2024 the best football team in the world review

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Discover the unlikely story of the Toledo Troopers, the winningest team in the National Women's Football League, who won seven league championships in the 1970s—and gain full access to the players and key figures in the organization.

Amid a national backdrop of the call to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, the National Women’s Football League was founded as something of a gimmick. However, the league’s star team, the Toledo Troopers, emerged to challenge traditional gender roles and amass a win-loss record never before or since achieved in American football. The players were housewives, factory workers, hairdressers, former nuns, high school teachers, bartenders, mail carriers, pilots, and would-be drill sergeants. Black, white, Latina. Mothers and daughters and aunts and sisters. But most of all, they were athletes who had been denied the opportunity to play a game they were born to play.
 
Before the protests and the lobbyists, before the debates and the amendments, before the marches and the mandates, there was only an obscure advertisement in a local Midwestern paper and those who answered it, women such as Lee Hollar, the only woman working the line at the Libbey glass factory; Gloria Jimenez, who grew up playing sports with her six brothers; and Linda Jefferson, one the greatest, most accomplished athletes in sports history. Stephen Guinan grew up in Toledo pulling for his hometown football team, and—in the innocence of youth—did not realize at the time what a barrier-breaking lost piece of history he was witnessing. We Are the Troopers shines light on forgotten champions who came together for the love of the game.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hachette Books (August 30, 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0306846934
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0306846939
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.21 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.4 x 1.4 x 9.3 inches
Reviewer: Alyssa J Francis
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Smart, Fun Read
Review: Guinan’s book is terrific— I loved it from beginning to end. It threads the needle of well-observed and layered characters in Stout and Jefferson, without losing sight of the Troopers’ exciting grit and dominance on the gridiron. The football is thrilling, and the way Guinan connects the women on the team to the 1970s and the Rust Belt is eye opening. This is a great, untold (until now) American story by a gifted writer. I’ve been telling everyone I know about it.

Reviewer: Fred E. Henning
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great History of Football and Toledo area
Review: Being born and raised in Toledo area, son of a State Champion QB for DeVilbiss in 1957- I learned so much about the history of football. Steve is a great writer and puts you on the practice field with this team. Best book I have read in years. Wonderful job by Steve and Guy telling this must told story!

Reviewer: Will Allison
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A touchdown of a debut
Review: Stephen Guinan’s engrossing and consequential WE ARE THE TROOPERS is more than worthy of taking its place alongside such sports classics as Jeff MacGregor’s SUNDAY MONEY, Joe Oestreich’s LINES OF SCRIMMAGE, and Michael Lewis’s MONEYBALL. Like those authors, Guinan possesses a reporter’s eye for detail and novelist’s gift for storytelling. And like those authors, Guinan’s character-driven take on sports is as much about American culture as it is about the game itself. In this case, the game is professional women’s football in the 1970s, and the team is the Toledo Troopers, a ragtag group of seemingly ordinary women who come together to form one of the most successful teams of all time. Their fraught but thrilling rise to greatness is one I won’t forget. Helmets off to Guinan for this accomplished and stunning debut.

Reviewer: Casey Kidd
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Proud to be a woman
Review: I have not read the entire book yet, but snippets. I know, without a doubt, that this book will be a great read. I watched the premiere of the documentary last year in Toledo, and knew I needed the book that was talked about.I'm not a football fan, never was. Listening to my grandma and dad screaming at a TV screen over a ball was never something I understood. Reading this book will be one more thing that brings me closer to my late grandmother, Lora Jean Smalley(White).I miss you grandma and I can't wait to read more about your life back then, even if it's a small portion of your long, adventurous life.

Reviewer: Steve Condon
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Fascinating but true story
Review: I found this book captivating, touching, sad, and funny.The opening chapters about the history of Toledo, football, and the women's movement were very interesting and impeccably researched.Mr. Guinan's descriptions of the players, the games, the hits, the relationships, and especially the fellowship made me feel like I was in the middle of it all 50 years ago.I usually don't make it past page 30 of most books. I get bored and fall asleep and eventually misplace it. I breezed through this book, and Im sad that Im finished. Steve Guinan has documented a great piece of history for the ages. "We are the Troopers -- mighty mighty troopers"!

Reviewer: Catherine E. Guinan
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great read!
Review: I’m not a football fan, but I am a fan of great storytelling. The Toledo Troopers were an amazing group of women whose story is told with a narrative that pulled me in and kept me rapt. We’ll done.

Reviewer: Ann Huddleston
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Amazing women
Review: Great gift for a family member of one of the teammates that passed away❤️

Reviewer: gary l
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: You gotta meet the Troopers
Review: It is not a sports book. It is a book about humanity that happens to be about sports. The hard work, resilience, community, love, teamwork, struggles and passion for the game makes this incredible group of women (and their coaches) people you need to know.