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“This was the book that started it all—for athletes telling
their stories, for sportswriters going in depth, for great athletic tales being
bound between the covers. Dick Schaap’s classic is timeless. Required reading
for anyone who loves sports or sportswriting.”
— Mitch Albom, #1 New York Times bestselling author
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“An unprecedented look into the gritty world of
professional football…Still the gold standard of sports biographies.”
— Sports Illustrated
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“The best behind-the-scenes glimpse of pro
football ever produced.”
— New York Times
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“An honest, hilarious, and insightful diary,
with Lombardi alternately serving as the hero and the villain, the lovable
leader and the soul-crushing ogre.”
— San Jose (CA) Mercury News
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“A classic for its insights into the game and
its people, [written] with wit and without scandal or obscenity…A landmark
work.”
— Los Angeles Times
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“This seminal, as-told-to diary…changed the way sports
readers expected their heroes to sound. No more of this Grantland Rice purple
prose. Schaap gave us the tough jock sounding like a real—and witty and
introspective and profane—human being.”
— Chicago Sun-Times
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“Groundbreaking…Candid…An uncommonly frank
account.”
— Chicago Tribune
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“[Kramer is] observant, honest, sensitive, and a
bone-crusher at right guard.”
— Oregonian (Portland, OR)
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“The gold standard for football memoirs…This
modern sports classic is a smart, funny and literate diary of the Packers’
successful quest to become the first team to win back-to-back Super Bowl
victories.”
— Cleveland Plain Dealer
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“The first great professional sports diary.”
— Boston Globe
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“A no-holds-barred diary…One really gets a sense
of the physical, mental, and emotional agonies players can go through in a
season.”
— Orlando (FL) Sentinel
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“The ultimate football diary…Detailed and
dramatic…Kramer’s description of his decisive block against Jethro Pugh at the
goal line in the waning seconds [of the Ice Bowl]…is as fresh and raw as the
minus-fifteen-degree weather at kickoff.”
— Tampa Tribune
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“Kramer detailed the 1967 championship season in
an understated, respectful tone but showed a keen eye for details the fan would
never glimpse.”
— Baltimore Sun
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“Daring stuff for its time, revealing how
athletes really act, talk, and think back when such candor was taboo.”
— Charlotte (NC) Observer
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“A must read…An insightful look at the
sometimes-maddening methods of Lombardi and the love-hate relationship the
players had with the legendary coach.”
— Green Bay (WI) Press-Gazette
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“One of the great sports books of all time.”
— Billy Crystal