Rude Behavior

by Dan Jenkins

From beginning to end, Rude Behavior is deliciously true to its title. Not for the easily offended or the purveyors of PC, it forms the third installment in Jenkins's continuing saga of Billy Clyde Puckett, first introduced in Semi-Tough as a star running back whose attitude matched his twinkle-toed unpredictability on and off the field. Now, some two decades later, Billy Clyde's feet may have slowed, but his mouth and his passions haven't. He still loves the game; he's just sick of the way it's gotten "Pass interference (used to be) when you broke a guy's ribs. Today it's excess frowning." His plan is to heal it. He's decided to turn his back on the clichés that have sustained his life as a broadcaster for "something more important than Hamlet": he will start his own NFL team, the expansion West Texas Tornadoes, and run it the way it should be run. Of course, if he can't exactly set the game right, he will at least set it on its ear with the help of old teammates T.J. Lambert and Shake Tiller--and his father-in-law's fortune. Between kick-off and pay dirt, Jenkins visits his usual saloons, locker rooms, bedrooms, front offices, and the field. With rambunctious good spirit, he steers us from the dust of Texas to the glitter of New York and Hollywood. Sure, it's a funny novel--rudeness and crudeness abound--but it's also a novel that insists on tackling the game's problems, piling onto human foibles, intercepting overbearing stupidity, blindsiding political correctness, splitting the uprights with the virtues of hard work and good friendship, and still leaving enough room to slip in advice for disarming airplane smoke detectors. From Jenkins, who would want to accept less? --Jeff Silverman

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Sports, Football, Novels

Audio CD

First published September 15, 1998

About the author

Dan Jenkins was an American author and sportswriter, most notably for Sports Illustrated.

Jenkins was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, where he attended R.L. Paschal High School and Texas Christian University (TCU), where he played on the varsity golf team. Jenkins worked for many publications including the Fort Worth Press, Dallas Times Herald, Playboy, and Sports Illustrated. In 1985 he retired from Sports Illustrated and began writing books full-time and maintained a monthly column in Golf Digest magazine.

Larry King called Jenkins "the quintessential Sports Illustrated writer" and "the best sportswriter in America." Jenkins authored numerous works and over 500 articles for Sports Illustrated. In 1972, Jenkins wrote his first novel, Semi-Tough.

His daughter, Sally Jenkins, is a sports columnist for the Washington Post.

Reviews

[Jeff P]

I picked this up a few days after Mr. Jenkins passed away. It's the further story of Billy Clyde Puckett and them. It's very funny and stridently non-PC. I don't know how long it's been since the movie 'Semi-Tough' came out, but I still could see Burt Reynolds as Billy Clyde. The ending was maybe a little bit predictable, but by that point who cares. Dan Jenkins is a writer that will be truly missed.

[Lori]

Great football story

This is another explosively funny Dan Jenkins book. We all will miss him. Today no one would be able to be so politically incorrect!

[Mark]

Wow! It's been a while since I read "Semi Tough, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and the late Dan Jenkins did it again...Definitely, no WOKE filter here...I really doubt, like Mel Brooks' movies or Zucker-Abrams-Zucker movies, "Rude Behavior" could be published in today's climate and we are a sorrier society because of it...The politically incorrect humor is just laugh-out-loud, explosively funny...We catch up to Billy Clyde Puckett and Shake Tiller in their post-football lives as Billy Clyde pursues NFL ownership...LOVED IT!!!

[Dennis Osborne]

This is a reread of Jenkins's follow-up to semi tough. Not as good as the first, but still entertaining

[Brandon]

Another Billy Clyde Puckett parody of football, life, America.

[Bob Box]

Read in 1998. Exuberant tale of football and other excesses.

[Jim Kokocki]

Read 80 pages. Crap terminology, slow to get to whatever plot eventually emerges.

[Briana]

The third in the Semi-Tough trilogy - horrible, horrible, horrible. Re-read "Life Its Ownself" again instead.

[Joe Faust]

I wanted a laugh. The book delivered.

[Pablo]

NFL expansion: Hawaii vs Mexico City vs London vs West Texas

[Larry Laurent]

One of the funniest books ever. Political correct is totally forgotten.