Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football Author: Rich Cohen | Language: English | ISBN:
B00CVNNPEC | Format: EPUB
Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football Description
The gripping account of a once-in-a-lifetime football team and their lone championship season
For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the 1985 Chicago Bears were more than a football team: they were the greatest football team ever—a gang of colorful nuts, dancing and pounding their way to victory. They won a Super Bowl and saved a city.
It was not just that the Monsters of the Midway won, but how they did it. On offense, there was high-stepping running back Walter Payton and Punky QB Jim McMahon, who had a knack for pissing off Coach Mike Ditka as he made his way to the end zone. On defense, there was the 46: a revolutionary, quarterback-concussing scheme cooked up by Buddy Ryan and ruthlessly implemented by Hall of Famers such as Dan “Danimal” Hampton and “Samurai” Mike Singletary. On the sidelines, in the locker rooms, and in bars, there was the never-ending soap opera: the coach and the quarterback bickering on TV, Ditka and Ryan nearly coming to blows in the Orange Bowl, the players recording the “Super Bowl Shuffle” video the morning after the season’s only loss.
Cohen tracked down the coaches and players from this iconic team and asked them everything he has always wanted to know: What’s it like to win? What’s it like to lose? Do you really hate the guys on the other side? Were you ever scared? What do you think as you lie broken on the field? How do you go on after you have lived your dream but life has not ended?
The result is Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football, a portrait not merely of ateam but of a city and a game: its history, its future, itsfallen men, its immortal heroes. But mostly it’s aboutbeing a fan—about loving too much. This is a bookabout America at its most nonsensical, delirious, andjoyful.
- File Size: 4362 KB
- Print Length: 353 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0374298688
- Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (October 29, 2013)
- Sold by: Macmillan
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00CVNNPEC
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,080 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #9
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Sports > Football (American) - #12
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Sports > Miscellaneous > History of Sports - #19
in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Football (American)
- #9
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Sports > Football (American) - #12
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Sports > Miscellaneous > History of Sports - #19
in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Football (American)
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.
Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football Preview
Link
Please Wait...