In a time "when men played football for something less than a living and
something more than money," John Unitas was the ultimate quarterback.
Rejected by Notre Dame, discarded by the Pittsburgh Steelers, he started
on a Pennsylvania sandlot making six dollars a game and ended as the
most commanding presence in the National Football League, calling the
critical plays and completing the crucial passes at the moment his sport
came of age.
Johnny U is the first authoritative biography of Unitas, based on
hundreds of hours of interviews with teammates and opponents, coaches,
family and friends. The depth of Tom Callahan's research allows him to
present something more than a biography, something approaching an oral
history of a bygone sporting era. It was a time when players were paid a
pittance and superstars painted houses and tiled floors in the
off-season--when ex-soldiers and marines like Gino Marchetti, Art
Donovan, and "Big Daddy" Lipscomb fell in behind a special field general
in Baltimore. Few took more punishment than Unitas. His refusal to leave
the field, even when savagely bloodied by opposing linemen, won his
teammates' respect. His insistence on taking the blame for others'
mistakes inspired their love. His encyclopedic football mind, in which
he'd filed every play the Colts had ever run, was a wonder.
In the seminal championship game of 1958, when Unitas led the Colts over
the Giants in the NFL's first sudden-death overtime, Sundays changed.
John didn't. As one teammate said, "It was one of the best things about
him."
