with the book was that there were times when I felt like I was reading transcripts from NFL Films and the "America's Game" series in particular. Some of the quotes and anecdotes were direct lifts from those shows. Which is ironic since the authors actually manage to get their facts wrong in places (for instance, Cliff Harris didn't give Terry Bradshaw the concussion in SB10, nor did Roger Staubach's final pass that game fall incomplete - it was intercepted by Glenn Edwards). A little more original research, some new interviews and better fact-checking would have made this good book really great.

The 70's Steelers were a once-in-a-lifetime team, where the good guys (Rooneys, Noll) managed to assemble a tremendous group of athletes who beat some fine but flawed teams - especially the self-promoting Cowboys.

The ones who hit the hardest is a fascinating view of how the Pittsburgh Steelers because perpetual doormats and losers and rose to become one of the NFL's great franchises. The story telling is straight forward and direct and tells the story concisely and with some flair. The writing is interesting and crisp and is told from a home town perspective so don't expect an unbiased story here.

I liked the angel focusing on the steelworkers and how the union was struggling just as the Steelers were emerging as a powerhouse. I find the one glaring error in this story is that there is no post script to tell us how things ended up for the majority of the Steelers players, the union leaders and the steel industry itself. That in my mind is the major weakness of this book.

All in all a good and enjoyable book. One I am sure Steeler fans will enjoy!

'The Ones Who Hit the Hardest' is a great book for Steelers fans. The book gives you some team history and gets a little in depth during the decade of the 70's. It was interesting to read some stories about 'The Chief' (Art Rooney) and his connection with the city he loved.

As a Steeler fan, I have heard a number of the stories about the Steeler team during the 70's. I knew about how Bradshaw was treated by Coach Noll among others. The parts of the book involving the Cowboys organization and especially Tony Dorsett were very good. I am not a Cowboys fan, but as a fan of all things football, I enjoyed reading about Dorsett's background and then his early years with the Cowboys.

The portions of the book that delt with Steel Worker's Union were a little lacking from my standpoint. I can appreciate the tone it set and the atmosphere of Pittsburgh during the 70's, but I found it hard to connect with them. In contrast some info on the steel industry and the different neighborhoods in and around the city were very good.

I would definitely recommend this book if you are a Steelers fan. If you are a fan of the game, I think this book is still enjoyable. Cowboy's fans beware. This book focuses on the Steelers and doesn't paint them in a flattering light.

The Seventies were so thoroughly and unrelievedly awful that many or most of the memories one treasures of them are of sporting events: the literally incredible Ali-Foreman rumble in the jungle, Reggie Jackson's three home runs in one game against the Dodgers in the World Series ... and most of all, for me, Super Bowl XIII between the Steelers and the Cowboys on January 21, 1979. It was and remains the best Super Bowl in history. (The good news: I watched it with a houseful of our friends and neighbors in our new home in Brooklyn Heights, dandling on my lap my four-month-old son--the baby they told us we couldn't have--and I had the Steelers. The bad news, as every red-blooded American male of a certain age cannot forget: the Steelers didn't cover the spread.)

Imagine, then, my inexpressible joy at discovering Chad Millman's and Shawn Coyne's genuinely great new book, "The Ones Who Hit The Hardest: The Steelers, the Cowboys, the '70s, and the Fight for America's Soul." The Seventies, you'll remember, was the decade of the great decline in heavily-unionized commodity manufacturing--nowhere more dramatically than in the steel mills of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania. And those years saw the coming of the Sunbelt: the middle class, corporate ascendancy most perfectly symbolized by Dallas. Thus, the rise of the Steelers and the Cowboys to face each other as the decade ended is not just a great football story; it is something in the nature of a sociological study, with one way of life passing and the other coming into its own.

Millman and Coyne follow the development of pro football as it came to the forefront of American life, through the rise of the AFL and its eventual merger with the NFL; they then home in on the starkly different styles and personalities of the Steelers and the Cowboys against the background of the contrasting fortunes of the cities they fought for. (Shawn Coyne is a native of Pittsburgh, and his dad, Steelworkers' union official Pay Coyne, Sr., is as much a character in this story as are Art Rooney, Terry Bradshaw and Joe Greene--to marvelous effect.) This is a simply beautiful book, a must-read for everyone who remembers the times, as well as for those who ought to know more about them. It's not just for the football fan--though it is certainly for him or her--nor for Pittsburghers or Texans. It's for everyone who treasures good sportswriting--and even good writing, period.

[This review was written by Nick Murray and published in the current 9/27/10 edition of his Newsletter, NMI. It's only credited to Steven Pressfield at the top because SP did the posting from his computer and that's how Amazon's software works. Nick, I ain't trying to steal no credit from you, baby! (And I love "The Ones Who Hit The Hardest" too.)

This one's a good one if you're an NFL fan new or old. I remember well the Steelers dynasty of the 70s and this book was a wonderful romp through the decade with one of the best teams ever. Also a good book for younger fans who are interested in the sport's history.

The book is a balanced look at the Cowboys and Steelers during the era, and the cities that they came from.

