Pride & Poise: The Oakland Raiders of the American Football League (Paperback)

by James McCullough (Author)
Key Phrases: questionable pass interference call, exhibition slate, scoring reception, San Diego, New York, Oakland Raiders (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Pride & Poise: The Oakland Raiders of The American Football League takes a definitive look into the formation and turbulent early history of the Oakland Raiders. Beginning with the hurried scramble to bring professional football to a city that couldn't provide a home for the team only to suffer through three losing seasons a combined 9-33 record with 19 consecutive losses. After plodding through three head coaches and an alarming player turn around before finding a young dynamo who transformed their club from a doormat rumored to move to another city willing to pour more funds into a prolific loser before having ever played in their home city to an immediate, nearly unstoppable winner. Relive the exploits of the Oakland Raiders in a week in, week out chronicle of their first ten seasons. Meet six unique head coaches and the legends who helped to make the transitions caused by age, injuries associated with football seamless and the whirlwind transformation of a young dynamo from coach to commissioner and ultimately to ownership as he built one of the most respected and feared organization in professional sports. Packed with statistics, transactions and forgotten lore, Pride and Poise: The Oakland Raiders of the American Football League is the most complete, accurate and fair account ever produced of the early Raiders, revisiting every game, win, lose or tie as they make the great journey from near oblivion to professional football's elite and its most dominating franchise.

About the Author
Jim McCullough is a researcher and historian. Pouring himself over thousands of pages of research to provide the most complete and accurate portrayal available of the early Oakland Raiders. He is 33 years old, single and resides in Stockton, Ca. This is his first book. He can be reached at [e-mail].

Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: AuthorHouse (May 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 142085979X
• ISBN-13: 978-1420859799
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #554,335 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of great history, but..., July 11, 2006

By	a reader (Hillsboro, OR United States) - See all my reviews

Wow. Jim McCullough has done us all a great service by documenting the creation and first ten years (the AFL years) of the storied Oakland Raiders franchise. He obviously put a great deal of work into collecting all the information presented in the book.

But I'm afraid the book is very, very poorly edited, to the extent that it's a major distraction to the flow of the story. At least I assume that the problem is editing, and not the writing skills of the author, who actually does a pretty nice job of organizing the material in a logical and straight-forward manner.

In spite of these shortcomings, the book is worth reading for fans of the Raiders or pro football in general. It captures those years nicely and is an important documentation of an era that's becoming only a distant memory.

I feel sorry for Mr. McCullough that all his work isn't presented in a more readable fashion. Perhaps there will be a future printing where all the editing mistakes will be cleaned up. The author deserves as much.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book!, October 6, 2008

By	D. Daisey (Chester Heights, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Pride and Poise: The Oakland Raiders of the American Football League (Hardcover)

This is a great book for those who want to know about the beginnings of the Oakland Raiders and the American Football League (AFL). I had been a lifelong Raiders fan, but really learned a lot from this book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Useful but not as good as it could have been, September 5, 2008

By	Thor (Valhalla) - See all my reviews

I'll be honest, while this is a very useful book, there is no authorship here. It is all newspaper articles compiled together from the 1960's. Though that is not obvious at first because there are no no labeling of sources, no footnotes, no bibliography, just a running stream of newspaper clippings disguised as authorship. I don't think James really knew how to put a book together and it is obvious he did not try to do it right. There is no way he wrote any of this unless he writes like a 1960's newspaper man.

Still, a handy reference for The Oakland Raiders of the AFL which substantial details is hard to come by.