Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football Author: Visit Amazon's Rich Cohen Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0374298688 | Format: EPUB
Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football Description
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, November 2013:Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football is a touching portrait of what is arguably one of the best--and most colorful--football teams ever. But Rich Cohen, better known as an essayist and editor than a sports writer, brings together an oral history of the Bears (featuring many well-known football figures, including Coach Mike Ditka), the evolution of the game and the league, and glimpses of his own childhood growing up in Chicago into a seamless narrative. Monsters is one of those rare books that transcends its topic without surrendering its enthusiasm for it. Cohen's perspective is both cogent and ambivalent. For example, he describes the quaterback as "a man in pain." He writes, "Via his suffering, we witness our own suffering at a safe remove. We eat chips and drink beer as he's lacerated, stepped on, stomped, taunted, concussed." Monsters is the rare sports book you can recommend to a non-fan as well as the biggest die hard. Really, you could recommend it to anyone who would enjoy a beautifully written, deeply human story. --Kevin Nguyen
From Booklist
Just when no more words could be added to the legacy of one of the great NFL teams of all time—the 1985 Chicago Bears—here’s another title to reanimate the likes of Walter Payton, Jim McMahon, Mike Singletary, Mike Ditka, Buddy Ryan, and the other players and coaches who made that team so dominant. Cohen (The Fish That Ate the Whale, 2012) does a good job drawing a line from the founding of the team (and the NFL!) by George Halas more than 100 years ago, to the innovations Papa Bear employed to win eight NFL championships, to the hiring of the volatile Ditka to restore a culture of winning to the Bears. The historical context enriches the book, as do Cohen’s explanation of the team’s groundbreaking “46” defense, his lively interviews with principals, and his analyses of what went right with the team, and, in subsequent years, what went wrong. The author too often gets in his own way—“In 1983, I made out with Christine Connor on the grass behind North School” (!)—but not enough to keep this engaging account out of the hands of eager football fans. --Alan Moores
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- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (October 29, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0374298688
- ISBN-13: 978-0374298685
- Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
As I read Rich Cohen's book about the 1985 Chicago Bears, I looked for various comments or phrases to use as the title of my review of the book. After jotting down quite a few, I settled on one made by Cris Collinsworth, wide receiver for the Bengals in the 1980's. He played against the Bears in several games during his career and was well aware of the talent and the- uh - idiosyncracies displayed by most of the Bears' players and management. And the team's rabid fans, too; mostly Chicagoans who lived with broken promises from their sports teams through the years. We looked at the Bear teams of the 1980's with an almost pathetic yearning for...championship. And in the Superbowl of 1986, played in New Orleans, the team, the fans, and the city received that trophy.
I lived in Chicago in those years and was a long-suffering fan. So was author Rich Cohen, who has written many fine works of non-fiction. Some readers of this book might mind his inserting himself, family, and friends into his book, but for me, it just felt right. Because Cohen uses a bit of his own history to explain the agonies of the Bears fans and supporters, and writes an excellent book on just how the Bears reached the Super Bowl in that single year and how they, then, lost their way.
And by putting that wonderful year in the context of the city and the history of football, he lends the book a perspective missing from most books on sports.
Pro-football grew out of college football in the 1920's. Most players left the game after leaving college but some visionaries like George Halas saw the potential for pro-leagues. The first pro teams tended to be put on by companies, eager to put their names and products out into the media.
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