The Last Headbangers: NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s: the Era that Created Modern Sports

Kevin Cook

Sep 2012 · W. W. Norton & Company

About this ebook

The inside story of the most colorful decade in NFL history—pro football’s raging, hormonal, hairy, druggy, immortal adolescence. Between the Immaculate Reception in 1972 and The Catch in 1982, pro football grew up. In 1972, Steelers star Franco Harris hitchhiked to practice. NFL teams roomed in skanky motels. They played on guts, painkillers, legal steroids, fury, and camaraderie. A decade later, Joe Montana’s gleamingly efficient 49ers ushered in a new era: the corporate, scripted, multibillion-dollar NFL we watch today. Kevin Cook’s rollicking chronicle of this pivotal decade draws on interviews with legendary players—Harris, Montana, Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach, Ken “Snake” Stabler—to re-create their heroics and off-field carousing. He shows coaches John Madden and Bill Walsh outsmarting rivals as Monday Night Football redefined sports’ place in American life. Celebrating the game while lamenting the physical toll it took on football’s greatest generation, Cook diagrams the NFL’s transformation from second-tier sport into national obsession.

Ratings and reviews

This Book really took me Back to Those FIRST Days when I was (FORCED) to Become a Steelers Fan. Until I was 5 Years Old I was A Dolphins Fan! Then One Sunday afternoon, as My Father R.J. Chicko & I were about to Watch A Steelers VS BALTIMORE COLTS Game, he simply said, "NO Son of Mine...." & Took ALL of My Dolphins Clothing, & Czonka Posters Down from my Room & BURNED Them! Of Course being a Pittsburgh Native & A Season Ticket Holder Since 1968, he simply Couldn't take me to a Game & NOT catch A few bits of Heckling from Other Steelers Fans! As A VERY Large & Viscious man, this Often resulted in a Fight in the Parking Lot @ Three rivers Stadium. So, I guess in the End it was Better for ALL of us That A) The Steelers STARTED WINNING. And B) I Became a REAL Fan! this Book did Nothing to Reduce My Passion as a STAUNCH Member of Steeler Nation! Thank You Mister Cook! Respectfully Submitted, Michael S. Chicko Dayton, Ohio USA

As a raiders fan, I loved it.

Really liked this book. It really shows how far the game has come. Best chapter, The Raider way.

About the author

A former senior editor at Sports Illustrated, Kevin Cook is the author of Titanic Thompson, Tommy's Honor, Kitty Genovese and The Dad Report. He lives in New York City.