Review by New York Times Review
We might pause right here at the start to wonder about the potential audience for an 800-page history of the Dallas Cowboys. If "football mad" is the first adjective you would use to describe Big D, many more will scroll by before you get to "bookish." As Joe Nick Patoski writes, this is a city "all about tearing down the past" that can count, among its other achievements, an early rivalry with Houston for the title of "boob-job capital of America." Then again, even the N.F.L. was initially a hard sell in northeast Texas. The entrenched Lone Star tradition of packing high school and college football stands on Fridays and Saturdays didn't leave a lot of energy for Sundays. The city's first iteration of a professional franchise, the Dallas Texans in 1952, drew so little interest that the team was banished to practice in Hershey, Pa.., and play in Akron, Ohio, in the middle of its inaugural (and only) season. The Cowboys fared a little better. Clint Murchison Jr., the son of an oil baron, invested $600,000 to start the team in 1960. After surviving competition from another crew named the Texans - this one in the upstart American Football League - it went on to win five Super Bowls, redefine the art of cheerleading and inspire the equal levels of adoration and resentment reserved for arrogant conquerors everywhere. The current owner, Jerry Jones, paid $140 million for the team in 1989. Forbes recently valued the 'Boys at a manly $2.1 billion. Jerry Seinfeld once joked that given all the personnel changes over the years, remaining loyal to a sports team is a silly proposition: "You're actually rooting for the clothes, when you get right down to it. . . . You are standing and cheering and yelling for your clothes to beat the clothes from another city." On one hand, this is a problem for Patoski, since generations of Cowboys aren't bound together by a single narrative strand, or even a dozen of them. Only by clothes. So a comprehensive history of the learn is at an inherent disadvantage against narrower slices -say, Jeff Pearlman's "Boys Will Be Boys," which covers the team's frequent victories and tabloid appearances in the 1990s with the frictionless verve of glossy-magazine vernacular. Or John Eisenberg's "TenGallon War," published just one week before Patoski's book, which chronicles the early battle with the Texans for the Dallas fan base. On the other hand, the 50-year scope offers an instructive time-lapse view of America's jock culture: from the 1970s star quarterback Roger Staubach, who asked for a station wagon instead of a sports car after being named M.V.P. of Super Bowl VI, to the current quarterback Tony Romo, who took fire from fans when he jetted to Mexico with Jessica Simpson just before the start of the 2008 playoffs. And from the legendary coach Tom Landry, who said about his deep religious convictions, "I have no doubt that there is something other than man himself that leads man," to Jones, who once reflected, "If I was going to be in the foxhole with somebody, I'd be there with me." Whether or not it's an illusion based on high visibility, the franchise seems to have attracted more than its share of outsize characters. Gathering them all in one book makes for a raucous reunion. In 1971, the running back Duane Thomas fell into a silence for weeks after asking a reporter, "Haven't you ever felt like not saying anything?" He spoke to the media through the former football star Jim Brown after that season's Super Bowl. (Brown: "Duane says he feels good today.") A vow of silence would have been a good strategy for the offensive lineman Nate Newton, a key part of the team's '90s dynasty. He told the press, of the days leading up to Super Bowl XXX in 1996: "The Tempe police gave us a list of places not to go, and there's where I went. I like wicked, dude." And in perhaps the least publicity-conscious moment in American history, he said this about the "White House," a designated five-bedroom hangout where Cowboys could get wicked, dude: "We've got a little place over here where we're running some whores in and out, trying to be responsible, and we're criticized for that, too." Patoski notes that the linebacker Lee Roy Jordan and three other white players went to a team Halloween party in 1970 dressed as members of the K.K.K., which was somehow less odd than the explanation for it. "I felt I needed some way to show the blacks on the team, especially those from the West Coast, that color meant nothing to this ol' Alabama boy," Jordan said. Mission . . . accomplished? Unfortunately, Patoski sets no limits for himself in the anecdotes department. Information, once learned, will be shared. He knows the rest of the costumes worn to that party, so we're told that "Larry Cole was the Jolly Green Giant; Ron Widby came as Frankenstein." The minutiae of the team's media changes are also set down for the record, like the fact that Rick Weaver, "an announcer from the West Coast by way of Wichita, Kan.," joined the radio team in 1963. One by one, we learn all the moonlighting jobs that players held in the 1978 off-season. ("Burton Lawless got into frozen seafood.") This devotion to detail reaches its apotheosis when Patoski lists the regular seating arrangement for team flights in 1975: "On the right side, Clint Murchison and wife were in 3C and D," and so on. His appendix of sources includes a 62-page list of magazine and newspaper articles. That's a lot to synthesize, and he can be too dutiful in giving equal time. He spends just a little more than three pages (about 0.4 percent of the book) on the Ice Bowl, the legendary playoff game between Dallas and the Green Bay Packers in temperatures well below zero. A bit later, we learn that Billy Graham christened Texas Stadium with a 10-day spiritual crusade in 1971, which is interesting enough. But we're also treated to an extended excerpt from Graham's remarks on one of those nights: "To you who are watching by television, it's been raining here in Texas for the last two days. And tonight, in spite of the weather, there are 43,000 people here. I don't know what kind of crowd this would have been, had we had good weather." Patoski's previous books include biographies of the musicians Willie Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Selena, Texan legends all but not of the gridiron variety, and he airs some opinions about football that seem squarely those of a music fan. He offers, for instance, that by 2011 the former Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson "had become almost as legendary a broadcaster as former Oakland Raiders coach John Madden." He also fumbles some facts along the way. For instance, he has the 1960 United States men's hockey team (the book is wide-ranging) beating the Soviet Union, 9-4, for the gold medal in the "miracle on ice." But