Another top notch biography from Ribowsky. ( )

I received The Last Cowboy as part of a Goodreads giveaway.

Growing up as a child of the 1990s and as a fan of hockey and baseball before football, Tom Landry was essentially a vaguely familiar name before picking up this significantly-sized volume. However, Mark Ribowsky brings the complicated Landry--as well as the talented, often troubled teams he coached--to life.

Born and raised in Texas, after a brief stint playing professionally with the New York Giants, Landry fell into coaching, becoming the first head coach of the Dallas Cowboys in 1960, a job he held until 1988. During this time, he took "America's Team" to the Superbowl eight times, winning twice. With a loving wife and family and a strong Christian faith, one might think that Landry was living the American (or at least Texan) dream. However, the teams he coached were plagued with racial tension, drug use, and criminal behavior, problems Landry dealt with with mixed results. Ribowsky does an excellent job of showing Landry as a good and decent, but imperfect, man of his time, enlightened in many ways but flawed in others. And for the mistakes that he did make, you can't help but feel for Landry when reading about his firing by Jerry Jones in the late 1980s.

Some sections of the book got a little long. For instance, while interesting, reading about the ongoing problems of Landry's players in the 1970s and 1980s got the narrative a little off-track in my opinion. All in all, a really engaging read, especially for the devout football fan. ( )