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Rating: 
Summary: Touchdown!!
Review: always Been a AFc Fan first&foremost&this Book talks about the Ground Breaking american Conference&the many Players&Folks that Made it&ending up merging with the NFL.as a Buffalo Bills Fan Ralph Wilson had alot to do with the Ground Breaking of the AFL as did Lamar Hunt&of Course Broadway Joe Namith&OJ Simpson amongest others. a Great Read for Football Fans.
Rating:
Summary: Fond trip down Memory Lane
Review: I moved to San Diego the year after they won their AFL Championship and immediately followed this team and the new league. Having followed this team weekly it was interesting to see the historical perspective of this upstart league. I fondly remember collecting the football cards of Jack Kemp, Keith Lincoln, Paul Lowe and Tobin Rote. But this league is more known for it's famous characters such as wrestler Ernie Ladd, Cookie Gilchrist and Joe Namath. This book allows the players to talk of their experiences, as there are liberal quotes throughout. It tells the story of a poorly financed league that played exciting football that eventually required the conservative, more established NFL to merge. A great example of how upstart the league was is the Miami Dolphins. Ownership was given to Minnesota attorney, Joe Robbie, who struggled to make payroll and among other mismanagement stories, managed to turn the franchise into the only undefeated team ever and make his family a fortune. Overall, I strongly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys football. Players such as Joe Namath and the owners and founders in this league did more than you can imagine turning football into the enjoyable shoot-out now enjoyed by everyone.
Rating:
Summary: Fond trip down Memory Lane
Review: I moved to San Diego the year after they won their AFL Championship and immediately followed this team and the new league. Having followed this team weekly it was interesting to see the historical perspective of this upstart league. I fondly remember collecting the football cards of Jack Kemp, Keith Lincoln, Paul Lowe and Tobin Rote. But this league is more known for it's famous characters such as wrestler Ernie Ladd, Cookie Gilchrist and Joe Namath. This book allows the players to talk of their experiences, as there are liberal quotes throughout. It tells the story of a poorly financed league that played exciting football that eventually required the conservative, more established NFL to merge. A great example of how upstart the league was is the Miami Dolphins. Ownership was given to Minnesota attorney, Joe Robbie, who struggled to make payroll and among other mismanagement stories, managed to turn the franchise into the only undefeated team ever and make his family a fortune. Overall, I strongly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys football. Players such as Joe Namath and the owners and founders in this league did more than you can imagine turning football into the enjoyable shoot-out now enjoyed by everyone.
Rating:
Summary: my 2 cents for an enjoyable book
Review: Just want to echo what is said below. This is very enjoyable for those interested in the AFL. One deal with it, though, is if you are not that familiar with the AFL players, it may be a bit confusing. There is a guide for who is who, and you can often tell by what they say, whether they were a part owner of the Oilers or something. One thing that would have been nice would have been more photos, but that may be beyond the scope of the book, as it's not a picture book. But the ones they did include were nice and fairly rare. Oral histories give us a taste from those who were there, and I really understood the rise of the AFL after reading what Lamar Hunt had in mind in 1959, etc.
Rating:
Summary: Just Like Joe Willie - I Guarantee You'll Love "Going Long"
Review: The AFL was a truly exciting and dynamic brand of football that came along just as the marketing of sports on TV was ready to explode into everyone's home. This book absolutely captures all of the great moments of the years of the AFL before the eventual merger with the NFL. The behind-the-scenes details and wheeling and dealing is all brought out with the many characters that made the league so colorful and engaging. For the vast majority of the baby-boomer generation who actually grew up with the AFL, and helped grow the legends of the new stars of the league, this book is just the right kind of read that brings back great, great memories of players who were the building blocks of the league. The day to day actions of those first owners, coaches and players and development of the basis for truly challenging the National Football League is all laid all for the reader to understand and enjoy with the build up to each year's championship games expertly played out just like the games themselves. Being able to go back to Lance 'Bambi' Alworth, Cookie Gilchrist, Floyd Little, Steve Tensi, Daryl Lamonica, Joe Willie Namath, and all of the rest of the great names, and to be returned to those turbulent 60's was a real treat and the book just grabs you and puts you inside some of those great old stadiums with names that the true fans just love to hear. Thanks to Broadway Joe, and as one who actually grew up as an early N.Y. Jet fan and was able to revel in the awesome victory that was Super Bowl III, it was a true pleasure to read of those days again and to share those great names and plays of the truly great American Football League. Mr. Miller's accounts of the AFL provide an insight into the incredible efforts of many who were able to go up against a very strong foe and yet succeed through many, many tough times. The Super Bowl is today an institution but would never have been had it not been for the color and excitement of the characters who helped form the AFL. "Going Long" is the game winning play that superbly chronicles the history of a league and a kind of football that we just wish we could enjoy today!
Rating:
Summary: Just Like Joe Willie - I Guarantee You'll Love "Going Long"
Review: The AFL was a truly exciting and dynamic brand of football that came along just as the marketing of sports on TV was ready to explode into everyone's home. This book absolutely captures all of the great moments of the years of the AFL before the eventual merger with the NFL. The behind-the-scenes details and wheeling and dealing is all brought out with the many characters that made the league so colorful and engaging. For the vast majority of the baby-boomer generation who actually grew up with the AFL, and helped grow the legends of the new stars of the league, this book is just the right kind of read that brings back great, great memories of players who were the building blocks of the league. The day to day actions of those first owners, coaches and players and development of the basis for truly challenging the National Football League is all laid all for the reader to understand and enjoy with the build up to each year's championship games expertly played out just like the games themselves. Being able to go back to Lance 'Bambi' Alworth, Cookie Gilchrist, Floyd Little, Steve Tensi, Daryl Lamonica, Joe Willie Namath, and all of the rest of the great names, and to be returned to those turbulent 60's was a real treat and the book just grabs you and puts you inside some of those great old stadiums with names that the true fans just love to hear. Thanks to Broadway Joe, and as one who actually grew up as an early N.Y. Jet fan and was able to revel in the awesome victory that was Super Bowl III, it was a true pleasure to read of those days again and to share those great names and plays of the truly great American Football League. Mr. Miller's accounts of the AFL provide an insight into the incredible efforts of many who were able to go up against a very strong foe and yet succeed through many, many tough times. The Super Bowl is today an institution but would never have been had it not been for the color and excitement of the characters who helped form the AFL. "Going Long" is the game winning play that superbly chronicles the history of a league and a kind of football that we just wish we could enjoy today!
Rating:
Summary: Like an AFL game, this book scores often
Review: There's nothing like hearing a story in someone's own word. Jeff Miller smartly lets a vast collection of old AFL characters tell the story of the upstart league, and does a masterful job of guiding the reader through a fascinating story. This book is full of insight, insider info, and lots of gems from probably the biggest collection of characters since the '62 Mets. My favorite moment is when original AFL commissioner Joe Foss is asked abut his football credenitals. "Did you coach?," Foss, a veteran of Korea and WWII, is asked. "Yeah, I coached," he says. "I coached where it was life and death." I thought Foss' words were especially poignant, for as Miller tells us, it literally was life and death almsot every year for the new league. This book covers everything, from the league's birth, the wars with NFL teams over players, Namath, the Raiders, the enigmatic Cookie Gilchrist, to the story behind the infamous Heidi game. It's a great romp down memory lane, especially for us boomers who fought with tried to pry Dad away from NFL telecasts of Sunday afternoons to watch a more hip, more fun league. I think every kid my age had a pair of white cleats after Namath came into the league.
Rating:
Summary: If you're a pro football fan, you'll really enjoy this book.
Review: This kind of does for the AFL what Loose Balls did for the ABA. In the same way, the AFL was definitely wilder. There are some stories in here that will make you laugh your a** off. The writer talked to something like 200 people who were there, most of them players, and there are some GREAT stories that I never heard, and I'm a big pro football fan. It's also a great story because when they started out most of the teams didn't have the facilities and equipment your average Little League teams have, and nine years later they beat the NFL, and there's a lot about that great Jets-Colts game in here that I never knew. Joe Namath . . . Lance Alworth . . . Bubba Smith . . . Jim Otto . . . Otis Taylor . .. all the great players are here, plus unforgettable characters like Wahoo McDaniel and Larry "Wild Man" Eisenhauer, who were bigtime wrestlers in the offseason, and Fred "the Hammer" Williamson and Ben Davidson and a ton of other colorful characters.
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