Front
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Here is the first book to tell the story of the
founding and the first five years of the American
Football League.
This story takes the reader behind the newspaper
headlines into the clubrooms, penthouse apartments,
and dressing rooms. |
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On
the flyleaf:
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For Angie
Coniglio
a $400,000 fan
and the sort of gent who
helped bring the league
in from the cold.
May you be in heaven
three days before the devil knows
you're dead.
Warmest Regards,
Bob Curran |
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Ten years after the birth of the AFL, "the other
league" is a term spoken with irony, or mirth, or
love, or perhaps a touch of bitterness. These
pages record the glorious ten-year history of the
league that is no more.
As a book, THE OTHER LEAGUE covers the total
range of American League football: the Foolish Club,
made up of those first owners who brought the league
into existence, who imperturbably held a draft and
chose the players who would lead them to fame,
players like Richie Lucas and Gerhard Schwedes . . .
the years of AFL-NFL warfare, when a team jumped
leagues, when suits were filed and counterfiled,
when a championship winner's share came to the grand
total of $1,016.42, when Sonny Werblin finally
signed Joe Namath for $400,000 and the war stopped .
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The book lists the name of every player who ever
made an AFL roster, with his college, position, and
years played with AFL team(s). |
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On
the flyleaf:
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To
Angelo Coniglio
With appreciation
for your interest in the
AFL and the sport of pro football.
Regards,
Lamar
Hunt |
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Americans
have always loved football, but professional football did not truly come into its own
until the games came to television. The resulting huge upswing in the sport’s
popularity caught the attention of millionaire Lamar Hunt, who decided to become a part of
the game’s growth by purchasing a professional team. But the NFL had no interest in
this upstart's notions of expansion.
Undaunted, in 1959 Hunt established his own league, joined
by a fistful of other young entrepreneurs ready to tackle the status quo. Within just a
few years, their American Football League had not only won the hearts of fans, but
dramatically changed the way the sport was organized, played, and broadcast.
Bold new on-field strategies thrilled fans and influenced a
generation of coaches and players, Exciting young stars like George Blanda and Daryle
Lamonica became role models for children who would someday become football stars
themselves (today, Joe Montana cites Joe Namath and Len Dawson as his childhood heroes).
And when Lamar Hunt pitted his AFL against the NFL in a climactic championship game, he
introduced an innovation that would become an American tradition: the Super Bowl.
Ed Gruver brings the brash young league and its glory days
back to life in this detailed year-by-year history, informed by interviews with more than
40 owners, coaches, players, scouts, broadcasters, and writers from the era. Read it - and
relive ten years that changed professional football forever.
Ed Gruver, a professional sportswriter, is a member of
the Pro Football Researchers Association. He lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with his
wife Michelle and daughters Patty and Katie. |
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"I'm certain this
book will do well. Jimmy Acho is one of the brightest young sports
minds I've ever met. Talking to him is like talking to one of my peers - you'd never guess
he's as young as he is. He has the rare ability to spin a yarn with the comedy of a
Bill Cosby and the fire of a drill sergeant. A rare young talent."
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-Tommy
Prothro
Former head coach,
LA Rams,
San Diego Chargers |
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Farmington Hills, Michigan native, Jim
Acho graduated from St. Francis College,
(Ft. Wayne, Indiana) in 1993. A walk-on basketball player in 1989, Acho
co-captained the Cougars in his senior year. He
claims to hold the school record in one category: ref heckling from the
bench. From 1994 to 1996, Acho coached and scouted at the small
college level, and has lectured at some of the nation's top
camps and clinics. Proof that guys who spend
most of their time in school as class cut-ups
can indeed absorb enough to become literate
(you may question that after reading this), this is Acho's first
book ... and if nobody buys it, his last. |
GridIron Press
New York, New York |
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G. Booth Lusteg played 11 years of Pro
Football. He authored 39 sports and social-issue articles
for leading newspapers and magazines around the country,
including the Chicago Sun News, New York Times,
Washington Post, and Sports Illustrated.
Booth, (or 'Boots' to his team-mates)
led the American Football League in place-kicking in his rookie
year, 1966, when he replaced Pete Gogolak after the side-winding
kicker defected from the American Football League to the NFL.
In this inspirational book, Lusteg uses his
Pro Football experience to develop advice for readers on how to
face and overcome rejection, and turn negative experiences into
victories.
To send an e-mail inquiring about purchasing the book,
click
here. |
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In 1960, the
maverick American Football League challenged the NFL for gridiron supremacy.
"The idea was, 'We're going to whip the NFL. We're going to wind up as
the better of the two leagues.'"
