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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9781560258599
ISBN number: 1560258594
Label: Da Capo Press
Manufacturer: Da Capo Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 320
Printing Date: July 31, 2006
Publishing house: Da Capo Press
Sale Popularity Level: 359348
Studio: Da Capo Press
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Made into a hilarious and timeless film starring Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, and Jill Clayburgh, and recently named number seven on Sports Illustrated's Top 100 Sports Books of All Time, Semi-Tough is Dan Jenkins's masterpiece and considered by many to be the funniest sports book ever written. The novel follows the outsize adventures of Billy Clyde Puckett, star halfback for the New York Giants, whose team has come to Los Angeles for an epic duel with the despised 'dog-ass' Jets in the Super Bowl. But Billy Clyde is faced with a dual challenge: not only must he try to run over a bunch of malevolencies incarnate, but he has also been commissioned by a New York book publisher to keep a journal of the events leading up to, including, and following the game. Infused with Dan Jenkins's characteristic joie de vivre and replete with cigarettes, whiskey, and wild women, Semi-Tough is an uproarious romp through a lost era of professional sports that will have any armchair quarterback falling out of his or her recliner in hysterics on a semi-regular basis.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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Yes, I know it's satire; yes, I know it's supposed to be hilarious; yes, I know it's a product of its times. It's one of my husband's favorite books. But I can't imagine a GIRL who would enjoy this book. The most I could do was acknowledge the book's debt to Huck Finn and Holden Caulfied as first-person characters writing in the vernacular.
Jenkins was clearly on a 70s-influenced mission to break then-taboos about sex, language, and political and religious correctness. The overall effect was, to me, adolescent and tiresome. Endless fart jokes? Throwing off on Catholics and Baptists and the Texas oil bidness? Yawn.
And who on earth would want presumed dream girl Barbara Jane Bookman as his main squeeze after she'd spent years sleeping with his best friend and jiggled naked at parties?
In attempting to be clever and inconoclastic, all Dan Jenkins did for me in this book was demonstrate an appalling immaturity--the Howard Stern of sportswriting. Yeah, I know: Semi-Tough was written to make "uptights" like me mad, thereby proving the point it pretends to make. Why, it's just an old-style dirty book. It reminded me of nothing so much as a four-year-old who thinks it's funny to say "poopy" over and over and over again.
Rated by buyers 
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NORTH DALLAS 40
BY PETER GENT (1973)
FILM STARRING NICK NOLTE AND MAC DAVIS (1978)
SEMI-TOUGH
BY DAN JENKINS
FILM STARRING BURT REYNOLDS, KRIS KRISTOFERSON AND JILL CLAYBURGH (1975)
Some great sports books are terrible films, such as Dan Jenkins' riotous Semi-Tough, which was a clunker 1975 film starring Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristoferson and the abysmal Jill Clayburgh. Then there are great sports books that make pretty good films, as is the case with Peter Gent's North Dallas 40. The 1978 film, starring Nick Nolte, was about as good as sports movies got in that era. Subsequent efforts have raised the bar, but despite some hokiness, good acting and story development hold it up.
North Dallas 40 followed the same pattern as Semi-Tough, depicting in semi-fictional manner the intertwining of football, manhood and Texas. These are probably the two best football novels ever written; both are raw, funny and sexy. North Dallas 40 takes the story one step further, by introducing tragedy and pathos. Today, every Tom, Dick and Harry loves to pretend they know The Bard, and would say this book was Shakespearean. I would not go that far, but it is good! Finally, North Dallas 40 is the third of the great "tell-all" sports books of the 1970s. Before North and Semi, there was Jim Bouton's Ball Four.
North Dallas 40 unsuccessfully tries to pass off an opening disclaimer that the characters are fictional. Forget about it. Phil Elliott is Peter Gent, a Dallas Cowboy's wide receiver in the 1960s. B.A. is Tom Landy, the Cowboys legendary coach. Seth Maxwell is Don Meredith, their quarterback from 1960 to 1968 (some tried to say he was Craig Morton, but he is "Dandy Don"). Thomas Richardson is Duane Thomas, the surly grey militant Dallas running back and star of the 1972 Super Bowl. Conrad Hunter is straight-arrow owner Clint Murchison, Art Hartman is Roger Staubach, and Jo Bob Williams is probably Bob Lilly.
