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Summerall: On and Off the Air
For more than three decades, countless millions of sports fans have welcomed him into their living rooms. Now, broadcasting legend Pat Summerall is granting you more intimate access into his extraordinary life. This is the voice of Pat Summerall as you've never heard it before. Personal. Revealing. And willing to share with you equally his career victories and private defeats. Here, Summerall calls the plays of his own life story. It is a story of sports, celebrity, and alcoholism. But, ultimately, the story that Pat Summerall shares from his life is one of spiritual healing and redemptive faith.
256 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 16, 2024
If you're a sports fan who grew up in the 1970s, Pat Summerall was the one who provided a lot of memories of the games we watched. His class in the booth offset the zaniness of John Madden and balanced perfectly earlier with Tom Brookshire, whom I really grew up watching football with.
I knew of Summerall's alcohol problems, but I did not know the extent of them. In this book, Summerall really highlights those problems. It's hard to look back and remember him doing his games in between cavorting in bars and drunkenly staggering around with other broadcasters.
I was a bit disappointed in Summerall's quick look at his broadcasting career. This is a short book and much of it is dealing with his alcohol issues. I'd like to have seen a 400-page tome about his life rather than just a 200-plus book.
Still, this is a great trip down memory lane and insight into one of the great broadcasters.
I knew of Summerall's alcohol problems, but I did not know the extent of them. In this book, Summerall really highlights those problems. It's hard to look back and remember him doing his games in between cavorting in bars and drunkenly staggering around with other broadcasters.
I was a bit disappointed in Summerall's quick look at his broadcasting career. This is a short book and much of it is dealing with his alcohol issues. I'd like to have seen a 400-page tome about his life rather than just a 200-plus book.
Still, this is a great trip down memory lane and insight into one of the great broadcasters.
November 28, 2024
Pat Summerall and Friends
Reads like a history of televised sports culture in its early years. Summerall speaks with grace to his love of sports, his storied career in football, his relationships with Lombardi, Landry, and our friends in the broadcast booth in gatherings such as the Super Bowls and Masters Championships. He also addresses with humor and humility his personal life and growth in faith as he learned to live again in faith. God Bless Pat Summerall.
Reads like a history of televised sports culture in its early years. Summerall speaks with grace to his love of sports, his storied career in football, his relationships with Lombardi, Landry, and our friends in the broadcast booth in gatherings such as the Super Bowls and Masters Championships. He also addresses with humor and humility his personal life and growth in faith as he learned to live again in faith. God Bless Pat Summerall.
July 25, 2020
A great read about an interesting figure in the world of sports. He shares with us the lifestyle that he lived, and the problems that it caused him along the way. He interfaced and got to know many other sports figures of his era. A great read for sports fans.
June 3, 2015
Review title: The quiet voice of a fallen professional
Pat Summer all was known for years to millions of NFL fans as the calm and quiet voice sitting beside the boisterous John Madden. He was considered the consummate professional as a broadcaster and a respected member of the retired player community.
But as he tells in this autobiography, Summerall was living a hard life of traveling and drinking with all-too-willing companions. The years of travel and drinking, neglecting his wife and three children, wrecked his marriage, his health, and his soul. Brought to the brink of death and the loss of his relationships with his now grown children, Summerall turned his addiction over to the Bette Ford Clinic, his ruined liver over to a Mayo clinic transplant team, and his soul over to God.
Throughout this story from his birth with a serious birth defect in a small town into a broken home all the way through his 10-year NFL career and the broadcasting career for which he is now best known. Summerall tells the story with the voice he used in the booth. Speaking quietly and steadily with the minimum number of words to convey the meaning, Summerall covers his playing career on less than 50 pages but spends 75 on "The Reckoning" as he calls his recovery experiences.
A quick check of Wikipedia today show Summerall (now 82) is still alive but still paying the price for his years of alcohol abuse in physical ailments, but as he says in this book, his focus is on telling others of the healing grace that saved his soul and repaying the human compassion to the family of the young boy who provided the transplanted organ that kept his voice alive.
The Pat Summerall revealed in his words is a man who lives up to the image of quiet professionalism he projected all those years. And knowing the story behind the image makes him an even stronger and more heroic person than the image. Well worth the reading.
Pat Summer all was known for years to millions of NFL fans as the calm and quiet voice sitting beside the boisterous John Madden. He was considered the consummate professional as a broadcaster and a respected member of the retired player community.
