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    The Last Cowboy: A Life of Tom Landry
    The Last Cowboy: A Life of Tom Landry
    The Last Cowboy: A Life of Tom Landry
    Audiobook27 hours

    The Last Cowboy: A Life of Tom Landry

    Written by Mark Ribowsky

    Narrated by Peter Berkrot

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    "An eloquent, honest tribute to a sports genius." -Publishers Weekly, Best 100 Books of 2013 Movie rights optioned by NFL Films As the coach during professional football's most storied era, Tom Landry transformed the gridiron from a no-holds-barred battlefield to the highly-technical chess match it is today. With his trademark fedora and stoic facade, he was a man of faith and few words, for twenty-nine years guiding "America's Team" from laughingstock to well-oiled machine, with an unprecedented twenty consecutive winning seasons and two Super Bowl titles. Now, more than a decade after Landry's death, acclaimed biographer Mark Ribowsky takes a fresh look at this misunderstood legend, telling us as much about our country's obsession with football as about Landry himself, the likes of whom we'll never see again.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateOct 10, 2014
    ISBN9781490635477
    The Last Cowboy: A Life of Tom Landry

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    Reviews for The Last Cowboy

    3.5/5

    6 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Another top notch biography from Ribowsky.
    • 3/5
      I received The Last Cowboy as part of a Goodreads giveaway.

      Growing up as a child of the 1990s and as a fan of hockey and baseball before football, Tom Landry was essentially a vaguely familiar name before picking up this significantly-sized volume. However, Mark Ribowsky brings the complicated Landry--as well as the talented, often troubled teams he coached--to life.

      Born and raised in Texas, after a brief stint playing professionally with the New York Giants, Landry fell into coaching, becoming the first head coach of the Dallas Cowboys in 1960, a job he held until 1988. During this time, he took "America's Team" to the Superbowl eight times, winning twice. With a loving wife and family and a strong Christian faith, one might think that Landry was living the American (or at least Texan) dream. However, the teams he coached were plagued with racial tension, drug use, and criminal behavior, problems Landry dealt with with mixed results. Ribowsky does an excellent job of showing Landry as a good and decent, but imperfect, man of his time, enlightened in many ways but flawed in others. And for the mistakes that he did make, you can't help but feel for Landry when reading about his firing by Jerry Jones in the late 1980s.

      Some sections of the book got a little long. For instance, while interesting, reading about the ongoing problems of Landry's players in the 1970s and 1980s got the narrative a little off-track in my opinion. All in all, a really engaging read, especially for the devout football fan.