Johnny U: The Life and Times of John Unitas

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."

"In a book that is 'as much about a certain time as a single player,' journalist Callahan (In Search of Tiger) offers not only a biography of one of professional football's early legends but also a look at the nature of the sport in his day. He charts the career path of Unitas from an undersized and unheralded Pennsylvania quarterback prospect to his glory days leading the Baltimore Colts to three championships from 1958 to 1972. In narrating Unitas's story of tryouts, cuts, timely phone calls and chance scouting encounters, Callahan reveals as much about Unitas's character and ambition as he does about the machinations of a talent system very different from today's. He also relies heavily on extended comments from a range of Unitas's coaches, friends and fellow players: as teammate Raymond Berry notes, Unitas 'had a certain blend of humility and self-confidence that was unusual, to say the least.' Quotes like this help the book feel more like listening to a group of old-guard players reminiscing around the back table than reading a strictly structured biography. The result is light, conversational and bound to fascinate anyone interested in Unitas or the hardscrabble, blue-collar era of football he dominated." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"A wonderfully human portrait of a legendary sportsman...takes us back to a team, a town, and a time that should never be forgotten." Jeffrey Marx, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Season of Life

"Callahan's writing is appropriate to his subject, lean and unpretentious, and to the point....Those who were never fortunate enough to watch Unitas play will feel as if they have to clean grass stains off their pants after reading this book." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"A terrific read, it provides insight into a scrupulously honest and honorable private man who lived his life in a very public arena and stayed true to a personal code." Library Journal

This surprising, interview-rich account of the career of Johnny Unitas — the ultimate NFL quarterback — explores an era in football when the players were drawn to the gridiron by a love of the game.

Tom Callahan, a former senior writer at Time magazine and sports columnist at the Washington Post, is a recipient of the National Headliner Award. He has covered three decades of everything in major-league sports, from Sarajevo to Zaire, including hundreds of pro football games and numerous Super Bowls. Among his many Time cover subjects are San Francisco quarterback Joe Montana and Chicago running back Walter Payton. Callahan is the author of three other books, the most recent being The Bases Were Loaded (And So Was I).