"No matter what your style, you have to take a beating."
—Larry Csonka, Life magazine, October 6, 1972
Larry Csonka ran the football with audacity and authority. He lived his off-the-field life with equal abandon. As part of the NFL's 100th Anniversary, the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins were named the best team in NFL history; in Head On, Csonka pulls back the curtain to share how he and his teammates achieved their legendary Perfect Season. From quitting football at a young age, to his often combative relationship with Coach Don Shula, to brazen exploits with his NFL pals, Csonka narrates a life that is colorful, unbridled, and thrilling.
Csonka, a gifted storyteller more at home in the wilderness than on a football field, found himself hanging out with Burt Reynolds, Dick Butkus, Lee Majors, Joe Namath, and Elvis Presley during his football years. But his moments outside the spotlight reveal the most about this larger-than-life figure—early run-ins with the law, confronting thieves with a sawed-off shotgun, taking sniper fire on a USO tour of Vietnam, meeting a daughter 25 years after her birth, and being adrift on the Bering Sea at night with gale-force winds raging.
Csonka's authentic voice and unfiltered brand of storytelling is insightful, compelling, humorous, vulnerable, and refreshingly frank. For fans of the game—or anyone who loves high adventure—Csonka's Head On is a captivating, nostalgic account of grit, grace, and gumption told by an iconic Hall of Famer who continues to gain ground—figuratively, literally, and unapologetically—every day.
