Snake The legendary life of Ken Stabler

Stabler, nicknamed the Snake, was a Super Bowl winner with the Oakland Raiders in 1977 and is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was fearless on the field and almost as revered for his off-the-field joie de vivre as he was for his exploits on it. He chafed at authority early, often banging heads with legendary Alabama coach Bear Bryant in their years together. But as veteran sports journalist and author Freeman consistently emphasizes, Stabler and Bryant shared a great affection for each other throughout their lives. Once in the NFL, Stabler was teamed with a highly compatible coach, John Madden, also a Hall of Famer. Madden was extraordinarily bright, and not just in a football sense. He required his players to be able to think for themselves, manage their lives, and defeat their opponents mentally as well as physically. Stabler (who died in 2015) may have his picture next to the definition of colorful anecdote in the NFL guide. His propensity for the good life is evident on almost every page of this entertaining bio. Beautiful women, liquor, fast cars, and late nights were his métier. But no man has just one side. Stabler was a mediocre husband and a great father. He was also incredibly generous; a couple of donations Stabler made to charities are staggering. Longtime fans will read Stabler's story and wax poetic about their heroes and the former greats of the game. New fans will think football used to be more fun in the old days. Both groups, at least for the time it takes to read this book, will call themselves Snake fans.--Lukowsky, Wes Copyright 2017 Booklist

Freeman (ESPN: The Uncensored History) admits that this less than satisfying book about NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Ken "Snake" Stabler is part biography and part appreciation, and writer and quarterback were friends-as evinced by Freeman's overuse of Stabler's nickname. Stabler didn't want to play football when he was a teen; he thought the sport was too violent. But then his father bought him a black 1954 Ford in what Freeman calls "the bribe that changed football." Stabler soon became one of pro football's heartiest partiers in a carefree era before social media and 24-hour news cycles. He played for Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama and led the Oakland Raiders to a Super Bowl XI victory. But he might have been right about the game's violence; following Stabler's 2015 death from colon cancer at age 69, researchers examining his brain discovered significant levels of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative disease likely caused by repeated blows to the head. Freeman relishes sharing Stabler's tales of debauchery, but he gives scant detail about the "Immaculate Reception," which occurred during a Raiders playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1972 and is "one of the most famous [plays] in sports history." Other key details are missing, too, such as the final scores of games that Freeman recaps. Unlike many of Stabler's precision passes, this bio of the man falls incomplete. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.