Cheap God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype, and Hypocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys (Book) (Skip Bayless) Price

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Customer Reviews of God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype, and Hypocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys

The bravest and funniest sports book since Ball 4, bar none
Written both in the style of expose' and (no kidding, why else would so many near illiterate sports fans complain?) classic American novel, Mr. Bayless' first book on the Cowboys does exactly what he says it does: it pulls away the curtain to show the ultimate Wizards of NFL's Oz, "America's Team", the Dallas Cowboys--warts and all. Certainly, this book should come as no REAL surprise, concerning as it does, a team with SO much embarrasing hype (the hole in the stadium was so "God" could watch his team, (remember those 2, count them 2 awful TV movies where the evil New York reporter goes undercover to look for dirt on the Cowboy cheerleaders and CAN'T find any and apologizes?!) those good guys in white and stars, led by once-failed Quarterback turned unquestioned, "stone-face" humorless Christian zealot/tyrant Landry, who as Butch Johnson pointed out, would turn his head away from the camera when he wanted to say, "God Damn!" on the side-lines; from "Lance without Pants" to "Raphael (he likes 'em pre-teen) Septien" and god (I cross myself) only knows how many drug arrests and wife beatings and nightclub parking lot lewd behavior arrests WERE covered up by that extraordinary well-placed (can you say, connections to organized crime?) Cowboy hype-machine? Was Skip Bayless responsible for manditory injections given to the players while hurt? Was it HIS fault Landry became so senile after awhile that he would call goal line plays at mid-field and long-developing play-action passes inside the opponant's 2? (that Roger Staubach had to "decipher and occasionally completely change)...Is it Bayless' fault that Landry, the ultimate image over substance coach, was figure-head of an embarrasingly racist organization led by liars who treated their players like replaceable cogs, paying among the lowest salaries in football while TV revenues were tallying up from nearly 1 out of every 3 broadcasts NATION-WIDE? (What, Bob Lilly never made 100,000$ in a year? and LeRoy Jordan, only once, his 14th season, but it made the organization so mad, it took a decade (and a change of ownership) to grant him his deserved place in the ring of honor? That "Dandy" Don Meredith retired at age 31 because his coach didn't really give a sh** about him? Non-sense. If you see sports books as only being promo tools for franchizes without regard for the truth and consequences of the people involved, skip this book. But if, like the proverbial little child, you realize, as Mr. Bayless did, that by say, 1980-1981, Landry had traded in his hat and coat for an invisable suit--and no one in "Big D" ("a nice place to live, but you wouldn't want to visit there"--it's true!) dared to point it out (not even the players and management and owners who knew better), then quickly, rush order a copy of this book. It's a classic! and I would say that even IF I wasn't from Houston...(ha). p.s. The sophistication of the writing will sneak up on you, though; so don't be surprised if by the end, you actually come to see Tom Landry himself as a little victimized, too, by the evil men, Tex (born in California), Gil, and Murch, who cynically manufactured a "mystique" preferred by the public over the truth...

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The Man with the Funny Hat
I've read a few books on the 'Cowboys of Old' and I ahve noticed a trend. They all portray Tom Landry, as a man, in the brightest light possible--as he should be. But as a coach, it is revealed that he was "all business", which is probably true. I used to be a cowboys fan, and unfortunately the truth of those cowboys come to life, and the heroes of a 6-year old cowboy fan put a stain on what once was "America's Team". I'm not discrediting the author, I'm sure they're true, but if you were/are a cowboys fan, this book may be a little too truthful for you. I have since lost respect for some of those players, and I am glad I was ignorant as a 6-year old to the behind-the-scenes goings-on because if I had known then what I know now, I would have rooted differently.

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You are better off SKIPPING Bayless
Bayless was run out of Dallas not because he wrote 3 negative books on the Cowboys. Out of season, and even during the glory years, most die hard Cowboy fans are intellectually honest enough to know that things have always been bumpy. But Bayless seeks to do a hatchet job on Tom Landry right from the start. Landry is portrayed by Bayless as a hypocrite because he professes to be a Christian but runs a coaches a professional football team by cutting players and motivating by fear of being cut. Huh? Basically a hypocrite for doing his job and doing it well.

Most of Bayless' key sources in this book are disgruntled Landry haters. Bayless became friends with Paul Hackett and didn't like the way Hackett was treated by the Cowboys. Never mind that Hackett couldn't adjust his offensive thinking for quarterbacks without strong intelligence (like Danny White) and who has proven that he is nothing but a run-of-the-mill college coach. Ironically, many of those so-called haters were present at Landry's funeral earlier this year and I began to wonder whether they really said what Bayless quoted them as saying.

Perhaps there are things in this book that are relevent to any Cowboys discussion, but the timing of the book was odd. It was written in 1989, the low point of the franchise. Had it been written in, say, 1980 (after many of the events portrayed here), Bayless might have some credibility. In fact, he has none.