Giants Among Men by Jack Cavanaugh
From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, when basketball's Boston Celtics were piecing together a run for the ages, when Montreal's Canadiens were in the midst of notching a record-setting five streaight Stanley Cups, and when the New York Yankees were the once-and-future kings of the diamond, one team boosted the NFL to national prominence as none other: the New York Giants. In Giants Among Men, Jack Cavanaugh, the acclaimed author of Tunney, transports us to the NFL's golden age to introduce the close-knit and diverse group that won the heart of a city, helped spread the gospel of pro football across the nation, and recast the NFL as a media colossus. Central to Cavanaugh's narrative, and emblematic of the Giants' bond with their followers, was a hard-nosed future Hall of Fame defensive end named Andy Robustelli, who anchored a Giants defense unit so ferocious that they were the first team to inspire crowds to chant Dee-fense But while Robustelli and the Giants were a hit on the gridiron, playing in six NFL Championship Games in eight seasons between 1956 and 1963, the most remarkable aspect of this team was perhaps its relationship with the fans, who were equally at east hobnobbing with Jackie Gleason and Frank Sinatra as they were rubbing elbows with working-class rooters on the IRT en route to Sunday games in the Bronx. But the Giants of this era didn't merely affect the fans' relationship to the game; they changed the game itself. The team launched the NFL careers of future head-coaching geniuses Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi, as well as those of future Hall of Famers including Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, Emlen Tunnell, Roosevelt Brown, and Y. A. Tittle, along with stars like Charlie Conerly, Rosey Grier, and Pat Summerall. Filled with historical and cultural insight and vivid portraits of large-than-life characters and indispensable everymen, Giants Among Men transcends nostalgia and sports trivia to faithfully depict a watershed era for both football and the American nation.
Jack Cavanaugh is a veteran sportswriter whose work has appeared most notably on the sports pages of The New York Times, for which he covered hundreds of assignments over 25 years. He was a news reporter for ABC for five years and CBS for two years, and was an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Cavanaugh is the author of five other books, including Season of '42, Giants Among Men, The Gipper, Damn the Disabilities, Full Speed Ahead!, and Tunney, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in biography. In addition, Cavanaugh has been a frequent contributor to Sports Illustrated and has written for Reader's Digest, Tennis and Golf magazines as well as other national publications. He lives with his wife, Marge, in Connecticut. Pete Dawkins was an All-American halfback for Army who won the 1958 Heisman Trophy and the 1958 Maxwell Award. A Rhodes Scholar, he served with the 82nd Airborne and won two Bronze Stars for valor in Vietnam. After a 24-year career in the Army, he retired as a Brigadier General in 1983 and moved on to a successful business career.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781400067176 |
| ISBN 10 | 1400067170 |
| Title | Giants Among Men |
| Author | Jack Cavanaugh |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Random House (NY) |
| Year published | 2009-01-15 |
| Number of pages | 336 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |