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The Junction Boys: How Ten Days in Hell with Bear Bryant Forged a Championship Team

The Junction Boys: How Ten Days in Hell with Bear Bryant Forged a Championship Team

List Price: $13.95
Your Price: $10.46
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Excellent Story for the College Football Fan
Review: This book tells the story of how a bunch of college kids survived a hell week with Bear Bryant and went on to win a championship with him. If you enjoy football you will enjoy this story. My only complaints are that Jim Dent has a few too many down home Texas similes. It also would have been interesting to have Dent put the story into a little bit of historical perspective. Not providing water at practice makes Bryant seem cruel in today's terms.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Never again
Review: The grueling 10 days in Junction, Texas, give another meaning to football's warrior mystique. Because of the vastly higher financial stakes in college football today, there will never again be a hellish camp like the one Jim Dent so richly portrays in this book about Texas A&M in the late summer of 1954.

The obvious question is, of course, why would anyone subject himself to flat out torture for the sake of 60 minutes of glory on Saturday afternoons? As Dent shows, the reader must first understand the players' desperations to remain in college or face a lifetime at a harsh dead end.

In essence, it's a predicament those who never face will never understand. Many of the Junction Boys had two options with seemingly the same end: either die right there on the field trying or return home and agonize the rest of their lives regretting every second.

Of the many who quit, most went on with their self-respect in tact yet always held a grudge towards Bear Bryant for setting them up to fail.

Whatever your opinion is on Bryant's tactics, there is no question that he is a true original in every sense. No one will ever be able to get away with what he did at Junction, risking his kids' lives for a lesson in desire. College football is too much of a business to have investments playing with broken hips and jaws, although to an extent plaeyrs still play with emmense pain.

Football may never be called America's pasttime, but it is definitely the nation's passion -- for better or for worse.

To understand why, read about what drove the Junction Boys.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A must read for any football fan.
Review: I am not normally a reader. I heard Dan Patrick reccomend this book on his radio show following the Korey Stringer Death, so I decided to give it a try. I absolutely could not put the book down. Paul "Bear" Bryant is the epitomey of the hard-nosed football coach. He ran his boys into the ground for a reason, to build a team full of champions. This book is for anyone who loves the game of football, as I do, or anyone that is dealing with the everyday difficulties of life. Full of inspiration, grit, and even a little fun, The Junction Boys is exactly what a sports book is meant to be.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Could Not Put it Down !!
Review: This could quite possibly be the best book I have ever read. I am a Texas Aggie, but if you just like football, you've got to read this book. Jim Dent goes into great detail about how the Bear worked the Aggies to become SWC champs. They go to the tiny town of Junction with 111 players, and come back with only 35 !! For those who survived, their lives would be changed forever. Bear Bryant was truely a great coach. The book also shows how the Junction Boys changed his life. This book is a must read if you enjoy football and/or need to be motivated.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fact or Fiction
Review: Reality or exaggerated, sports fan or not, what difference does it make? This book is about motivation, team building, success, building character and the price paid for it. It has as much right to be listed in the business or military section as it does in sports. It is one version of how a successful empire was built. This is not the only recipe for success, but it is one that worked for a poor boy that grew up in southern Arkansas during some hard times. It is a good read for anyone that has had to sacrifice for success. It is every day, real life for a lot of people, only they may not be practicing football in Junction, Tx. Thank you Dent & Stallings for sharing a story of success.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A compelling read, not for the faint of heart
Review: Not only a riveting account of the fabled ten days in hell, but also of the seasons that followed. The writing is a little uneven; the narrative tends to jump from player to player rather abruptly, which is a bit jarring to the reader. Even with this small fault, the book is a compelling read. This is college football at its absolute gutsiest. Warning: The descriptions of what the Junction boys endured are so graphic that the book should have an "Explicit Violence" sticker on it. Not for the squeamish!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not just a great sports book... this is a great book period!
Review: Okay, so I may be from Alabama (which goes without saying that most of us are Paul Bryant "fanatics") but this book really has nothing to do with Alabama Football. I don't read alot of books, so my opinion may not amount to much. Get this book, read it. You will feel like you made it through hell with the rest of the Junction survivors. I must admit... this is not a read I would suggest for women... or parents sending their boys off to play college ball. It's funny how most of the survivors from Junction ended up being worth millions. Good Read!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Truth About Real Football
Review: I enojoyed this book greatly. I took it as inspiration. I now read the book ever year right before my football season starts. My family is full of aggies and I hope to be one and play for them too. This book illustrates the harsh reality of football in Texas in the 50's. Every time I am struggling in practice I think of the players in this book what they had to go through and I shrug it off and remind myself what happens to players that don't quit. This book is the best sports book, best book overall I have read. I recomend this book to Aggies or just sports enthusiasts. Another great book about football in Texas is Friday Night Lights I recomend that to anyone who enjoyed this book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: No Room for Sissies
Review: Bear Bryant makes Bobby Knight look like Richard Simmons, in a good way. The toughest man that ever lived. Roll Tide! -Don Admire

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Ten Days in Texas
Review: Bear Bryant was a master at getting the most out of the men that played for him, and this story is the standard by which the rest of his life was lived. Compassion overwhelms you as you read this book. You feel compelled to cheer on the survivors no matter what they undertook, for they simply went through hell for ten days in Junction, TX with the devil himself conducting drills. They had more heart in them than the whole National Football League has in them today. By today's standards, Coach would have been considered cruel and insensitive. Yet he managed to have so many successful years at coaching because he knew how and with whom he could build a team. He knew who had character and he knew who had heart. This book I highly recommend for the humor, for the drama and for the all of the characters of the Fightin' Texas Aggie Football Team of 1954.


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