The Game Behind the Game

Terry O'Neil

ISBN 10: 0060160195 / ISBN 13: 9780060160197

Published by Harper and Row, New York, NY, 1989

About this Item

Blue boards with red quarter-spine and silver spine lettering. Tight straight clean book with index.16 pages of b&w photos Terry O'Neil, a 15-year veteran of ABC and CBS Sports, takes us behind the cameras and into the fast-paced, intriguing, and highly competitive world of sports television. O'Neil draws on firsthand experience for striking, memorable, and often hilarious portraits of Roone Arledge, Brent Musburger, Pat Summerall, Al Davis, Tom Landry, Bill Walsh, Eddie Hart, Him McMahon, and many others. His keen insights, gained from working shoulder to shoulder through the long hours and tense moments of major telecasts, reveal the off-camera personalitites of Howard Cosell and John Madden, perhaps the two most compelling figures in the history of sports broadcasting, but men who, in television's paradox, have kept their essential natures frustratingly hidden from public view. Also gives fans an inside look at how players and coaches prepare for competition and cope with the pressures of success and of failure. We see black American track stars at the Munich Olympics draft their statement supporting the threatened boycott of the Games by African natiions and share the despair of Giants Coach Bill Parcells at the end of the 1983 football season. For sports fans and media watchers it is a rare and thoroughly entertaining portrayal of the kind of innovtion and teamwork that makes great sports television.

Seller Inventory # 000189

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Game Behind the Game
• Publisher: Harper and Row, New York, NY
• Publication Date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060160195
• ISBN 13: 9780060160197
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Author and Archival Photos
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: As New in As New jacket

About this title

Synopsis

Provides access to the worlds of Howard Cosell and John Madden and the many sports personalities they cover, from the man responsible for making a winner out of the ailing CBS sports

Reviews

O'Neil, veteran of TV sports, begins his behind-the-scenes memoir with a vivid recollection of the tragic Munich Olympics. He then moves on to his experiences with Monday Night Football , and particularly with Howard Cosell, whom he depicts as a sort of monster. He also discusses his tenure at CBS Sports, where he put together the team of Pat Summerall and John Madden and introduced the so-called "chalkboard" to analyze plays--before corporate maneuvering, the game behind the game, brought about his ouster from the network. O'Neil concludes with a warning to TV executives not to let on-camera figures become so powerful that they control the industry. An insider's account, the book, covering both network politics and sports, lacks focus for a specific audience and as such is unlikely to find its reader ship. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

O'Neil joined ABC Sports right out of college and rapidly rose within the ranks to become a producer; in 1981 he switched to CBS and was instrumental in revamping their sports programming. This crisply written account roughly tracks his career, but the chapters are a curious mix of discussion of players, coaches, and personalities, including lengthy portraits of Howard Cosell and John Madden, and a look at the cutthroat world of network office politics. O'Neil has an obvious ax to grind--he was fired from CBS in 1986--and loudly toots his own horn throughout, while deploring TV's abdication of control to on-air anchors and commentators. By and large, however, this is compelling material, and is recommended for TV sports fans and media observers.
- Jack Ray, Loyola/Notre Dame Lib., Baltimore
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.