Swagger

October 10, 2022
NFL coach Johnson examines his legacy in his self-assured debut. Born in Texas in 1943, Johnson developed a love of football early, played college ball, and received accolades as head coach at the University of Miami in the 1980s. In 1989, Johnson became head coach of the Dallas Cowboys and subsequently led the team to Super Bowl wins in 1993 and 1994. His tenure, he notes, wasn’t without conflict, and he resigned in 1994 after learning that owner Jerry Jones discredited his victories in a drunken conversation with a reporter (“It was all the tiresome antics with Jerry,” Johnson writes). Johnson later coached the Miami Dolphins, but success eluded him. Johnson is unapologetic about his triumphs (“My style was never to act humbly in victory the way the old unspoken rules read”), and he candidly recounts the negative consequences of his “addiction to football,” including the end of his 26-year marriage and his younger son Chad’s alcoholism. His obsession looms large over the narrative; after the death of his mother, he skipped her viewing because the act of mourning “folded into the suffocating idea of football over family, of football over life.” Cowboys disciples and football buffs will drink up this warts-and-all confessional. Agent: David Black, David Black Literary Agency.

November 15, 2022
The bad-boy football coach struts his stuff--well, the stuff of decades ago, anyway. Don't like Johnson? He couldn't care less. "When Sports Illustrated ranked the twenty-five most hated teams in history," he gloats, "our 1986 Miami team was No. 1 and our 1992 Dallas Cowboys team was No. 3." Part of the reason is that operative keyword: gloat. "What's the point of winning if you can't gloat a little?" It's a question asked and answered in the very title of the book, and the author insists that a steady stream of visitors comes to his Key West home to imbibe his ascended wisdom: "These visitors don't fly into Miami, drive through the Everglades, and visit the Keys just to see me. They come to hear what I learned." Gloating aside, Johnson undeniably knows plenty about the game of football, information he's glad to share here. One piece of advice, broadly paraphrased, is to know your numbers and then go with your gut anyway, as when Johnson picked a down-in-the-draft-roster player who was said to be small and slow and, because no one threw to him, may not have been able to catch a ball. Johnson took him anyway. That player was Emmitt Smith, and, as Johnson notes, "By the time he retired, he was the NFL's all-time rushing leader." Evaluating talent doesn't always mean finding the best team player, at least not at first, as long as the player finally gets with the program. And what is the program? Hit hard. Work harder than they do. Scrimmage every day. Leave your kids to fend for themselves if you need to in order to win ("I wasn't exactly cold. I just wasn't tied to a calendar"). And don't be afraid to be disliked. Not the most winning of recent football books but worth a look.

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