Tim Green - The Dark Side of the Game: My Life in the NFL

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This book has not been approved, licensed, or sponsored in any way by the National Football League.

If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this stripped book.

WARNER BOOKS EDITION

Copyright 1996 by Tim Greer All rights reserved.

Cover design by Mike Stromberg

Cover photo by Simon Metz

Warner Books, Inc.

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10017

www.HachetteBookGroup.com

First eBook Edition: November, 1997

ISBN: 978-0-446-55100-7

The Warner Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

THE DARK SIDE OF THE GAME BLOWS THE WHISTLE ON THE NFL!

Eye-opening illuminates life on pro-football teams. Tim Green continues his very impressive transition from athlete to author. Wisely, he avoids lurid prose, understanding that a sober, even-handed approach makes his NFL revelations all the more jolting.

Dallas Morning News

Eye-opening.

Publishers Weekly

Football fans know what the NFL looks like on Sunday, but Tim Green takes you inside the life of an NFL player Monday to Saturday and he does this to perfection.

Merril Hoge, former NFL running back, Pittsburgh Steelers and Chicago Bears

Green writes from the heart fascinating good reading.

Newark Star Ledger

A true view of life in the NFL that only a former player could write about.

Al Toon, former All-Pro Wide Receiver, New York Jets

Candidly illustrates the game as few have should be passed out to wide-eyed rookies or to those who wished they had pursued an NFL dream. Pro football has finally found a competent, literate voice.

St. Petersburg Times

Enlightening, intelligent, serious, honest always interesting and frequently fascinating.

Buffalo News

An insider's account one for your collection.

Toledo Blade

A vivid storyteller in a crisp writing style reveals a firm grasp of the game's problems THE DARK SIDE OF THE GAME will educate those unfamiliar with pro football and will give sharper insights even to fans in the know.

Tampa Tribune-Times

Engagingly written insightful refreshing Football fans will devour this.

Library Journal

Delivers a clean hit to the underbelly of the National Football League entertaining delivers dozens of fascinating factoids You'll either be howling with laughter or shaking your head in amazement.

Syracuse New Times

Green shows professional football as it really is in his literate, outspoken manner a side of the game most of us would never know.

Abilene Reporter-News

Enlightening Green is at his best in simply describing the day-to-life of an NFL player. THE DARK SIDE OF THE GAME is worth your time.

News Tribune (Tacoma, WA)

Tim Green is also the author of three novels based on his NFL playing experience:

Ruffians

Titans

Outlaws

This book is for my remarkable wife, Illyssa, whose unending patience and love make every day feel like a championship victory. And for Stu Lisson, who taught me how to look at the world like an artist from the time I was six years old.

I would like to thank my editor, Rick Wolff, for his tireless work on this book. I would like to say that The Dark Side of the Game was my own Idea, but it was really his. The check's in the mail.

Also, thanks to Rob McMahon for his careful reading of the manuscript and his helpful ideas.

I must say that writing about sports is something I have done before. The people who helped me develop this craft are Mark Schramm and Tom Goldman, my editors and friends at National Public Radio, and Bud Poliquin, my editor at The Syracuse Herald Journal.

Thanks to my parents, Dick and Judy Green, for never missing a Little League football game.

Thanks to Ed Goren, executive producer of FOX Sports, and David Hill, president of FOX Sports, for giving me a chance, and to Tracy Doigin, FOX Sports executive VP for marketing, for going above and beyond to spread the word about my books.

Special thanks to Jerry Glanville, Matt Millen, John Madden, Terry Bradshaw, and Jimmy Johnson, who shared with me their stories and insights into the NFL.

Finally, I want to thank all my football coaches. They taught me the essential elements of the game, and life. In particular: Ron Kelly, my Little League coach and the guy who taught me to dream; Ron Osinski, my mentor, high school football coach, and English teacher, who taught me about the common denominator between books and sportspassion; Dick MacPherson, my head coach at Syracuse University, who taught me how to prioritize my life; Mike Woicik, for his tireless hours with me in the weight room; George Mangicaro and Buzz White, for sticking by me through thick and thin; and finally, George O'Leary, who coached me in high school at Liverpool, In college at Syracuse University, and who advised me while I was in the NFL even though he was coaching for the Chargers at the time, for teaching me to bring the dark side of myself to every down of football I ever played, I hope I made you proud.

Billions of dollars are spent each year in this country and around the world by people who want to absorb the essence of the game of football. People talk about it, watch it, read about it, play it, and wager their hard-earned dollars on its outcomes. In short, there is an obsession with the game and the personalities that surround it. I think the reason is simple. Like our society, football is fast paced and violent. The stakes are high, fame and fortune, the American dream. Losers are carted off the field or forced Into retirement with battered and mangled bodies, not unlike the gladiators of old, it is the primal connection with physical battle confined only by the rules of sport, testing athletes on every levelspeed, intelligence, quickness, strength, endurance, grace, and mental toughnessthat makes football so popular. Still, very few know what It really feels like.

The NFL is bent on maintaining an Image of pristine competition, a rugged figure skating championship If you will, something the family can enjoy. Football is that, complete with the banners and the drama and the heroes, but It's also much more. Football encompasses the tragedies of modern-day life as well as the comedies. There are as many things that go on inside the world of the NFL that are heartwarming as there are horrifying. To date, I believe only two types of books have been written about the game of football: laudatory celebrations of great players and great seasons, or malcontent grumblings by those who were ground up in the maw of the league and spit out. In either case, only one facet of the experience was examined.

Because I have lived through it, I know that playing in the NFL lives up to the childhood dreams of an eight-year-old boy, secretly clutching the golden figure of a Pop Warner championship trophy under his bedcovers as he drifts off to sleep. I also know that to play in the NFL, one must endure or succumb to pressures bent on compromising the soul in ways that would have made Daniel Webster shudder. From one perspective football players look like a herd of bumbling morons, whose childish understanding of the real world can split your side. From another perspective they are the last remnant of the Arthurian knights. And, like all celebrities, they are largely misunderstood and grossly stereotyped.