Review of
Stop-Action,
by Dick Butkus and Robert W. Billings
Four out of five stars
The monster does not appear
This book about
“the most feared man in football,” Dick Butkus is surprisingly tame. There are
several videos available online where opponents portray Butkus as a maniac with
a killer nature on the field. In one video, he is proclaimed the all-time most
feared tackler in the history of the NFL. Which puts him ahead of people such
as “the Assassin” Jack Tatum and Ronnie Lott.
There is almost
none of that controlled fury in this book. It is a rather tame description of
his family life as well as his frustrations in playing for a team that rarely
won and even more rarely had a winning season. Most of the failures were on the
offensive side of the ball, and Butkus is extremely critical of their
performance. However, according to him, he rarely took them to task for their
failures.
If you are
looking for the textual equivalent of the fury that Butkus demonstrated on the
football field, this is not the book for you. However, it does show Butkus as a
human outside of his profession as a human wrecking ball.
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