Blood, sweat, and tears drip off these pages from start to finish. Never has a non-fiction book captured the agony and ecstasy of college football and brought it life like this book. His players hated him, feared him, but in the end they loved him. It is a relationship that many athletes have endured throughout the years with their coaches. A coach that puts such stress on winning and perfection while at the same time commanding it with dignity and a hard fist is such a difficult thing to find.
Few names come to mind.
Football coaches like Joe Paterno and Vince Lombardi and images of basketball coaches like Dean Smith and John Wooden appear. This is what makes a legend. This story of the relationship between him and his Aggie football squad kicks off from the first page at full speed and never stops for a water break. There is no better sports book on the shelf of the bookstore today that combines anguish, pain, love, passion, commitment, and triumph into a true account that reads like a movie for the ages. Jim Dent's The Junction Boys is not only for college football junkies like me but for all sports fans and players, young and old.