This classic sports book takes readers inside the 1967 season of the Green Bay Packers, following that storied team from training camp to their dramatic victory in Super Bowl II.
Candid and often amusing, Jerry Kramer describes from a player's perspective a bygone era of sports, filled with blood, grit, and tears. No game better exemplifies this period than the classic "Ice Bowl" conference championship game between the Packers and the Dallas Cowboys, which Kramer, who made the crucial block in the climactic play, describes in thrilling detail. We also get a rare and insightful view of the Packers' legendary leader, coach Vince Lombardi.
As vivid and engaging as it was when it was first published, Instant Replay is an irreplaceable reminder of the glory days of pro football.
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“In my life as a writer and reader, there are only a fewbooks that I’ve read over and over again for the sheer pleasure of theexperience. Jerry Kramer’s Instant Replay is the only sportsbook among them. I loved it when I was a teenager, and I love it still today.”
— David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize–winning author
“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“An unprecedented look into the gritty world of professional football…Still the gold standard of sports biographies.”
— Sports Illustrated“The best behind-the-scenes glimpse of pro football ever produced.”
— New York Times“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“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“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“Groundbreaking…Candid…An uncommonly frank account.”
— Chicago Tribune“[Kramer is] observant, honest, sensitive, and a bone-crusher at right guard.”
— Oregonian (Portland, OR)“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“The first great professional sports diary.”
— Boston Globe“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“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“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“Daring stuff for its time, revealing how athletes really act, talk, and think back when such candor was taboo.”
— Charlotte (NC) Observer“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“One of the great sports books of all time.”
— Billy CrystalBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Jerry Kramer was a right guard for the Green Bay Packers from 1958 to 1968. During his time with the team, the Packers won five NFL Championships and Super Bowls I and II. Kramer was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1977. He lives in Boise, Idaho.
Dick Schaap (1934–2002)—sportswriter, broadcaster, and author or coauthor of thirty-three books—reported for NBC Nightly News, the Today show, ABC World News Tonight, 20/20, and ESPN. He was the recipient of five Emmy Awards.
John Pruden is an Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator. His exposure to many people, places, and experiences throughout his life provides a deep creative well from which he draws his narrative and vocal characterizations. His narration of The Killing of Crazy Horse by Thomas Powers was chosen by the Washington Post as a Best Audiobook of 2010.