“Boys Will Be Boys”
I recently read a great book that provides unbelievable insider details on one of the most controversial and celebrated sports teams of recent times. The 1990’s Dallas Cowboys were on another level when it came to teams and celebrity. In this phenomenal narration of events, Jeff Pearlman takes us through the infancy stages of the team, which was built upon strong moral roots, to a team full of divas and egomaniacal players, who were constantly showered with drugs, women, dinners, all the while showing up to games and eventually winning 3 Super Bowls in a span of 4 years and becoming known as “America’s Team”!
While reading the book, you can’t help but think that this was just over 15 years ago. How is it possible for NFL players to show up to practice, after just leaving the strip clubs and doing bags of cocaine the night before? How could they have groupies attending to their needs in the locker room and even in the tunnel to the field, DURING warm-ups? It sounds ludicrous, but it all happened. The players who were involved in this chicanery were gracious enough to be honest and forthright with Pearlman, and as a result, he was able to put together one of the most detailed recounts of professional sports life, ever.
Michael Irvin, the star wide receiver for the team, walked into the team barber shop at the Cowboys facility, to get a trim. But when a player of lower stature in the chair refused to get up for him, he stabbed him in the neck with a pair of scissors! Nothing ever happened to ”The Playmaker“ and they paid off the injured player. And that is just from page 1!!!
I always enjoy reading books that document a certain season for a team and gives you insight you never would have been able to gain otherwise. But this book takes that and injects it with Human Growth Hormone (HGH). It is unreal. You feel as though you are actually in the locker room, overhearing these conversations and witnessing these crazy acts.
There have been similar type books in the past, and there is even a book coming out on the late 1980’s NY Mets, which has all the promise of this one. But if you have a chance, and want to get a great look into the other world of professional sports (the NFL in this case), pick up this book and give it a set of downs. You will not be able to put it down. And if you do, that screaming voice you hear telling you to pick it back up, may just be that of ringleader and narcisist coach, Jimmy Johnson.