-VAL PINCHBECK, AFL STAFF
Over the next decade, the two opposing leagues battled it out in David-and-Goliath style.
"The NFL was saying the AFL wouldn't last four years. It wouldn't last
five years. Six years. . . . Next thing you know, [we] ended up with the Super Bowl
Trophy.
-BOBBY BELL, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS 1963-69
In the process, they gave us the game we love today, with wide-open offenses, TV network
broadcasts, and Super Bowls we'll never forget.
"They told me to ask Lombardi to kick off again because NBC had missed the
second-half kickoff. I said, 'You've got the wrong guy. I ain't doing
that.'"
-PAT SUMMERALL, SPORTS BROADCASTER
This is the inside story of the AFL, told in the words of the men who lived it . . .
"The one lasting thing is the feeling, the physical feeling. Emotional, mental,
and physical. My body was alive, tickly for God knows how long, that we had won this
thing."
-JOE NAMATH, NEW YORK JETS 1965-69
. . . the heroes of the American Football League. |
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(Click on
the image of the front cover
for purchase information.) |
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Sportscaster
Curt Gowdy once said that "the story of the AFL, how the league grew and became
popular, is one of the best sports stories of all time." This is that story.
It was 1959 and
professional football was gaining popularity. The
National Football League had reached new heights when its dramatic 1958 championship game
between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants went into overtime on national television.
But the hide-bound NFL was slow to capitalize on the
impact of that game. When young Lamar Hunt's
inquiry about NFL expansion was rebuffed by Bert Bell, and his
subsequent attempt to purchase a struggling NFL franchise was denied,
Hunt decided to form his own Professional
Football league, and when
he found seven other wealthy men willing to join the risky but exciting venture, the
American Football League was born.
It
was considered "a joke" by George Halas, and
other NFL luminaries predicted a rapid demise for the AFL.
Instead, the rebel league
gained a strong foothold in the Pro
Football marketplace with its entertaining style of
play, and ultimately it forced the NFL to accept the AFL as its
equal. The two leagues merged in time for the 1970 season, and it wasn't long before this
superpower entity created a seismic shift in this nation's sporting passions as
Professional
Football surpassed Major League Baseball as our national pastime.
As
part of the merger deal, it was agreed that starting with the 1966 season the champions of
both leagues would meet in a World
Championship game which quickly became known as the
Super Bowl. And after NFL powerhouse Green Bay won the first
two of these showdowns, the Joe Namath-led New York Jets delivered to the AFL its
long-awaited respect with a shocking defeat of the
over-rated Colts in Super Bowl Ill. It was one of the
defining moments in pro football history and it forever altered the course of the sport. |
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cHarging
through the AFL
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Reading Todd Tobias'
chronicle is like riding the lightning bolts that zigzagged so spectacularly through this
phase of the Chargers' history. Tobias is a true historian. |
--Jerry Magee
Columnist for the San Diego Union Tribune and
Pro Football Weekly, and memmer of the Pro Football
Hall of Fame's Board of Selectors |
For original Charger fans, the teams of the 60's will always represent
the golden age of football because those same graeat players spent the off-season working
or going to school in San Diego. We met so many of the public that I would estimate
we knew half the people in the stands. Todd has captured that magic and offers more
insight into football players and events than any sports book ever written. |
--Ron Mix
San Diego Chargers' Offensive Tackle from 1960-1969
and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame |
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Foreword by Pro Football Hall of Famer Lance Alworth.
(Click here for a special note.) |
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Relive
the exploits of the Oakland Raiders in a
week-in, week-out chronicle of their first
ten seasons. Meet six unique head
coaches and the legends who helped to
overcome the myriad problems associated with
a new pro football team in a new league, and
the whirlwind transformation of a young
dynamo from coach to commissioner and
ultimately to ownership as he built one of
the most respected and feared organizations
in professional sports. Packed with
statistics, transactions, and forgotten
lore, Pride and Poise: The Oakland
Raiders of the American Football League
is the most complete, accurate, and fair
account ever produced of the early Raiders. |
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Click here for a review. |
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September
9, 1960 (Boston,
MA).
Al Carmichael leads the
Denver Broncos to a win in the
first regular-league-season AFL
game. Al holds the distinction of
scoring the very first touchdown in
American Football League history, on
a 59-yard pass from quarterback Frank
Tripucka in a 13-10 win over the
Boston Patriots. |
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The Buffalo Bills of the 1960s represent a special
time in the collective conscience of Buffalonians,
when their team was twice champion of the American
Football League; Jack Kemp, Billy Shaw, Cookie
Gilchrist, Mike Stratton, Tom Sestak, Elbert
Dubenion, Ron McDole, and O.J. Simpson captured the
imagination of the community. For three
consecutive years, Buffalo's defensive unit was the
best in the league, and was one of the best
throughout the AFL’s history. Western New
Yorkers loved this team and its successful approach
— the Buffalo Bills mirrored the community they
represented.
This near-600-page book is a comprehensive history of the
Bills' AFL years, drawn mainly from interviews with
nearly 70 men associated with the team during the
1960s. Billy Shaw, the Bills' Hall of Fame
guard, wrote the
foreword.
With game-by-game summaries, yearly stats,
records of the AFL years, complete demographics of
every player and coach employed by the team during
the decade, and a "Where are They Now"
chapter at the end.
(click
the cover for a purchase link)
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He lived through
it, he writes about it. |
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American Football League Hall of Fame member
Larry Felser tells the story of "the Merger".
Of how "the Foolish Club", scorned and ridiculed
by the football establishment, forged a merger that made
the
American Football League the only major
professional sports league to merge with another without
losing a franchise, and in so doing, how the AFL was
instrumental in the genesis of modern Professional
Football. |
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Felser covered the AFL from its inception, through the merger, and
through the AFL's convincing victories by the Jets and the Chiefs in
the last two true world championship games. The
book is filled with first-hand observations and with quotes by the
owners and players involved in the biggest sports merger of all
time. |
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In bookstores and on-line now ~ The Lyons Press |
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(Click on
the image of the front cover
for purchase information.) |
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Click
HERE for more about Dave. |
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AFL fan and first-time author Dave Steidel
has come up with a great concept: a book that not only tells the
fascinating history of the American Football League, team by team,
year by year; but which also serves as a challenging trivia test of
your grasp of the important and even the not-so-important
events of the league that was the genesis of modern pro football.
It touches on every game played by every American
Football League team, year by year. It is interspersed with
images and trivia questions to prod your memory of the the American
Football League, the league that was the genesis of modern
Professional Football.
The book is published by Clerisy
Press. The cover at left is just a sample of the visual and
factual delights you'll find inside! |
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Click here to see results of the "Remember the AFL" contest |
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American Football League fans will enjoy the chapter that reviews
Hall of Fame candidates and discusses a significant number of AFL players and
coaches who belong.
In trying to determine the best available
candidates,
ESPN's Football Scientist used a system that heavily
rewarded consensus All-Pro seasonal picks (as determined by ESPN's
Pro Football Encyclopedia), since that is the hardest single season
honor to garner.
That system shows that Jim Tyrer,
Larry Grantham, Johnny Robinson, Dave Grayson and Bob Talamini are
all among the top 14 available candidates.
"Blindsided" also has a blurb about the website
www.remembertheafl.com
The book is being nationally distributed by Wiley & Sons and it
will be available in bookstores in early to mid- August. Click
on the cover to the left for more details about the book. |
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Rob Thompson has written an enertaining book about
the buffalo bills that includes sections on the 'electric company'
and the O.J. era; one on the more modern era; and of course a
section on the American Football League era, with Jack Kemp, Billy
Shaw, Mike Stratton and other great AFL stars.
Thompson has player interviews about their time in Pro Football, and
their views on the current Pro Football Union and its treatment of
older retired players. |
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A revolutionary new
approach to football statistics -
with all-time rankings of nearly 1,000 players through
the history of Professional Football |
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Author and sports statistical genius
Sean Lahman takes analytical methods he's developed over the years
to look at Pro Football in a groundbreaking, all-encompassing way -
and he puts forward new rankings of the best players at each position from
the 1920s to the present day. He also discusses how the game
has evolved, and how this must be considered when comparing modern
players with players of past eras.
The Pro Football Historical Abstract is a must for everyone
who considers football more than just a game. |
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Fans may be surprised by some
unconventionally low ranks for NFL icons, and high ranks for
some oft-neglected American Football League players. |
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Published by
The Lyons Press |
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COLORS
opens the locker room door and offers Professional
Football fans a revealing look at what their
favorite team has worn over the years.
These colorfully illustrated stories are written by
current and former Professional Football executives,
sportswriters, and broadcasters who have covered the
game for decades.
Every AFL team's unis are represented, from the
1960 Broncos' striped socks to the 1969 Chiefs
10-year AFL patch.
