"The Super Bowl," By Julian May

"Always On The Run," By Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick, and Dave Anderson

"Garo Yepremian's Tales From the Dolphins," By Garo Yepremian

"The Dallas Cowboys," By James Rothaus

"Ten Super Sundays- The Thrilling Story of the Super Bowl," By Rick Smith

The Championship Chase

That One Vintage Year

A Glorious Game

The NFL as We Knew It in the Late 1970s and Early 1980s

 

Magnavox Odyssey 2 Football

Intellivision Football

Football Lunch Boxes

 

The Boys of Fall...

The Great NFL Fun Book- Where the Football Love Started

The 1970s kids NFL Bible

As I said in an earlier post about the magic of Scholastic book fairs and the NFL, my love for the game began in school. Why is that besides it was just a magical time where there was no Internet, social media, 4K streaming, etc? I credit (and blame) the ones who marketed the game and figured out that in order for the NFL and pro football (take notes CFL Commissioner) to prosper, you needed to feed gridiron crack to the kids, and for kids, Scholastic book fairs were academic crack fairs where kids discovered what truly interested them. I am not saying sports books are bad, because without them I never would have paid attention to geography, poetry (thank you Steve Sabol and John Facenda) or taken such an avid interest in reading.   Among the best books of that late 70s era besides All-Pro Football Stars was The Great NFL Fun Book I & II, which if you had them, I don't need to remind you of just how awesome it was a ten year old to read and get lost in.  They just don't make books for child sports fans like this these days.  Don't believe me? Give it a read here for free courtesy of the Internet Archive....

Heaven Can Wait

We need more Joe Pendleton in
our lives.

We all need more Joe Pendleton in our lives these days.  How can anyone argue that the fantasy football world isn't a safe place to be in the crazy divisive world in which we live. Reality these days, especially for the old school sports fan, kinda sucks. It sure seemed like the sports and sports heroes we grew up watching back in the 20th Century were just better and more inspiring. Heck, even the movies were way better, and among the best was the ultimate football fantasy trip taken by Warren Beatty in "Heaven Can Wait." 

Why is it such a great movie? Where do I start? Great writing and a great cast would be the first place.  Of course there is lot of Dyann Cannon in low cut revealing outfits, and additionally, there is the great music score. More importantly, and this is key, this is a NFL movie that shines with its fantasy journey of a ghost that comes back to inhabit the body of another Ram QB, to fulfill his and his team's greatest wish. To me, it is almost the perfect football movie and time capsule of the NFL of the 1970s. With that, stay tuned to this blog space for more on the great Joe Pendleton!

The Magic of Scholastic Book Fairs and the NFL

For most of us older pro football fans, our love of the game began in the classroom. Specifically, during those Scholastic book fairs of the 1960s, 1970s (my era), 1980s and 1990s. These were are formative years of fandom where the printed word and physical books truly mattered.  The All-Pro Football Stars books of the late 1970s are what helped to fuel my fandom, and couple that with Sports Illustrated, and weekly appointment viewing of The NFL Today, NFL Films' This Week in Pro Football, and of course Monday Night Football, a life long nearly 50 year fan was born. Fortunately the fine folks at the Internet Archive appear to now be able to once again offer digital lending of old out of print titles, including many of which are those treasured Scholastic sports titles that introduced us to the wide world sports. Now, if said titles are not able to be read at the Internet Archive, you most definitely SHOULD NOT use an anonymous Tor browser and VPN to mask your IP address and download these old Scholastic sports titles from the many shadow libraries that are on the Internet.

Old School Football Memories

Miami Dolphins QB- Bob Griese

It was on January 9, 1977 that pro football entered my life and I witnessed (from what I can recall) was my first football game and NFL championship (Superbowl XI), and was immediately hooked. Months later I turned ten years old, started the fifth grade, and began rooting for what was then my favorite team, which was not m my beloved Cardinals, but rather the Miami Dolphins.

Why the Dolphins?  I honestly have no recollection some 40 years later.  It stemmed from a few things I think, I liked their uniforms, a lack of any good football in Chicago, and our family trip to Florida.

With that said though, exactly how it came to be that I became a Dolphins fan I don't really know for sure.  They were by then a team on the downward slide, and the only one I really identified with on the team was their quarterback, the by then bi-spectacle Bob Griese, who, as luck would have it, in 1977, was quarterbacking a resurgent offense in the post-Csonka era.  I wore the same style glasses that I immediately became a fan. I was such an over eager Dolphins fan that for the remainder of the 1970s I asked for literally every NFL licensed piece of merchandise a boy could find in the Sears and J.C. Penny's Christmas catalogs (more on that facet of football culture in a future article).