Books by two Super Bowl 🏈 winning coaches and a tribute to the ⚽ writing of Grant Wahl

Recent books from Jimmy Johnson and Tom Coughlin reviewed and sharing old reviews of the late, great Wahl's two books

Welcome to the penultimate edition of All Sports Books for this year and thanks to everyone for the lovely feedback on the recent Best of 2022 and Sports Books Coming in 2023 posts.

In this edition I’m sharing reviews of two recent books by Super Bowl winning coaches Tom Coughlin and Jimmy Johnson. Both books are very much shaped by the personality of their author with Johnson’s book more free flowing, less structured than Coughlin’s but no less personal and thoughtful. Both are well worth checking out. As a Philadelphia Eagles fan I may not be natural audience for books celebrating two of their NFC East rivals so Giants and Cowboys fans will definitely enjoy them!).

I’m also resharing some older reviews of two books by the late, great, Grant Wahl who passed away tragically last week. I was a big fan of his books, articles and podcasts. I was inspired by the US Soccer tribute to Wahl which ended with the phrase “His writing and stories will live on”. In that vein, I want to do my bit to spread the word about some of that great writing.

🏈A Giant Win: Inside the New York Giants' Historic Upset over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII by Tom Coughlin with Greg Hanlon

If you’ve watched any NFL this year, you’ve heard plenty about the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins and their unsurpassed achievement of 50 years ago. That the 1972 Dolphins (which is covered brilliantly in this 2022 book) stand alone as the only undefeated team is thanks to the 2007 New York Giants and their surprise victory over the 18-0 New England Patriots of Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Randy Moss and Junior Seau amongst others. Even an Eagles fan like myself can appreciate a division rival for saving all of us from 50+ years of New England boasting.

A Giant Win is a dissection of that Super Bowl game, series by series, by the team’s coach Tom Coughlin. The retelling of such a historic game from a coach’s perspective provides a really fascinating insight into both the technicalities of the sport and the emotional challenges of competing for championships. The broader context of the season, the players, and Coughlin’s career are interposed with Coughlin’s detailed analysis of the game resulting in a book that is part memoir, part football lesson and part celebration but is always interesting, insightful and entertaining.

Coughlin worked with Greg Hanlon (who also worked on Eric Dickerson’s excellent memoir) on the book, and together they have superbly captured Coughlin’s voice and tone. Coughlin’s personality as a coach - both of football and of men - and his passion for the game is apparent on every page.

The book also provides an interesting look at some of the key players in modern Giant’s history and allows Coughlin a platform to record his appreciation of, and respect for, many of the players he coached. There is no score settling - this is a book of celebration and reflection from a remove of 15 years by a man secure in his legacy. It's a book that any Giant’s fan will love and any NFL fan would enjoy.

What to watch after reading: There are a few very good documentaries that are worth watching while/after reading A Giant Win. ‘The Helmet Catch’ episode of NFL Films Timeline series (available on NFL+) details the most famous play of the game and includes the reflections on the game of many of the key figures. NFL Films also produced an episode of A Football Life dedicated to Coughlin (available on NFL+) which gives a broader account of his career.

🏈Swagger: Super Bowls, Brass Balls, and Footballs—A Memoir by Jimmy Johnson with Dave Hyde

Jimmy Johnson needs no introduction to any football fan. The current Fox analyst is the rare coach to achieve multiple championships at both college and professional level and is best known for his University of Miami and Dallas Cowboy’s teams.

Johnson previously wrote a memoir back in the middle of his coaching days in 1993. Swagger, written years after he retired from coaching, isn’t a typical memoir and sets out much of Johnson’s life and career in fairly broad strokes. Instead, Johnson zooms in and out on different chapters of his life while building the broad narrative of a man who worked harder than anybody at coaching football at the expense of, and to the detriment of, his family.

The book combines reflections on Johnson’s most famous teams and relationships with the lessons Johnson learned along the way and the knowledge which he know imparts on (seemingly) anyone in football willing to visit him (but for one night only!). There are plenty of interesting stories and anecdotes about those he met along the way, none more so than his relationship with Cowboys owner (and his former college teammate) Jerry Jones.

The most gripping parts of the book are his personal stories about the cost his total dedication to football had on his family. Here we see Johnson, the cocky, confident coach, become unsure of himself as he faces obstacles much greater and more meaningful including his son’s addiction. At times it feels like Johnson is trying to convince himself that his single minded dedication to the job was worth the cost - what is clear to him is that it wouldn’t have been possible to be as successful without it.

Overall Swagger is a fun read. Cowboys fans will enjoy the behind-the-scenes look at the team’s glory days and ponder what might have been had Johnson’s relationship with Jones not soured. Any sports fan will find plenty to enjoy in Swagger.

What to watch after reading: Johnson and his teams are at the centre of a bunch of great documentaries. Before They Were Cowboys (ESPN+) tells the story of his time in college at Arizona playing alongside Jerry Jones. The U (ESPN+) is a gripping documentary on his play-hard win-hard University of Miami teams, and their rivalry with Notre Dame during this period is given it’s on documentary Catholics v Convicts (ESPN+). NFL Films also produced an episode of A Football Life dedicated to Johnson (available on NFL+) which gives a broader account of his career. There is also a great ESPN short The Great Trade Robbery on the trade of Herschel Walker which provided the draft picks Johnson needed to rebuild the Cowboys.

⚽A Tribute to the writing of Grant Wahl

The outpouring of grief and memories across the sports writing world has served a huge testament to the kindness and decency of Grant Wahl. One of the first books I reviewed on my site was The Beckham Experiment and he sent me a nice, short, DM thanking me for sharing my thoughts. A tiny thing, but something that boosted my confidence as I started out reviewing and this seems to have been par for the course for Wahl. I was thinking of highlighting some of his best articles but it’s honestly difficult to narrow it down. His entire back catalogue at Sports Illustrated is online at https://vault.si.com/author/grant-wahl and contains dozens of excellent articles that have stood the test of time.

Below are extracts from my reviews of his two excellent books and links to the full reviews as well.

The Beckham Experiment: How the World's Most Famous Athlete Tried to Conquer America (2009)

Wahl was given great access to follow Beckham's first two seasons at LA Galaxy.  I was shocked to realise how spectacular a failure those first few seasons were, from a sporting sense at least.  Injuries, fatigue, lack of effort all played a part in the Galaxy having their worst two seasons in the club's (I can never call a team a 'franchise') history.

Wahl paints the picture of an experiment that was a commercial success but - at that point - a sporting failure.  Beckham's management team were given way too much influence over club affairs, Beckham was made captain despite not having a desire to be the team's actual leader, and the approach of blowing the budget on Beckham and Landon Donovan left the team hopelessness unbalanced. 

We never get a strong sense of who Beckham is but this is no fault of Wahl's who gets the other key protagonists to open up in great detail.  Overall the book provides a great insight into the state of MLS at the time.  It's a highly readable, well-written and well-reported book.

Full review of the Beckham Experiment

Masters of Modern Soccer: How the World's Best Play the Twenty-First-Century (2018)

Wahl interviews leading players in different positions both on and off the pitch including Vincent Kompany, Xabi Alonso, Manuel Neuer, Roberto Martinez, and Michael Zorc.

The book provides a lot of fascinating insight and Wahl has clearly picked exceptionally intelligent interviewees.  It is clear that Wahl put a tremendous amount of time and thought into the interviews and this is reflected in the quality of the book. I particularly liked the sections where he watched highlights of key moments with a player and let them explain their thinking at the time in a level of detail I've not seen elsewhere.

The book really shines a light on the intensity and detail that goes into training and preparing for games at the highest level.  The old British football stereotype of managers naming an XI and letting them figure it out on the pitch is well and truly dead. A number of the interviews are fascinating in their focus on set patterns that teams seek to repeat during a game.

Full review of Masters of Modern Soccer

Thanks for reading. Let me know your thoughts, opinions, any improvements I can make etc. Catch me on Twitter. More books next time!