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Rating: 
Summary: A real-life story about football
Review: Gene Stallings, football coach. I hesitated to purchase a book in which an athletic man recounts life with his disabled son. I am not a football fan, nor did I in the past think very highly of the "jocks" of the world. Coach Stallings changed my views by the end of the first chapter.He is all too human. A man who wanted a son to grow up and carry on the family name and football prowess. We see openly his disappointment and fears after Johnny's birth. The child will never play football and may be looked down upon his entire life. Stallings strives for coaching fame all the while advocating for the best for his son. His pride in the adult Johnny is one of the great tear jerking moments of modern literature.
Rating: 
Summary: A VICTORY FOR ALL
Review: He longed for a son. So much so that at times Coach Gene Stallings imagined he could see him. "He'd always be a big strapping boy," Stallings writes, "and I'd envision him intercepting a pass, tucking that football under his arm, and sprinting to make a touchdown." When his wife, Ruth Ann, did give birth to a son on June 11, 1962, Stallings couldn't wait to call his mentor and friend, Paul "Bear" Bryant. "We've got the boy, Coach Bryant!" he exulted. Then he proudly handed out blue banded cigars. His elation was short lived. The next day when Stallings was told that his son was a mongoloid, the strapping assistant coach at Alabama passed out cold. It would be years before "Down syndrome" replaced mongoloid as an accepted term for the chromosomal disorder that results in delayed physical and mental development. It was only a few months before the couple learned that their son, John Mark, called Johnny, also had a serious heart defect. Doctors and friends urged them to institutionalize their baby. The Stallings refused. They would raise their third child at home despite predictions that Johnny would never sit, walk or talk and, in all probability, not live to see his first birthday. More than an account of raising an exceptional child, Another Season is testimony to a father's love. It is the heartwarming story of a remarkable family., as well as a poignant reminder of how perseverance and courage can overcome daunting obstacles. Johnny's four sisters were his staunchest allies. Eager for him to learn, they rigged shoelaces on bedposts to repeatedly show him how to make loops and tie a knot - a feat he accomplished at six. Later, his sisters measured prospective dates by how warmly the boys responded to Johnny. The bond between father and son grew stronger each day. Whether Stallings was coaching at Texas A & M, with the Dallas Cowboys, with the St. Louis Cardinals or leading the Crimson Tide, a devoted happy Johnny accompanied him to practice. Two good reasons prompted Stallings' move to Dallas in 1972: superior educational opportunities for Johnny, and he needed a job. However, his first days as defensive secondary coach for the Cowboys were rocky. Players and staff knew he'd never been to a pro camp, never played pro football, and didn't have an enviable record at Texas A & M. As he brought Johnny to Saturday practice for the first time, he wondered how the Cowboy players would react. He knew when he saw a grinning Johnny squeezed between Roger Staubach and Lee Roy Jordan on a locker room bench. His son would belong. The boy became such an integral part of the team that when Tom Landry passed out 1977 Super Bowl rings, Johnny's name was called . After slowly making his way to the front of the room, Johnny found that the diamond studded ring fit perfectly on his clubbed finger. In 1989 Stallings saw himself as "a fifty-four-year-old coach who had been fired twice" (by A& M and the Cardinals). Then came the call from the president of the University of Alabama. On January 11, 1990, in Tuscaloosa, he was introduced as Alabama's 22nd head coach . There Johnny found work he enjoyed at the Paul Bryant Museum. Stallings was happy to be where his career had begun. That was also where it would end. After six years with the Crimson Tide, most of his goals were accomplished. He had compiled an average of ten wins a season, they had a 70-15-1 record, and won a national championship. Believing Johnny was slowing down and needed him, Stallings resigned. Some 300 people attended the farewell reception hosted by the Museum staff in Johnny's honor. As Stallings stood in a corner, he watched his 34-year-old son smiling, hugging friends, and posing for photographers. His boy had beaten all the odds and grown to manhood. In a television commercial filmed for the United Way, Stallings says of his son, "His progress is measured in little victories." For Johnny Stallings and his family those small victories added up to a major triumph.
Rating:
Summary: A VICTORY FOR ALL
Review: He longed for a son. So much so that at times Coach Gene Stallings imagined he could see him. "He'd always be a big strapping boy," Stallings writes, "and I'd envision him intercepting a pass, tucking that football under his arm, and sprinting to make a touchdown." When his wife, Ruth Ann, did give birth to a son on June 11, 1962, Stallings couldn't wait to call his mentor and friend, Paul "Bear" Bryant. "We've got the boy, Coach Bryant!" he exulted. Then he proudly handed out blue banded cigars. His elation was short lived. The next day when Stallings was told that his son was a mongoloid, the strapping assistant coach at Alabama passed out cold. It would be years before "Down syndrome" replaced mongoloid as an accepted term for the chromosomal disorder that results in delayed physical and mental development. It was only a few months before the couple learned that their son, John Mark, called Johnny, also had a serious heart defect. Doctors and friends urged them to institutionalize their baby. The Stallings refused. They would raise their third child at home despite predictions that Johnny would never sit, walk or talk and, in all probability, not live to see his first birthday. More than an account of raising an exceptional child, Another Season is testimony to a father's love. It is the heartwarming story of a remarkable family., as well as a poignant reminder of how perseverance and courage can overcome daunting obstacles. Johnny's four sisters were his staunchest allies. Eager for him to learn, they rigged shoelaces on bedposts to repeatedly show him how to make loops and tie a knot - a feat he accomplished at six. Later, his sisters measured prospective dates by how warmly the boys responded to Johnny. The bond between father and son grew stronger each day. Whether Stallings was coaching at Texas A & M, with the Dallas Cowboys, with the St. Louis Cardinals or leading the Crimson Tide, a devoted happy Johnny accompanied him to practice. Two good reasons prompted Stallings' move to Dallas in 1972: superior educational opportunities for Johnny, and he needed a job. However, his first days as defensive secondary coach for the Cowboys were rocky. Players and staff knew he'd never been to a pro camp, never played pro football, and didn't have an enviable record at Texas A & M. As he brought Johnny to Saturday practice for the first time, he wondered how the Cowboy players would react. He knew when he saw a grinning Johnny squeezed between Roger Staubach and Lee Roy Jordan on a locker room bench. His son would belong. The boy became such an integral part of the team that when Tom Landry passed out 1977 Super Bowl rings, Johnny's name was called . After slowly making his way to the front of the room, Johnny found that the diamond studded ring fit perfectly on his clubbed finger. In 1989 Stallings saw himself as "a fifty-four-year-old coach who had been fired twice" (by A& M and the Cardinals). Then came the call from the president of the University of Alabama. On January 11, 1990, in Tuscaloosa, he was introduced as Alabama's 22nd head coach . There Johnny found work he enjoyed at the Paul Bryant Museum. Stallings was happy to be where his career had begun. That was also where it would end. After six years with the Crimson Tide, most of his goals were accomplished. He had compiled an average of ten wins a season, they had a 70-15-1 record, and won a national championship. Believing Johnny was slowing down and needed him, Stallings resigned. Some 300 people attended the farewell reception hosted by the Museum staff in Johnny's honor. As Stallings stood in a corner, he watched his 34-year-old son smiling, hugging friends, and posing for photographers. His boy had beaten all the odds and grown to manhood. In a television commercial filmed for the United Way, Stallings says of his son, "His progress is measured in little victories." For Johnny Stallings and his family those small victories added up to a major triumph.
Rating:
Summary: A solid -- if difficult -- story, told by a solid man
Review: I received this book unexpectedly after making a donation to my alma mater, from which Coach Stallings' daughters also graduated. Until then, I didn't even know the story had been written. The book fascinated me from many angles -- as a teacher, as the sister of someone born with a congenital handicap (whose parents were likewise advised to put him in an institution), as a reader of this genre of literature, and most of all, as someone who as a kid knew and adored John Mark Stallings. Many have commented on the way the author plainly tells his early disappointments, fears, and frustrations at having his only son be born with such apparent limitations. I, too, initially felt uncomfortable. However, I came to admire Mr. Stallings' willingness to expose to scorn the ideas that he had back in the 1960s and 70s, ideas that over the course of the book he does slowly show to have been mistaken. By the end of the book it is clear he realizes that people born with Down syndrome are far more capable and have a more meaningful life than was dreamed of at the time John Mark was born. The narrative also puts into perspective the origins of those ideas. The end result is an honest portrait by an unfailingly honest man, and the book shows the strong and loving relationship between Johnny and his father today. -- Andrea
Rating:
Summary: moving account of a father's love for his son
Review: that you'll like, even if not a football fan . . . well-written and very quick reading.
Rating:
Summary: A real-life story about football
Review: This is an autobiography by a person who has had a highly successful career in college and pro football but knows the world does not start and end with sports. The raising of the Stallings' son Johnny, who has Down syndrome, is the real focus here. The two stories, football and family, are intertwined, as the authors never lose sight of the family even while describing the high and low points of Gene Stallings' coaching career. Indeed, Johnny as he grows shares in his father's work. The book gives insight into both the game and the people in it and in the Coach's family. These people are brought alive for the reader. It is the best book 'about' football I have read.
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