Tough Stuff: The Man in the Middle

22 cm, 256 pages, illus., front DJ flap price clipped, former owner's name & address on half-title. Inscribed by the co-author (Shapiro). Leonard Shapiro has been an award-winning journalist at The Washington Post since 1969, when he joined the paper after graduating from the University of Wisconsin and earning a Masters degree from the University of Missouri. Within two years was the paper's beat writer covering the Washington Redskins and their coach, George Allen for most of the 1970s. In 1980, he was named assistant sports editor of The Post, and three years later was named sports editor, in charge of the day-to-day operation. In 1990, after writing his third book, he decided to return to his first love - writing and reporting. Since then, he's covered professional golf, the NFL and writes a weekly sports television column, as well as a number of other assignments for The Post. He's written three books, contributed to many others and his work has appeared in Golf Magazine, Golf World; Newsweek, Readers Digest, The Sporting News, Pro Football Weekly, and the International Herald Tribune. Introduction by Tom Landry. The story of Sam Huff and his professional career in professional football. Robert Lee "Sam" Huff (born October 4, 1934) is a former American football linebacker in the National Football League (NFL) for the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1982. Huff joined the Redskins in 1964 and they agreed to pay him $30,000 in salary and $5,000 for scouting, compared to the $19,000 he would have made another year with New York. The impact Huff had was almost immediate and the Redskins' defense was ranked second in the NFL in 1965.On November 27, 1966, Huff and the Redskins beat his former Giant teammates 72-41, in the highest-scoring game in league history. After an ankle injury in 1967 ended his streak of 150 straight games played Huff retired in 1968. Vince Lombardi talked Huff out of retirement in 1969 when he was named Washington's head coach. The Redskins went 7-5-2 and had their best season since 1955 (which kept Lombardi's record of never having coached a losing NFL team intact). Huff then retired for good after 14 seasons and 30 career interceptions. He spent one season coaching the Redskins' linebackers in 1970. After leaving the NFL, Huff took a position with J. P. Stevens in New York as a textiles sales representative. He later joined the Marriott Corporation as a salesman in 1971, rising to vice president of sports marketing before retiring in 1998. While with Marriott, Huff was responsible for selling over 600,000 room nights via a partnership between the NFL and Marriott that booked teams into Marriott branded hotels for away games.After retiring from football, Huff spent three seasons as a color commentator for the Giants radio team and then moved on in the same capacity for the Redskins Radio Network, where he remained until his retirement at the end of the 2012 season, calling games alongside former Redskins teammate Sonny Jurgensen and play-by-play announcers Frank Herzog (1979 to 2004) and Larry Michael (2005 to 2012). He was also a broadcaster for a regionally syndicated TV package of Mountaineer football games in the mid-1980s.…