Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.332092
EAN num: 9780312308674
ISBN number: 0312308671
Label: Thomas Dunne Books
Manufacturer: Thomas Dunne Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 320
Printing Date: October 01, 2003
Publishing house: Thomas Dunne Books
Sale Popularity Level: 892089
Studio: Thomas Dunne Books
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Jim Dent's Monster of the Midway is the story of football's fiercest competitor, the legendary Bronko Nagurski. From his discovery in the middle of a Minnesota field to his 1943 comeback season at Wrigley, from the University of Minnesota to the Hall of Fame, Bronko Nagurksi's life is a story of grit, hard work, passion, and, above all, an unstoppable drive to win.
Monster of the Midway recounts Nagurski's unparalleled triumphs during the 1930s and '40s, when the Chicago Bears were the kings of professional football. From 1930, the Bronk's very first year, through 1943, his last, the Bears won five NFL titles and played in four other NFL Championship Games. Focusing on Nagurski's 1943 comeback season, and how he miraculously led the Bears to their fourth NFL championship against the backdrop of World War II era Chicago, Jim Dent uncovers the riveting drama of Nagurski's playing days. His efforts were the stuff of legend, and his sucess in 1943 accomplished in spite of a battered frame, worn-out knees, multiple cracked ribs, and a broken bone in his lower back.
While chronicling the drama of the '43 championship chase, Dent also tells of both the Bears' colorful early years and Bronko's improbable rise to fame from the backwoods of northern Minnesota. Woven into the narrative are the sights and smells and sounds of one of the most romantic, flavorful eras of the twentieth century. And laced through it all are stories of legend: Bronko rubbing shoulders with colorful characters like George Halas, Red Grange, Sid Luckman, and Sammy Baugh; Bronko running into (and breaking) the brick wall at Wrigley Field; Bronko winning All-American spots for two positions; Bronko knocking scores of opponents unconscious; and Bronko reaching the heights of football glory and, with rare grace, turning his back on the game after winning his last championship.
Rich in unforgettable stories and scenes, this is Jim Dent's account of Bronko Nagurski-arguably the greatest football player who ever lived-and his teammates, the roughest, toughest, rowdiest group of players ever to don leather helmets, and the original Monsters of the Midway.
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Rated by buyers 
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Good book, style is a bit uneven, but it is Jim Dent's style. Football in the early days, no money, riots on the field, in the stands, gambling, and the greatest football player of the era. If Red Grange brought professional football respectability and to the nations attention, Bronko kept it interested.
Good job of reporting on the era surrounding the story. 20's through the 40's in America.
Rated by buyers 
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This is a highly entertaining biography of one of the most celebrated football players in Chicago Bear history, Bronko Nagurski, who starred for the Minnesota Golden Gophers as a college athlete before turning professional. Jim Dent's welcome book may well serve to introduce Nagurski to a new generation of football fans.
Nagurski, the son of immigrants from Central Europe (from the Polish Ukraine), was born in Ontario, Canada, but his family relocated across the border to International Falls, Minnesota, where Nagurski would continue to live for the remainder of his life. He compiled an outstanding athletic record while at the University of Minnesota that earned him national acclaim. Later, he would be elected to the National Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio for his many accomplishments as a professional player.
For most Americans of Nagurski's era, football was secondary to baseball and the sport was viewed by many as simply a means to pass the time during the Fall and Winter months while waiting for the subsequent baseball season to begin. In fact, many celebrated college football players turned to the baseball diamond after graduation because it offered better paychecks and the prospect of greater job security. "Papa Bear" George Halas, himself, had played a handful of baseball games for the New York Yankees. Jim Thorpe, Ernie Nevers, Paddy Driscoll and so many others did the same, but many great football players were only mediocre baseball players. In other instances, however, pro football lost talented players to pro baseball.
The pioneers in the National Football League operated under circumstances that would seem incredible to the spoiled millionaire athletes playing today: player salaries were minimal in most cases (oftentimes, as little as $2,000.00 per season for ordinary players). Sometimes, the ticket sales receipts from the box office had to be collected in order to pay immediate expenses and wages. NFL franchises frequently folded due to insolvency.
In one telling example that addresses both the hard times of the Great Depression and the legendary penury of Bears' owner George Halas , author Jim Dent describes how players who required athletic tape, bandages and liniments from the team trainer, Andy "Doc" Lotshaw, earning some extra dollars after his summer baseball employment with the Cubs concluded, were subjected to wage deductions imposed by the thrifty Halas to recover the nominal costs of the trainer's supplies.
Another obstacle to the prosperity of professional football was the fact that an overwhelming majority of fans viewed college football as the legitimate brand of the game. Nagurski's own college coach actually tried to discourage him from turning professional. The upstart professional league was considered too undignified by many fans of the college game.
When George Halas relocated the Decatur Staleys, a factory sponsored team, to Chicago, he appropriated the orange and blue team colors from the University of Illinois, his alma mater, and named his football team "The Bears" as a derivative of the Chicago Cubs baseball team which also played at Wrigley Field. In another bid to gain further respect for the fledging professional league, Halas signed well known college stars such as Harold "Red" Grange and Nagurski to the team roster.
I found this book to be enjoyable for a number of reasons. The Halas family once lived in the same Catholic parish as did my family; the Vanisi family, which produced two sons who went on to become football general managers, once lived one block down our street. My grandfather worked with Red Grange when "the Galloping Ghost" began selling insurance after his injured legs no longer permitted him to make the "cuts" that made him such an exceptional gridiron runner. Dent provides an accurate description of Grange bandaged and taped like a mummy as he played his final season of football.