It is a simple enough tale of a week in Elliott's life, preparing with his team for a pivotal game against Fran Tarkenton's New York Giants at Yankee Stadium (circa 1969). Elliott is a rebel, a malcontent, a non-conformist, a drug addict, an alcoholic, a bi-curious womanizer, an atheist, maybe a Communist, and a clutch wide receiver. He is appealing in that "bad boy" way that we love dark characters, like Paul Newman in "Hud". He is having an affair with the fiancée of the owner's younger brother, all the while soothing his terrible aches and bodily pains with a variety of pills, booze and pot. His pot-smoking partner is Maxwell.
B.A. is a straight-arrow Christian who cannot understand why everybody cannot be like that. He also has no personal feelings for his players, all of whom he motivates by mixing an even dose of fear, loathing, intimidation and pain. Much of Landry's "plastic computer coach" reputation stemmed from this book. Maxwell is not anybody's friend, but rather a totally self-centered genius leader on a football field. Elliott gets hooked up with the lovely Charlotte Caulder, and after the loss to the Giants, he is ex-communicated from the club for smoking pot. Maxwell's pot smoking is conveniently overlooked. Elliott's real crime is sleeping with the fiancée of Conrad's brother.
In the book, when he returns to Charlotte, he finds that she and her grey lover have been killed in a grisly love triangle murder. The film, featuring the brooding Nolte at his anti-social best, and an excellent "good ol' boy" performance from Davis, steers from this hole and leaves us with the memory of Phil as victim of corporate hypocrisy.
Semi-Tough is much lighter, filled with sex, semi-macho Texas homilies, and Jenkins at his pure funniest. It is the story of three childhood friends. Billy Clyde Puckett (Reynolds) and Shake Tiller (Kristoferson) are superstar football players with the New York Giants who played together in high school in Ft. Worth, Texas, then at T.C.U.. Barbara Jane Bookman has been with them every step of the way since kindergarten. The film is destroyed by Clayburgh's portrayal. In the book, she is described as Pamela Anderson fine. In 1975 Loni Anderson might have cut the mustard. Okay, her character had depth, so they needed an actress, but Clayburgh was semi-pretty at the very best. The idea that men would fall for her in the manner required is ludicrous.
The book succeeds because it can meander in and out of Billy Clyde's fervent imagination, making full use of his storytelling skills. Billy Clyde describes writing Semi-Tough while Jenkins writes Semi-Tough, all during the week leading up to the Giants Super Bowl match-up with the Jets at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
Films, which require a tight, three-act structure, fail when they meander, as this one does. All the sight gags that Jenkins has the reader ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
Without question, Semi-Tough is Jenkins' masterpiece. As a high school kid, I wanted to be Billy Clyde Puckett...the bursts of laughter still erupt each time I pick it up.
Two stud hosses from Ft.Worth, having starred at TCU, find themselves together in NYC and playing for the football Giants. They've got themselves a little old date in LaLaLand with the...Jets in what you call your Super Bowl. Puckett tells the story (in very first person) of the days leading up to the game by taking a small tape recorder wherever he goes. Along with his counterpart, one Marvin "Shake" Tiller, and the gorgeous and talented Barbara Jane Bookman, Puckett waxes poetic on everything under the sun, particularly the hypocrisy associated with such an event as the Super Bowl in LA. It's lewd, raunchy, politically incorrect, and about as funny a read as you'll ever find...
Rated by buyers -
Read this book, you will laugh yourself silly
Rated by buyers -
It is incredibly politically incorrect, replete with satiric racial and sexist slurs, full of (as an old song goes) cigarettes whiskey and wild, wild women, but despite that, and more likely in part because of that, this is the single funniest sports book ever written. Nominally about two characters from Texas who play for the New York Giants in the 70s, this is wonderful satire about sports, athletes, and life in general, and the fact that it is out of print is mind boggling. Burt Reynolds gave a pretty good performance as the immortal running back Billy Clyde Puckett, but youve GOT to read this book to truly appreciate Dan Jenkins' biting satiric wit.
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