Giants Among Men: How Robustelli, Huff, Gifford, and the Giants Made New York a Football Town and Changed the NFL

From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, when basketballs Boston Celtics were piecing together a run for the ages, when Montreals Canadiens were in the midst of notching a record-setting five straight Stanley Cups, and when the New York Yankees were the once-and-future kings of the diamond, one team boosted the NFL to national prominence as none other: the New York Giants.

In Giants Among Men, Jack Cavanaugh, the acclaimed author of Tunney, transports us to the NFLs golden age to introduce the close-knit and diverse group that won the heart of a city, helped spread the gospel of pro football across the nation, and recast the NFL as a media colossus.

Central to Cavanaughs narrative, and emblematic of the Giants bond with their followers, was a hard-nosed future Hall of Fame defensive end named Andy Robustelli. A World War II combat vet, a graduate of Arnold College, undersized and nearing age thirty, Robustelli nevertheless anchored a Giants defensive unit so ferocious that they were the first team to inspire crowds to chant “Dee-fense!” But Robustelli and the Giants were a hit on the gridiron, playing in six NFL Championship Games in eight seasons between 1956 and 1963, the most remarkable aspect of this team was perhaps its relationship to the fans. These Giants were largely composed of ordinary joes who were equally at ease hobnobbing with Gleason and Sinatra at Toots Shors as they were rubbing elbows with working-class rooters on the IRT en route to Sunday games in the Bronx-like many of their fans, nearly all Giants players worked second jobs off-season to make ends meet. But the Giants of this era didnt merely affect the fans relationship to the game; they changed the game itself. The team launched the careers of future head-coaching geniuses Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi, as well as those of a galaxy of stars and future Hall-of-Famers including Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, Emlen Tunnell, Roosevelt Brown, Y. A. Tittle, Charlie Conerly, Rosie Grier, and Pat Summerall. The Giants teams of this remarkable era were tagged with the soubriquet “Mara Tech” (for the Mara family, who had owned the franchise since its inception)-due to the number of players and coaches who later found success in the boardroom, the broadcast booth, and behind the bench.

Filled with historical and cultural insight and vivid portraits of larger-than-life characters and indispensable everymen, Giants Among Men transcends nostalgia and sports trivia to faithfully depict a watershed era for both football and the American nation.

Praise for Jack Cavanaughs Tunney

“Impressively researched and richly detailed . . . a long-overdue portrait of a fascinating fighter.”

-Sports Illustrated

“A winning tale . . . Jack Cavanaugh brings Tunney, Dempsey and the fight scene of the Roaring Twenties back to life.”

-Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“[A] sprawling new biography . . . The boxing scenes are spun gold.”

-The New York Times

“Filled with vivid characters from one of boxings most glamorous eras, this tale goes fifteen rounds and delivers plenty of punch.”

-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“One of the primary elements to the greatness of this biography is Cavanaughs ability to plumb the confusing depths of celebrity in America.”

-The Denver Post

"The latest from sports writer Cavanaugh (Tunney) looks at a time when professional baseball and college football ruled the sports scene, just before the New York Giants of the late 1950s and early '60s made the National Football League a nationwide phenomenon and became the hottest ticket in the country's media capital. Cavanaugh's play-by-play offers a wealth of information regarding the lives of players and coaches, both on and off the field. The depth of Cavanaugh's detail may be lost on all but the biggest football fans, but the author recaps often, careful to make the large cast and multiple stories easy to follow. Readers get in on the team's camaraderie in scenes from quarterback Charlie Conerly's parties, post-game subway rides to downtown Manhattan, and celebrations at Toots Shor's or P.J. Clarke's. Through the tales of assistant coaches Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi, and players like Sam Huff, Frank Gifford, Andy Robustelli and Rosey Grier, Cavanaugh chronicles engagingly a definitive era in professional football with surprising ease." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

A play-by-play account of the New York Giants from 1956 to 1963, this work offers a portrait of a close-knit and intelligent team that dominated its division and helped make the NFL a nationwide phenomena.

Jack Cavanaugh is a veteran sportswriter who has covered scores of major boxing bouts, along with the Olympics, the World Series, Super Bowl games, the Masters Golf Tournament, and both the U.S. golf and tennis opens. He is the author of Tunney, and his work has appeared most notably on the sports pages of The New York Times, for which he has covered hundreds of varied sports assignments. In addition, he has been a frequent contributor to Sports Illustrated and written for Readers Digest, Tennis and Golf magazines, and other national publications. He is also a former reporter for both ABC News and CBS News. Cavanaugh is currently an adjunct writing professor at Fairfield University. He and his wife, Marge, live in Wilton, Connecticut.