America beat Czechoslovakia for the gold that year - the "miracle on ice" over the Soviets came in 1980, and not in the gold-medal game. But the book's shortcomings are balanced by its surplus of entertaining characters and by Patoski's broader interest in Texas history. The Cowboys' birth and ensuing decades of success also corresponded with the Sun Belt's ascent to a central role in the politics and economics of the country. Always in the foreground of the book is the larger story of Dallas, from its founding in 1841 through its lingering codified racism in the mid-20th century to its various periods of population boom and increased clout. Those looking for just the football facts have to wash them down with a lot of civic history along the way, and the book is better for it. Patoski must be fascinated by the Cowboys to have devoted himself to this herculean task. Luckily for those fans whose curiosity extends beyond the sidelines, he's also taken with the complicated region that the team calls home. Jerry Jones paid $140 million for the Cowboys in 1989. Forbes recently valued the team at $2.1 billion.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 2, 2012]
Review by Booklist Review
The Dallas Cowboys have sometimes been called America's Team not so much lately, but like an aging rock band whose last creative surge was 20 years ago, the Cowboys still have their devotees. Patoski presents the whole history of the Cowboys in one volume. Others have covered different Cowboy eras (see Eisenberg's Ten-Gallon War), but this is the whole shootin' match. Patoski begins with background on the Murchison family, the team's original owners. He segues to the Tom Landry years, from initial success through Super Bowl triumph, to the last, sad seasons in a 29-year coaching reign. Then Jerry Jones bought the team, and a new golden era of Cowboy football began with coach Jimmy Johnson. Patoski moves seamlessly and entertainingly from season to season with great anecdotes and insider game accounts.The only negative one can muster is that there are so many other books about the Cowboys, meaning that most of the information is available elsewhere. Still, this volume will certainly appeal to Cowboy Nation, which has sleeper cells all around the country.--Lukowsky, Wes Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this superbly detailed, obsessively researched, and equal parts serious sports scholarship and outrageous laugh-out-loud reporting about the Dallas Cowboys, Patoski (Willie Nelson: An Epic Life) focuses in part on Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who spent $1.2 million on a new stadium ("aka Jerry World; aka the Death Star") into which the Statue of Liberty could fit standing up, as well as the Empire State Building laid on its side. Patoski starts with the Death Star as a way into viewing the ups and downs of the 50-plus-year history of professional football in Dallas, from its inception as a popular amateur team sport in the 19th century, speaking to "Texas's legacy as a republic that had won its independence from Mexico by fighting hard and using whatever means necessary," through the team's professional start under the direction of businessman Clint Murchison and coach Tex Schramm, to its various championships and its controversial sale to Jerry Jones, who brought in the equally controversial head coach Jimmy Johnson. But Patoski's supreme ability to capture the intricacies of the team's history doesn't get in the way of his equally impressive and cleverly sly portrayals of the many wacky players throughout Cowboys history, from quarterback Don Meredith to the players living and partying in "the White House" in the Dallas suburbs, about which offensive lineman Nate Newton famously said, "We've got a little place over here where we're running some whores in and out, trying to be responsible." (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
This immense history of the Dallas Cowboys differs in focus from other team chronicles. Titles like Peter Golenbock's Cowboys Have Always Been My Heroes and Jeff Pearlman's Boys Will Be Boys looked primarily at the players and coaches. Patoski, however, broadens the scope and examines many more peripheral but noteworthy aspects to the team: its front-office machinations and finances, the Cowboys' innovative computer setup in the 1960s, the image and impact of the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, and, finally, the history and culture of Big D itself. There are occasional trivial factual mistakes in the galleys, but Patoski provides a comprehensive record of everything to do with the iconic franchise of America's Team. -VERDICT Cowboy fans and football historians will find this volume an appealing addition. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Texas journalist and author Patoski (Willie Nelson: An Epic Life, 2008, etc.) delivers an oversized history of one of sport's greatest franchises. The Dallas Cowboys' on-field achievements--five Super Bowl wins, 10 conference championships, 21 division titles and 30 playoff appearances in their 52-year history--have arguably been overshadowed by their impact on professional football and popular culture in general, earning them the nickname "America's Team." Patoski's in-depth study gives readers everything they want to know about "The Boys" and much more, from the field to the front office, the media and, of course, the famous Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. The author also tracks the parallel development of the city of Dallas, with a focus on business and politics. For a book about a football team, there's surprisingly little football, though the author briefly recaps the triumphs and tragedies of star players like Don Meredith, Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin and Emmitt Smith. Patoski barely mentions the subpar teams of the 1980s, though he does document the most recent edition's struggles, highlighted by the drama surrounding talented and camera-friendly quarterback Tony Romo. Patoski spends a surprising amount of time discussing the media coverage of the team, but the majority of the narrative belongs to the ownership and front office, with the first two-thirds dominated by the man most responsible for the Cowboys' success and for much of what an NFL franchise looks like today, team president and general manager Tex Schramm. Schramm and legendary coach Tom Landry got pushed out when "reptilian" Arkansas oil-and-gas baron Jerry Jones, a cartoon villain of a franchise owner, purchased the team in 1989, beginning the modern era of the Cowboys and keeping them in the headlines with controversy and equal measures of success and failure on and off the gridiron. A fittingly exhaustive history of a larger-than-life franchise.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
