An image from Slingin' Sam, by Joe Holley. Pub. UT Press. All rights, reserved. For better or worse, the star football quarterback has been an iconographic figure in Texas and American culture since the pigskin was used for something other than cooking. The most recent example is Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel, whose Heisman capped a storybook season, but the list is very long. Paul Hornung, Joe Namath, Johnny Unitas, Troy Aikman, the Mannings — any fan can create a list. For Joe Holley, the list begins with Sam Baugh, the Texan who changed the game starting in the 1930s, when quarterbacks were just part of a wing formation and tailbacks made some of the biggest plays.
“Sam was the bridge between the leather-helmet era and the modern,” writes Holley, a seasoned journalist who once worked at the Express-News and is currently political editor at the Houston Chronicle. “Before Sam Baugh, football closely resembled rugby, with tightly packed linemen trying to open holes for ball carriers running primarily between tackles on a tighter field without hash marks. Confident enough to throw the ball from any spot on the field, on any down, Sam wrenched football free from its sclerotic past and made it a hell of a lot more fun to watch.”
The subtitle of Holley’s Slingin’ Sam —“The Life and Times of the Greatest Quarterback Ever to Play the Game”— is a straightforward declaration of a straightforward history, laden with games and stats.
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