The Whole Ten Yards

Rating:
Summary: A football legend looks back
Review: Frank Gifford is the first football player I personally remember. I can still picture him being interviewed on TV before a game, long before he was the one holding the microphone. But what interested me about his book was not only his account of his college and NFL careers or his broadcasting years but also his tribute to the high school and community college football programs in California, which have produced a number of outstanding players, and his look back on the celebrity social scene in New York City in the 1950's, the end of the Stork Club/Walter Winchell/Toot Shoor's era, where figures from the sports, journalism, political, entertainment and even literary worlds met and interacted. Another poignant moment was the meeting between Ronald Reagan and John Lennon in which the future President explained to the music legend the intricacies of football. Ironically, both would be shot; one would live, the other would not. And most of the country learned about John Lennon's murder while watching the December 8, 1980 Monday Night Football game.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting for fans of pro football's golden age
Review: Frank Gifford's autobiography is a fairly interesting book that isn't dry like so many sports biographies are. I found it to be a pretty good read and learned quite a bit I hadn't known before about The Giff.

Gifford covers his tough nomadic childhood, his rise to fame at USC, his years as a New York Giant playing in five NFL title games, his experience trying to break into the Hollywood scene, his eventual transition into broadcasting, and of course the Monday Night Football years. He also spends a lot of time at the end of the book gushing over Kathie Lee. Unfortunately this was written prior to his infamous indiscretions of the mid-1990s; it would be interesting to read his side of that story.... oh well.

Overall I'd say "The Whole Ten Yards" is an above average sports biography. If you were a fan of MNF's first quarter-decade or of the old Giants of the 1950s & early 1960s, you will probably enjoy this book.