3rd Down and Forever: Joe Don Looney and the Rise and Fall of an American Hero

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Summary: Still searching for the real Joe Don
Review: Oh, yeah, J. Brent, you are some smooth talker; it's a pity, however, with all your smooth talk you missed out on what Joe Don was all about; even a cursory look at the video Larry Merchant aired after Joe's death would have showed you more of the man than your predone perspective on him -- he had truly declared peace with the world; he left the gridiron to find what mattered -- and your and everyone else's criteria of what constitutes a "successful life" just doesn't cut it; Joe was after a first-hand recognition of God inside himself; and I think he found it; the pity is that you didn't; you wrote a sports book and a book of a man who, in Kipling's phrase, "went too native." Joe did nothing of the kind; he threw off the expectations of parents and coaches; he left behind the failure of traditional Western notions of the heroic; he quit the tired Sunday go to meeting gestures; and he found, in Eliot's words, a "tremor of bliss." The shame of what you've done lies in your unwillingness or inability to see that; hell, I think you should try writing the damn book all over again. Talk to more people -- sit down with yourself and get a taste of the transcendent peace Joe grew into.