Customer Reviews

Turning the Thing Around: Pulling America's Team Out of the Dumps-And Myself Out of the Doghouse

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I read this book when I was 12 years old and the Cowboys had won their first of 3 Super Bowls in the 90's. I loved it but, then again, I would have loved a bottle of poison if it had a Cowboys star on it.

I picked it up again about a year ago when I was thinking about what made that team (and champion teams in general) tick. The psychological edge those teams enjoyed is probably what made the difference, to which Jimmy Johnson deserves the ultimate credit.

His approach to the mental side of football is evident in this book. For example, instead of telling a kicker "don't miss" before a good field goal, Jimmy will always say "make this." The difference is the seed, either positive or negative, that is planted in that kicker's mind.

But the book goes beyond coaching philosophy to chronicle the interesting, if not a little whacky, life of an extremely sucessful football coach.

If you are a Jimmy Johnson fan or a fan of good football autobiographies, then check this book out. It starts with Jimmy living in Port Arthur and takes you all the way through to his days with the Cowboys. The best part of the book in my opinion was the behind the scenes of the different colleges he coached at.

Jimmy Johnson's life is a great story, this book tells that story with great detail from Johnson's boyhood in Port Arthur, Texas all the way through his days of restoring glory in Dallas. This book is not just for Cowboy fans, it's for anyone who loves a good book.

Straight forward, no nonsense book about everything from Johnson's college coaching days to the Cowboy's first super bowl under his staff. He spends several pages scattered through the book almost whining about certain calls of the official in certain games, but what coach doesn't (even I'm guilty). However, I read the book in one day because I just couldn't put it down. He does give insight into how he became (in my mind) the master motivator of NFL football. Recommened to any football coach or player who loves the game and loves learning pychological aspects of the game.

THIS BOOK TAKES YOU FROM JIMMY'S CHILDHOOD IN PT. ARTHUR, TEXAS TO THE 1993 DRAFT. HE'LL TELL YOU ABOUT HIS ALL-AMERICAN CAREER AT ARKANSAS, TO HIS NUMEROUS COACHING JOBS AT COLLEGE'S ACROSS THE U.S.(INCLUDING SOME LATE-NIGHT PARTYING WITH GOOD OLD BARRY SWITZER) THE GREAT RIVALRIES WHILE HE WAS AT MIAMI, THE INFAMOUS "MIA'S NIGHT" WITH JERRY JONES AT A DALLAS MEXICAN RESTAURANT, AND THE TOTAL CONFIDENCE HE FELT GOING INTO SUPERBOWL XXVII THAT HIS TEAM WOULD WIN, AND MUCH, MUCH MORE. AFTER READING THIS BOOK YOU WILL REALIZE HOW DALLLAS ONCE AGAIN BECAME "AMERICA'S TEAM", AND HOW THEY'VE BECOME AVERAGE, AND TROUBLEFILLED WITHOUT HIM.

Great "behind the scenes" book. Great stories you would expect to hear in a lockeroom or at a bar somewhere with friends. A must read.

I first read this book back in the fall of 1994, ironically Dallas' first season with Barry Switzer as head coach, as the Cowboys tried to do the impossible, winning a third straight Super Bowl. Also Dallas' first season after the shocking Jimmy Johnson/Jerry Jones split. It almost seemed as if Jimmy Johnson became larger than life during the 1994 season as a commentator for both Fox NFL Sunday, and then HBO's Inside The NFL. It seemed as if Jimmy's were everywhere, and his genius and presence was unavoidable.

I decided to then purchase this book and read exactly how Jimmy was able to accomplish what had a few years earlier, seemed unacheivable, in taking Dallas from the absolute rock-bottom of the NFL basement, to the penthouse suite of two, back-to-back Super Bowl wins. It turned out, that I would learn a whole lot more. Jimmy takes you back to his roots of growing up in Port Arther, Texas. It was even a surprise to learn, that he knew the late Janis Joplin in high school. More importantly, we learn of his roots in football, starting with his playing for the Arkansas Razorbacks. His relationship with Jerry Jones, and even how he got his first coaching job, by pure accidental luck. Jimmy had been asked by a friend to explain for several others, the 4-3-stack defense. Jimmy hit the chalkboard and away he went. He was then offered his first assistant coaching job right there on the spot.

More interestingly enough, we learn of the long relationships that he had maintained with both Jerry Jones, and Barry Switzer as well. For most people in 1994, you would've probably thought that the two were enemies. Not the case at all (granted they were coaching rivals in the colligate level for many years) but they have known each other since the mid-sixties as well.