Notorious gangsters like Al Capone and his constant bodyguard and companion, "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn, were frequently in the grandstand at Wrigley Field, where the Bears played their home games for nearly fifty years. Capone would generously tip the Bears players if the team had played an especially exciting game. Players and fans frequently mingled in the same speakeasies after the contests concluded.
Nagurski continually had quarrels with Halas concerning his salary and eventually retired after one such dispute in 1937. He took up professional wrestling as a new moneymaking venture and became a champion. He reinvested his big city earnings into a gas station that he operated for many years in his hometown of International Falls.
During World War Two, when the National Football League struggled to operate with depleted rosters, Halas requested that Nagurski come out of retirement and return to the Bears. After a six year absence, ... Read More
Rated by buyers 
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Jim Dent's Monster of the Midway is less a biography of Bronko Nagurski, and more of a historical look at the era in which Nagurski dominated the National Football League.
If you are a sports fan, you may enjoy this book; if you are an NFL fan you will love learning about the story of one of the league's most endearing names and a charter member of the pro football hall of fame. If you are a sports history afficianado like myself, you will enjoy the stories Dent has to tell and appreciate the way he makes this book read like a novel at times. In some ways I even feel this book will translate well to a television movie -- like the Junction Boys.
It took me about two weeks to finish this book which is my average pace of about one chapter per night. Where Jim Dent fails to deliver to the reader is an inside look at the life of Bronko Nagurski. After completing this book, I did not feel as if I had spent those two weeks with Bronko himself, rather, I felt I had just spent the entire time watching old films of the Bears against the Packers and reading old newspaper clips from the Chicago Tribune.
Jim Dent is a good writer, but I would not put his Monster of the Midway in the same league as Jane Leavy's biography of Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy -- one of my favorite sports books. Leavy's work made me feel as if I had spent a September evening at Dodger Stadium sitting subsequent to Sandy Koufax reliving his glory days. I did not get that type of feeling when I read Monster of the Midway.
Perhaps this is an unfair comparison. Part of the problem that Dent may have faced, primarily is that Nagurski is no longer with us, but also, there probably was not a whole lot said or heard about Nagurski for him to work with. The National Football League at the time was in it's infancy and nowhere near the media monster that it is today, or what Baseball was in the 1960's for that matter.
Regardless, I added this book to my collection because it is a good book. As a football fan, and a Bears fan in particular, I enjoyed this book and will cherish what I learned.
Rated by buyers -
Jim Dent tells the story of Bronko Nagurski's football career. "Monster of the Midway: Bronko Nagurski, the 1943 Chicago Bears, and the Greatest Comeback Ever" is not a biography. It is about a football player and why he became among the greatest players ever, with special emphasis on one season (1943). Dent, however, can't help but to provide the background of Nagurski's early life.
Bronko Nagurski was the Babe Ruth of football. No one was greater, more dominant, more powerful at their sport than Nagurski. Others have played well: We all know about Michael Jordan, Mickey Mantle, and Lance Armstrong, but few have embodied the essence of their sport with such successful excellence. I should mention Muhammad Ali. He often bragged he was the greatest, and he was.
Someone needs to make a movie of this story. Bronko began the Hollywood/Horatio Alger as a hardworking, not too complicated future football hero. He had heart and the physical strength size to back it up. Good true football movies are sparse. There's "Rudy" and "Brian's Song," but that's it. A Bronko Nagurski story could add to this short list.
Most of the book reads like a docudrama, utilizing storytelling techniques rarely found in sports books.
If I were a high school football coach, I would have my players read this book. Bronko Nagurski played the game before the lights shone brightly on the pocketbooks, when the swagger and dance of endzone celebrations were still years away, and the game was still played by big, tough men not pretty enough for white-toothed smiling products endorsements. Nagurski was the kind of player the NFL needs today.
I fully recommend "Monster of the Midway: Bronko Nagurski, the 1943 Chicago Bears, and the Greatest Comeback Ever" by Jim Dent.
Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com
Rated by buyers -
The name Bronko Nagurski. You know this man was not a ballet dancer. This is more than a book about "The Nag" and the Chicago Bears. It is also a book about a number of other old football names I have heard of, but knew nothing about. Sid Luckman, Hunk Anderson, Don Hutson, Johnny "Blood" McNally, Clyde "Bulldog" Turner, Beattie Feathers, George Preston Marshall, Curly Lambeau, Slingin' Sammy Baugh, and, of course, the Papa Bear himself, George Halas. This was a period of players playing both on offense and defense, no hash marks, the fat ball, the quarterback being fair game until a play is blown dead by an official, and other rules that had not been placed into the game. George Preston Marshall, owner of the then Boston Redskins who played in Fenway Park, spoke to the conservative owners about the need to change some rules to jazz up the game to make it more exciting to the public. He was lucky to have a sympathetic listener in George Halas as support for his ideas. The demise of the fat ball made it possible to throw more passes, and put an end to the endless amount of running plays. One of Marshall's best ideas was to split the league into two conferences, and setting up a championship game each year. For all his good ideas, he stated he wanted Negroes out of the game. Black players had been part of the game since 1920, but Marshall's appeal banned grey players from further play. Bronko Nagurski played for the Bears throughout the 1937 season, and left the team over a difference of $500 that The Nag and Halas differed over. Nagurski made money wrestling, and eventually came back to play for the Bears during the 1943 season. What surprised me was the number of college coaches such as Amos Alonzo Stagg and Knute Rockne who discouraged college players from entering the professional ranks. In 1990 Nagurski traveled to the Mayo Clinic to fuse bones in his ankles. A doctor asked for an autograph for his son, and The Nag wrote, "To Jeremy--Do Not Play Football. Bronko Nagurski." This is a book filled with colorful anecdotes, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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