Highly recommended.

I picked up this book because I am fascinated with NFL history. I love the game and find the rise of the league to the position of the dominant professional sports league in the US fascinating. I had not know a lot about the Steelers/Cowboys period that this work focused on, largely because it is after the major rise of the league to a dominant position and before the change in rules that created the intricate passing games of today.

The book certainly satisfied a lot of my football curiosity with wonderful anecdotes about Noll, Rooney and the rest of the football characters involved, including some new ideas regarding the role of congress in birth/rise of the AFL. About halfway through the book however I realized that what I was reading was actually a very cleverly disguised history of the industrial struggles of the 1970s. The battle of the unions and the manufacturers to remain healthy and relevant is a vital piece of American history, that is all too often not discussed. Placing this struggle within the context of the rise of the Steelers/Raiders/Cowboys rivalry was clever and effective.

The goal of book, to educate regarding this important chapter in American economic history, is perhaps, to some degree, why the writing of the book is at such a high level. The story telling is hits all of the proper notes, from serious to poignant to entertaining and in the end the reader has not only been able to engage in the history, and perhaps their own memories of these wonderful teams, but been given the opportunity to have a deeper understanding of where the US economy has been, and where it might be headed.

This is the first sports related book I've ever read, so I can't compare it to others, but I loved The Ones Who Hit the Hardest. I grew up in the Midwest, but my family's all from Pittsburgh and I don't remember a time when I didn't root for all things Pittsburgh, especially the Steelers. Unfortunately, since I was just a kid in the 70s, I don't remember much of going to Latrobe for training camp or of the Steelers and the games played during that era, and I knew next to nothing about the history of the NFL. This book was great at filling in a lot of blanks.

It begins with the flashy new era being ushered in by Joe Namath and moves to a brief history of football and of the fledgling attempts to start a national football league. This includes the bad old days when the only thing consistent about the Steelers was that they were consistently at the bottom of the barrel. We learn about those who tried, and failed, to acquire teams, leading to the upstart AFL and the resulting merger of the two leagues into the NFL we know today.

There are chapters devoted to the Cowboys, their players, style of play and leadership (Yes, it made me hate them even more.). However, most of the book is about the Steelers, from the Rooney family to Chuck Noll and the players; where they came from, why they were the type of players they were and how they went from a team no one expected anything from to Super Bowl champions. Interspersed with the chapters about football are ones about Pittsburgh and how steel shaped the city and the blue collar ethic of the people that rooted for the Steelers.

While I agree with another reviewer that some of the in depth coverage of the steel workers' union races wasn't really necessary, I still found the history interesting; a number of NFL players came from steel mill families and not ending up in the mills was part of their motivation to excel in football. I also agree with others that no mention of the fourth Super Bowl win was a little disappointing and a "Where are they now?" chapter would've been icing on the cake. The topic of the chapters did jump around a bit, but that didn't really bother me, and I really liked the authors' writing style.

Overall, this was a really entertaining book that, while any fan of football should like, will appeal most to Steeler fans. It was great to learn about the history of the NFL and Pittsburgh, but especially about the guys whose names are in my autograph book from so many years ago.

"The Ones Who Hit The Hardest" is a mediocre book that probably will be enjoyed by Steelers fans.
The Steelers of the 1970s remain, in my opinion, the greatest team in NFL history, so praising the athletic greatness of that team is understandable. In that regard the authors could have offered more detail that they did about how great the 70's Steelers were instead of their unsuccessful attempt to turn the book into some sort of morality play involving the Steelers and the Cowboys in a "fight for America's Soul" featuring the Cowboys being the designated villain. How is Roger Staubach a villain?
In their quest to make the Steelers into the heroes the authors also omit certain topics and make other factual errors. For example, in the section on the "Immaculate Reception" that decided the 1972 playoff game between the Steelers and the Raiders there is no discussion of the controversy as to who the football hit off of and whether Franco Harris's grab of the football was a legitimate reception.
The authors further attempt to give the Steelers an excuse for losing the 1976 AFC championship game to the Raiders 24-7 by falsely stating the Steelers were forced to start a rookie quarterback, referring to Mike Kruczek. Actually, while Kruczek did start some games that season while Terry Bradshaw was injured, in the AFC championship game a healthy Bradshaw was the Steelers QB, completing 14 of 35 passes for 176 yards.

I picked this book up after reading some excerpts here and there, and while I enjoyed parts, there are several huge glaring issues.

For one, and this is a biggie, the book ends after the Pittsburgh third Super Bowl win....no mention of the fourth one, no thoughts on the lingering careers of Noll, Bradshaw, etc....

Second, there are large gaps on players....Bradshaw is a rookie with issues, then the next chapter he is the starter leading them, then gap, back to not doing well, then starter.....

Third, every other chapter discussing Pittsburgh union issues never tied in well. They followed the career of several union workers, but to what end? They were Pittsburgh fans?

Kinda disappointed.

In saying that, the first few chapters focusing on the history of the Steelers and the creation of the AFL were very good. The book falls off after that point.