Golden Boy

by Paul Hornung

Paul Hornung was football's "Golden Boy" -- handsome, talented, and fabulously successful. He had a great career at Notre Dame, where he won the Heisman Trophy (the only player ever to win it on a team with a losing record). He was the #1 draft pick in the NFL and went to the Green Bay Packers, a terrible team soon transformed by a new head coach, Vince Lombardi. Hornung's Packer teams would become a dynasty, and ten of his teammates (as well as Lombardi) would eventually join him in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Hornung led the NFL in scoring from 1959 to 1961, setting a single-season scoring record in 1960 that still stands. He was Player of the Year in 1960 and 1961.
Hornung always loved the good life. He had girlfriends all across the country, and he was a regular at Toots Shor's and at clubs in Chicago and Los Angeles. A frustrated Lombardi once asked him whether he wanted to be a player or a playboy, and his teammates joked about his Hollywood ambitions. On game days Hornung was always ready to play, but the night after a game -- and sometimes even the night before -- was a different story.
For Hornung, the good life came at a his gambling cost him a year's suspension from the NFL in 1963. He accepted his punishment, refusing to implicate anyone else, but in this autobiography he reveals just how widespread gambling was in the NFL.
However, on the playing field Hornung and his Packer teammates made football history. Bart Starr, Max McGee, Jim Taylor, Ray Nitschke, Jerry Kramer, Jim Ringo, Ron Kramer, Forrest Gregg, Fuzzy Thurston, Willie Davis, Herb Adderley, Willie Wood -- they're all here, and Hornung has great stories to tell about them and about some of their biggest games together.
Golden Boy is a must-read for football fans, a colorful, candid slice of pigskin history from one of the game's immortal legends.

Genres: Sports, Football, Biography, Memoir

304 pages, Hardcover

First published September 28, 2004

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great look at the life of a premier player in the 50s and 60s and how the press left them alone until they couldn't. Loved their mutual respect even though it was a manly time for players and journos. I was most intrigued with looking back at Notre Dame from the eyes of a great student athlete but ignorant Catholic from the perspective of church teaching.

[Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unfiltered look back at the life of Hornung, from the man himself. From his talent on the field to his playing the field (with the ladies) off it, this book gives the reader the chance to see what life was like for the Golden Boy in all his glory.

[Vincent Russell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed the stories of his days with the Packers and Notre Dame.
The stories of all his "dates" got a little old. Otherwise an enjoyable read

[Jeffery D Henriksen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting life story, but I've definitely read better autobiographies

[Dan Shonka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Golden Boy by Paul Hornung is a good and interesting read if you're a Packer fan, especially from back in the Lombardi years. The book is full of entertaining stories from the inside. His lifestyle is pretty much that of a rockstar. In fact, I'd compare it to Keith Richards's autobiography. (I feel like Richards's book is a little better written.) In any case, Hornung's stories of womanizing and gambling wear thin after a while. Still, one can at least admire Hornung's unvarnished (presumably) truths.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hornung is a little to Self Obsorbed for my taste(and His book shows this from the first page to the last) If you want to read a book that Shows How Hornung was the Mac Daddy of all women with two legs then read this book...I recommend not. Though he does get two Stars for being and Awesome giver to Charity and being a Great Quarterback for the Packers.

[patrick Lorelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like the packers, you are going to enjoy this book. For me being a packer fan my whole life it was a very good book. He even talked about players he played against. Really some funny stories. A good book.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll never be able to relate to the hardliving, hedonistic life of a superstar white athlete in the 1960s, but Hornung's stories are entertaining.

[Billy Reed]

I'm prejudiced. I was the ghost writer.