Out of Their League - by Dave Meggyesy (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Dave Meggyesy had been an outside linebacker with the St. Louis Cardinals for seven years when he quit at the height of his career to tell about the dehumanizing side of the game--about the fraud and the payoffs, the racism, drug abuse, and incredible violence. The original publication of Out of Their League shocked readers and provoked the outraged response that rocked the sports world in the 1970s. But his memoir is also a moving description of a man who struggled for social justice and personal liberation. Meggyesy has continued this journey and remains an active champion for players' rights through his work with the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA). He provides a preface for this Bison Books edition.

Review Quotes

"Dave Meggyesy is an articulate, eloquent spokesman for his cause."--New York Daily News

"In a league of its own in its provocative view of the mentality and morality of American football. . . . Meggyesy rips through most of football's myths to find only a frightening and deliberate inhumanity."--Newsweek

"Meggyesy's book, almost as much as his person, is a most moving instance of a man's search to be honest and to find a decent alternative for this way of life."--New York Review of Books

"The first critical look at the dehumanizing aspects of pro football."--Mercury News

"The University of Nebraska Press deserves a high-five for re-releasing this classic. . . . The book was an important milestone--innocent, then angry, but always fearless--and its sheer honesty exposes other sports books of that era as cheerleading fluff."--Rus Bradburd, Sports Literature Association

"Thirty-five years ago, a journeyman Cardinals linebacker shocked football fans with his explosive account of a league riddled with violence, drugs, and inequities against its players. . . . His book offers opinions and analogies that eerily apply to both the contemporary sports world and to America's current political scene."--USA Today Sports Weekly

About the Author

Dave Meggyesy is the Western Regional director of the NFLPA. He and his family live in Berkeley, California.