COLORS takes you on an
informative, historical and humorous look at
Professional Football attire. |
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Below is
just one example of the AFL images in COLORS. |
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| This Day in Football
contains a full football season of
facts, featuring historical Professional
Football gems from every day, September
through January. |
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| It will tell you the day (Ocober 29,
1961) when two future Hall of Fame
quarterbacks (Blanda and Jurgensen) each
threw for more than 400 yards; about the
longest Professional Football
championship game (December 24, 1962),
when Abner Haynes chose to "kick to the
clock"; and when (November 24,
1968) Joe Willie Namath threw for 337
yards versus the Chargers, on his way to
destiny. |
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T. J. TROUP has
coached at both the high school and college level
and is one of the nation's foremost
historians/researchers of Professional Football. He
has written articles for American Football
Coaches Monthly and was football
coordinator/consultant to George Clooney for the
film Leatherheads. |
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Taylor Trade Publishing
An imprint of
The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group |
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"We're
going to win Sunday. I guarantee it."
-----JOE
NAMATH
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The complete story
of the epic game that validated the American Football League as the
genesis of modern Professional Football. From Baltimore to
Broadway Joe is the first book that presents the third AFL-NFL
World Championship Game from the perspectives of the Jets and Colts
players. |
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(Click on the image of
the front cover
for purchase information.) |
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On my
AFL webpage, I quote
historian Thomas J. Burns as saying:
"I am of a mind that the two great sports developments
of the post World War II era, the AFL and NASCAR, both
deserve a masterful scholarly analysis."
Someone else will
have to cover NASCAR, but Ken Rappoport's "The Little
League That Could", written from the perspective
that time now allows, shows the undeniable influence the
American Football League had on Professional Football in
America. It is the masterful
analysis of the AFL that its fans have long awaited.
This book is filled with
stories and memories of the likes of Billy Cannon, Lance Alworth, Elbert Dubenion and a host of other AFL stars.
Every AFL fan should
have it. ~ Ange Coniglio,
www.remembertheafl.com |
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(Click on the image of
the front cover
for purchase information.) |
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(Click on the image of
the front cover
for purchase information.) |
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Ron Jaworski grew up in a suburb of Buffalo, and his first
exposure to Professional Football was watching American
Football League games on television. The first game he
attended was between the Bills and the Chargers.
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In this book, Jaworski critiques seven important
Professional Football games, from the AFL thorough the present,
with the same expert attention to detail that he shows in his
coverage of games as a TV analyst.
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While only one AFL game is discussed (the
Chargers' seminal 1963 American Football League Championship
game), in presenting it as the first chapter of the book,
Jaworski confirms the influence of Sid Gillman and the AFL as
the genesis of the modern game. |
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(Click on the image of
the front cover
for purchase information.) |
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THE
MAN WHO FOUNDED THE LEAGUE THAT
WAS THE GENESIS OF MODERN
PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL
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THE LONG-AWAITED BIOGRAPHY OF
ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT
FIGURES IN SPORTS HISTORY |
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(Click on the image of
the front cover
for purchase information.) |
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A FASCINATING AND UPLIFTING
AUTOBIOGRAPHY FROM ONE OF
PRO FOOTBALL'S FIRST SHINING STARS |
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THEY TOLD
HIM TO SHAVE HIS SIDEBURNS.
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You Can't Catch Sunshine
is the inspirational true story of New
York Titans/Jets wide receiver Don
'Sunshine' Maynard, a laid-back
speedster from a dusty corner of Texas
whose unlikely friendship with a newly
minted quarterback named Joe Namath
resulted in the greatest so-called
'upset' in Pro Football history. |
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In his own words,
Maynard examines the milestones of his
Hall of Fame career and provides an
inside story of the 'upstart' American
Football League in its infancy. |
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See page 241 for his
right-on shot at the biased
views of Sports Illustrated. |
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(Click on the image of
the front cover
for purchase information.) |
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"Using the words of Cookie Gilchrist, the author
is able to take you
inside the world of the reclusive running back. The author's
friendship with Gilchrist is evident. This is a must read." |
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Ken Crippen, executive director, Professional
Football Writers Association |
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"Cookie Gilchrist is a legendary
figure in American history. He was
a subject of intrigue in everything he did, from his domination on
the football field to his efforts in the civil rights struggle, and
ultimately his long withdrawal from society. Only a member of
Gilchrist's inner-most circle could properly chronicle his amazing
story. Thankfully for fans and historians, Chris Garbarino,
one of Cookie's closest friends and confidants, dedicated himself to
making sure that this incredible story was told." |
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Todd Tobias, author of
Charging Through the AFL and
www.TalesfromtheAmericanFootballLeague.com |
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www.cookiegilchrist.com |
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