Dave Meggyesy had been an outside linebacker with the St. Louis Cardinals for seven years when he quit at the height of his career to tell about the dehumanizing side of the game—about the fraud and the payoffs, the racism, drug abuse, and incredible violence. The original publication of Out of Their League shocked readers and provoked the outraged response that rocked the sports world in the 1970s. But his memoir is also a moving description of a man who struggled for social justice and personal liberation. Meggyesy has continued this journey and remains an active champion for players’ rights through his work with the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA). He provides a preface for this Bison Books edition.

Dave Meggyesy is the Western Regional director of the NFLPA. He and his family live in Berkeley, California.

"The University of Nebraska Press deserves a high-five for re-releasing this classic. . . . The book was an important milestone—innocent, then angry, but always fearless—and its sheer honesty exposes other sports books of that era as cheerleading fluff."—Rus Bradburd, Sports Literature Association

"The first critical look at the dehumanizing aspects of pro football."—Mercury News

"Thirty-five years ago, a journeyman Cardinals linebacker shocked football fans with his explosive account of a league riddled with violence, drugs, and inequities against its players. . . . His book offers opinions and analogies that eerily apply to both the contemporary sports world and to America’s current political scene."—USA Today Sports Weekly

"Out of Their League is must reading for anyone who wants to understand not only the NFL, but also that period of mass radicalization known as the 1960's. This book, quite simply, rises to the definition of 'American Classic.'"—Dave Zirin, author of What’s My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States

"This book is as powerful, fresh, and smart as when it first came out, the last time we were sent by a faux Jock president to fight a wrong war in a wrong place under a twisted banner of manhood measured in blitzes and bombs. Read it if you want to understand then and now."—Robert Lipsyte, columnist for the New York Times and author of SportsWorld: An American Dreamland

"Out of Their League is a timeless read. The story of one man’s football journey candidly clarifies many football myths."—Jason Belser, Indianapolis Colts, Kansas City Chiefs, 1992–2002

"While many sports autobiographies wax nostalgic, Out of Their League gives a realistic account of the social dynamics between players, as well as an accurate portrayal of the inherently political nature of management."—Mark Stepnoski, Houston Oilers, Dallas Cowboys, 1989–2002

"Meggyesy's book, almost as much as his person, is a most moving instance of a man’s search to be honest and to find a decent alternative for this way of life."—New York Review of Books

"Dave Meggyesy is an articulate, eloquent spokesman for his cause."—New York Daily News

"In a league of its own in its provocative view of the mentality and morality of American football. . . . Meggyesy rips through most of football's myths to find only a frightening and deliberate inhumanity."—Newsweek

One of Sports Illustrated's Top 100 Sports Books of All Time