As a rabid Nebraska football fan, I was given this book as a gag gift. It sat, unread, for months until I opened it up this Summer. In the course of reading the book, I have gone from loathing Barry Switzer, to respecting and even liking him.

Most important is the way he describes the crazy recruiting regulations of the NCAA. What college alum wouldn't give a kid a ride home in the pouring rain, or tell a kid that his alma mater is a great school and that he, too, should go there? Yet these seemingly innocent actions could become a recruiting violation for the school. Every college football fan should read this book, if only for that reason...so they avoid accidentally hurting their favorite team. Do what you can to get a hold of a copy, even though it is out-of-print.

This book is something to be revered by Sooner fans. Barry's recounts of the great games and great people around OU's glorious runs in the 70s and 80s bears reading. I just re-read the book after keeping it down for a few years, and it just gets better with time. If any of you out there need ammo for those Barry bashers, you need this book. Barry Switzer is a great man, and every Sooner fan should remember that.

Barry covers his childhood, personal struggles, and his years at Arkansas. He then talks about those great 70s teams that we know get to see on ESPN Classic.

Probably the most interesting part is his line item by line item response to every NCAA violation that OU was found guilty of. Barry pulls no punches and is not afraid to admit guilt where he saw it. His candidness is something special.

You might find this book hard to find, but try your hardest and hit the auction sites, etc, you should be able to turn it up, and you won't be sorry.

As a Sooner alumnus and rabidly devoted Dallas Cowboys fan, I have seen many good and bad sides of "Uncle Barry" (as he is known affectionately in these parts) for a couple of decades. Granted, it was written before he coached in Dallas. But it is because I had already read this book -- and as a result, felt a strong understanding of him -- that I was able to hold Switzer largely blameless for many of the problems which befell the Cowboys during their late-90s fade. [Perhaps most other Cowboys fans should read this before they mindlessly ridicule him, too. It is enlightening!] Switzer is funny, smart and refreshingly devoted to his kids, as he shows here; but as an animated and sometimes overbearingly profane public person, he makes a much easier target for media ridicule than he deserves. Read this book and understand why he astutely asserts that the NCAA is an archaic clique of aging Great White Fathers (my term, hot his) who are clueless about the realities of today's athletes' lives. Read and understand why Switzer can make some of the dumb mistakes he has, but nonetheless possesses a keen intellect and sense of fairness. And finally, read it for its shocking tales of the wild life of this surprisingly complex man.

Oh, yeah, J. Brent, you are some smooth talker; it's a pity, however, with all your smooth talk you missed out on what Joe Don was all about; even a cursory look at the video Larry Merchant aired after Joe's death would have showed you more of the man than your predone perspective on him -- he had truly declared peace with the world; he left the gridiron to find what mattered -- and your and everyone else's criteria of what constitutes a "successful life" just doesn't cut it; Joe was after a first-hand recognition of God inside himself; and I think he found it; the pity is that you didn't; you wrote a sports book and a book of a man who, in Kipling's phrase, "went too native." Joe did nothing of the kind; he threw off the expectations of parents and coaches; he left behind the failure of traditional Western notions of the heroic; he quit the tired Sunday go to meeting gestures; and he found, in Eliot's words, a "tremor of bliss." The shame of what you've done lies in your unwillingness or inability to see that; hell, I think you should try writing the damn book all over again. Talk to more people -- sit down with yourself and get a taste of the transcendent peace Joe grew into.