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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.332640973
EAN num: 9780071418492
ISBN number: 0071418490
Label: McGraw-Hill
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 320
Printing Date: July 24, 2003
Publishing house: McGraw-Hill
Sale Popularity Level: 267196
Studio: McGraw-Hill
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
“Outlandish, informative, and above all, funny.”
—Sports Illustrated
Now in paperback, Going Long brings the incredible story of the maverick American Football League to life through the words of the players, coaches, owners, and others who lived it. This story of the AFL is filled with legendary names such as Bob Griese, Joe Namath, Lamar Hunt, Jack Kemp, Len Dawson, and more. From the contentious formation of the league, to paychecks bouncing as often as footballs, to improbable Super Bowl victories, Going Long presents the colorful and sometimes bizarre tale of eight teams and a league that refused to die.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
This book has special significance to those of us who grew up in AFL cities, places which did not have an NFL team. The NFL, as the NBA did to the new ABA, snubbed their noses at this "upstart" football league, deriding it at every opportunity. Well, those snobs missed out on some exciting football games and some pretty fair players who, it turns out, started beating the tar of them once the two leagues merged.
The account of those guys and some of the wacky AFL owners and misfits are all down here in Jeff Miller's "oral history" of the league. A lot of people who were there to cheer, play or run the Buffalo Bills, Boston Patriots, New York Titans, Oakland Raiders, Los Angeles Chargers, Dallas Texans, Houston Oilers and Denver Broncos - the original eight teams - describe what it was like. This was a league second chances for many (i.e. Lenny Dawson) and a begining for even more stars (i.e. Joe Namath). The best parts are the characters like Cookie Gilchrist and Wahoo McDoniel and the stories of the intense bidding wars for players.
Not only is a must for AFL fans but a good read for NFL people, too, because it didn't take that long (six or seven years) for a merger, and pro football was the better for it. Here is a treasure of how tough it is to start a brand new professional league, a lot like David fighting Goliath. Along the way are a lot of amusing anecdotes.
Rated by buyers -
I've read this book three times. There's nothing better to read sports history than an oral history of the subject by the men who played, coached, and wrote the game. The AFL was a rogue league at the beginning of the most tumultuous decade of the 20th century, the 1960's, rosters filled of castoff's, has-beens, and never-was players from the NFL. Yet, in a short span of time, the teams from the AFL were equal to and later superior to the established teams from the NFL. Think about it, the Packers dominated the 1960's, and when they got old, the teams from the AFL stepped up, the New York Jets and Kansas City Chiefs, to prove the AFL was coming on at the time of the merger. Read the stories and observations of players, coaches and executives from the AFL. The players and coaches had nothing to lose, the owners had everything to lose. And they made it. This is currently the only history of the league I have read, I need to read the others, but this book makes my old bubble gum cards, especially the tall ones issued by TOPPS in 1965 come alive.
Rated by buyers -
This was a great, great read and the author used a very interesting way to write it by using a ton of quotes from those who were there to tell the story. His own words were the perfect conduit.
This was truly a book I hated coming to the end of.
Rated by buyers 
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Of course, there are several books in circulation about the birth and growth of the American Football League (AFL), the greatest rival sports league in the history of American professional sports. What makes this book a little different from the pack is that it consists almost entirely of quotes from interviews with the various participants in AFL history -- players, coaches, owners, etc.
So in all candor, the author contributes little, and appears to have acted more like a stenographer than anything else. I suppose that can be both good and bad. But though I like this book a great deal, I'd say it's not as good as a similar book by Bob Curran entitled "The $400,000 Quarterback -- or -- The League that Came in from Out of the Cold."
But if you an AFL-lover, you'll love it. If you are just AFL-curious, you may want to shop around for other titles.
Rated by buyers 
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99% of this book is a collection of stories about the AFL by former players, coaches, administrators, owners, and others with some connection to the game. It is interesting, but not a great book. Most interesting is the explanation about how NBC cut off the Heidi game. Typical corporate move from the beginning to the end. Nobody had any objection throughout the week of the proposed cutoff and none of the "suits" could make a decision at crunch time. NBC has never lived the Heidi game down and it will always be remembered in sports broadcasting.
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