You also learn, how Jimmy eventually landed the head coaching gig at the University of Miami. How he made it in what perhaps became the one of the most dominate and potent NCAA college football programs in history, still to this day. You get the hypocrasy of the national media and their love for Notre Dame, and how they tried to create an image of Jimmy and his Miami Hurricane team for always running up the scores in routes against the Fighting Irish. Yet as Jimmy points out grandly, Notre Dame had it's fair share of humiliating and blowing-out even poorer teams throughout the ages. In other words, because Notre Dame are somewhat America's little sweathearts, how dare anyone run up the score in a route against them?

You also get the trials and tribulations that Jimmy had to encounter and endure with the athletic heads of the University of Miami and how he overcame them. Ultimately, Jimmy got the last laugh in the 1987 season, when Miami went undefeated and won the NCAA National Championship. You also get the inside story of the disasterous events leading up to the 1986 Fiesta Bowl against Penn State. Jimmy maintains that it was the 1986 Hurricanes that were the best college football team that he ever coached (even better than the undefeated 1987 team a year later that won it all).

You then get all of the behind the scenes wheeling and dealing that went on when Jimmy and Jerry together finally arrived in Dallas in Feb of 1989. You learn, how even Jimmy, realized and warned Jerry Jones before hand, of what a mistake it was to have gone out to eat in public (let alone it turning out to be Tom Landry's favorite Mexican Restaraunt)knowing the reporters would recognize him and draw the obvious conclusions. The incident that would go on to be in Dallas folklore, known as the "Mia's Night" incident, then to be followed by what became known as "The Massacre at Valley Ranch", the firing of the legendary Tom Landry. Jimmy admits in the book that he did not care one bit, of the way the Tom Landry situation was handled by Jerry Jones.

But more than that, you get the actual details of what Jimmy calls The Great Minnesota Train Robbery aka the Hershal Walker trade. All the draft, trade, plan B maneuvers that went into bringing Dallas from the absolute worst, to the absolute best in the NFL.

Even more intriquing, you get how Jimmy uses his training as an industrial psychologist, into motivating his teams and individual players as well. I found that the be the most interesting and enlightening parts of this book. How Jimmy handles each player differently. How he doesn't blow-up into fit's of frenzied rage as he was often portrayed by in the media, or as Skip Bayless tries to do in his book "The Boys". Yet, that he only blows up at his players, at key points, so that they know he means business. Unlike many other coaches who scream and yell all of the time, to the point where the players become immune to it.

Whether you are a Cowboys fan, a football fan, or not, "Turning The Thing Around" is a book that should not be ignored. I highly recommend it to all interested parties. I only wish that Jerry Jones would've realized how valuable having Jimmy Johnson as his head coacg then, because I still believe in 2009, that had he played his cards better, and had not let his ego and emotions get the better of him, the Cowboys would've at least won that fourth Super Bowl in the nineties. Perhaps even a fifth.

THIS BOOK IS ABOUT FORMER NFL HEAD COACH OF DALLAS AND MIAMI JIMMY JOHNSON. HE TELLS THE READER MOSTLY ABOUT HIS CAREER COACHING A BIT ABOUT HIS LIFE OFF THE FIELD. I TOTALLY ENJOYED THIS BOOK AS HE TELLS US HOW HE WON A NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP AND A SUPER BOWL. HE GIVES HIS HONEST AND INTERESTING INSIGHTS ON MANY PLAYERS AND COACHES. I FOUND THE MOST INTERESTING TO BE HOW HE MADE THE COWBOYS INTO A POWER HOUSE DURING THE 1990'S. EVEN AFTER 15 YEARS, THIS IS STILL A GREAT BOOK. NOW JIMMY STILL USES THE HAIRSPRAY AND IS A COMMENTATOR ALONG WITH TERRY BRADSHAW AND HOWIE LONG ON THE PRE GAME AND POST GAME WRAP UP ON FOX AND ARE QUITE GOOD AND ENTERTAINING. HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK.

Jimmy Johnson goes into great detail about his unique and highly effective leadership style from an assisatnt coach to Miami to the Cowboys.

If you're a Cowboy, Hurricane or Johnson fan, this book is for you. You'll probably find his stories and self-adoration amusing and inspiring. I'm a college coach and always try to find another perspective through which I can learn or grow. Johnson's book didn't do that for me, so I see this as more of a hero-worship read than anything about leadership.