But as he tells in this autobiography, Summerall was living a hard life of traveling and drinking with all-too-willing companions. The years of travel and drinking, neglecting his wife and three children, wrecked his marriage, his health, and his soul. Brought to the brink of death and the loss of his relationships with his now grown children, Summerall turned his addiction over to the Bette Ford Clinic, his ruined liver over to a Mayo clinic transplant team, and his soul over to God.
Throughout this story from his birth with a serious birth defect in a small town into a broken home all the way through his 10-year NFL career and the broadcasting career for which he is now best known. Summerall tells the story with the voice he used in the booth. Speaking quietly and steadily with the minimum number of words to convey the meaning, Summerall covers his playing career on less than 50 pages but spends 75 on "The Reckoning" as he calls his recovery experiences.
A quick check of Wikipedia today show Summerall (now 82) is still alive but still paying the price for his years of alcohol abuse in physical ailments, but as he says in this book, his focus is on telling others of the healing grace that saved his soul and repaying the human compassion to the family of the young boy who provided the transplanted organ that kept his voice alive.
The Pat Summerall revealed in his words is a man who lives up to the image of quiet professionalism he projected all those years. And knowing the story behind the image makes him an even stronger and more heroic person than the image. Well worth the reading.
November 25, 2021
Pat Summerall might have been regarded by many as America's Announcer." He was often the play by play voice for the Dallas Cowboys games on CBS, usually the last game on Sunday, years before Sunday Night Football. He broadcast sixteen Super Bowls. He manned the tower at the 18th Hole at the Masters and many other golf tournaments. He was a major part of March Madness.
Before his remarkable broadcasting career, he had been the place kicker for the New York Giants, playing in five NFL Championship Games, all losses.
Through it all, he was a heavy drinker.
Summerall tells us of his difficult childhood, his college years, his football and broadcasting careers, and finally his battle against alcoholism which led to his finding of faith.
There is some redundancy in this book. There are also errors concerning some of the games he played; those errors have been corrected in the Kindle edition.
I expected more memories of games and events broadcast, and of the memorable sports personalities he knew. There was a chapter on Mickey Mantle, whose Yankee Stadium locker was Summerall's during football season. Both were alcoholics; they were also drinking partners.
This is a book that can be inspiring. I always liked Pat Summerall. He was not an exciting Announcer, but he did his job well and usually without controversy. He is missed.
Four stars waxing
Before his remarkable broadcasting career, he had been the place kicker for the New York Giants, playing in five NFL Championship Games, all losses.
Through it all, he was a heavy drinker.
Summerall tells us of his difficult childhood, his college years, his football and broadcasting careers, and finally his battle against alcoholism which led to his finding of faith.
There is some redundancy in this book. There are also errors concerning some of the games he played; those errors have been corrected in the Kindle edition.
I expected more memories of games and events broadcast, and of the memorable sports personalities he knew. There was a chapter on Mickey Mantle, whose Yankee Stadium locker was Summerall's during football season. Both were alcoholics; they were also drinking partners.
This is a book that can be inspiring. I always liked Pat Summerall. He was not an exciting Announcer, but he did his job well and usually without controversy. He is missed.
Four stars waxing
January 31, 2016
If you are a sports fan and like Pat Summerall, you will hopefully enjoy this book as much as I did. It's a quick read and one that keeps you turning the page. He covers everything from his early family issues to his athlete years to his out-of-control drinking while a sportscaster to his rehab and his focus on Christ to his adult family life to his major brush with death. He lays it all out there. My favorite parts were reminiscing about his pro football career and all the players/coaches that he played with or against. So many great names came up.
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March 21, 2010A better-than-average retired-jock memoir. Written in anecdotal fashion, it follows the author from his birth into a troubled Florida family, through a sterling career as athlete and sports announcer, to the depths of alcoholism and back.
It's no apologia, and Summerall is as forthright about his shortoomings as he is proud of his many achievements. A good, quick read for any sports fan.
It's no apologia, and Summerall is as forthright about his shortoomings as he is proud of his many achievements. A good, quick read for any sports fan.
August 4, 2010
Excellent book, but way too short. I would have enjoyed more detail. I think the biography was second to the message. The author led too interesting a life to gloss over so much of it.
May 22, 2013
Quick read. Well written, heartfelt, inspiring,
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews