Taking Flak: My Life in the Fast Lane

By John P. Lopez and Dan Pastorini

He was an NFL superstar and Drag Racing icon. He had Hollywood starlets on his arm and a legion of fans in the palms of his hands. Dan Pastorini lived on the edge and palye don the brink.
No oneleast of all Pastoriniknew what the next turn would bring. His life was indulgent, brilliant, cursed and humbling. He was known a s the toughest man in football, a cover-boy heart-throb and a soft-hearted friend. He changed the way NFL quarterbacks played the game, donning the first Flak Jacket to protect three shattered ribs. He threw perhaps the most fateful pass in playoff history, a controversial championship moment that led to use of NFL replay. He was involved in a tragic speed boating accident. He beat Big Daddy Don Garlits and all of drag racings best. He was the hero in the most triumphant return an NFL team ever received. He never backed down from anything or anyone, falling into notorious scraped and life-altering lows. He married a Playboy model and posed for Playgirl. He dated Farrah Fawcett and was the most iconic figure in a Wild West era when Texas oil boomed and gluttony prevailed.
Dan Pastorini never has told the whole story. Until now. This is the story of a gifted, hard-driving kid from California who never stopped going fast or chasing dreams. No matter how much flak he took.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781467044660

John P. Lopez

John is a regular contributor for SportsIllustrated.com and TexAgs.com, as well as co-host of CBS Houston’s morning sports talk show, Vandermeer & Lopez. John also has written for the Bryan Eagle, San Antonio Express-News and the Houston Chronicle. He has been named Texas’ best sports columnist and earned national recognition from the Associated Press Managing Editors and Associated Press Sports Editors. He has appeared on The Today Show, ESPN Sports Center, Dateline NBC, CNN Sports at Night, CBS This Morning and ESPN’s Outside The Lines. He has been a Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 1999 and a Heisman Trophy voter since 1985. In 1997, John co-authored Landing On My Feet – A Diary Of Dreams, with 1996 Olympic gold medalist Kerri Strug. He has three children – Jacob, BG and Leah – and lives in Humble, Tx., with his wife, Jan, and loyal dog, Gibson.

Reviews for Taking Flak

[samsattler · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The 1978 and 1979 Houston Oilers football teams came along at a perfect time in the city’s history. Houston, an oil boomtown for much of the seventies, was attracting jobs and workers from all around the country at an amazing clip. Local children amused themselves by counting the Michigan license plates they spotted on Houston’s freeways, and their parents felt a level of enthusiasm about the future that will probably never be matched. But all was not well because the Houston Oilers were suffering some tough seasons and their fans were not happy about it.Coach Bum Phillips, running back Earl Campbell, and quarterback Dan Pastorini changed that in 1978, the first of two successive seasons that the Oilers and the Pittsburgh Steelers would meet in the AFC Championship game. Oilers fans, despite their team losing both games, could remind themselves that the Steelers won both Super Bowls that followed their defeats of the Oilers. Coach Phillips and Earl Campbell owned the city; it was not that way for Dan Pastorini. Taking Flak, written by Pastorini and co-writer John Lopez, is Pastorini’s very personal account of what those heady days were like for him, how he reached that pinnacle, and how his life would turn into a total disaster just a few short years later. Pastorini covers it all but still leaves the reader wishing for more – he is that good a storyteller. (Full disclosure: I was a fan of the team and Pastorini in the seventies, and I purchased my autographed copy of Flak at a Houston Texan’s football game on January 1, 2012. I enjoyed the chance to meet the man and to shake his hand – his display of courage and skill on the football field is one of my better memories of those days.)Taking Flak starts at the beginning with Pastorini’s California upbringing as the youngest child in a family that had to hustle to make ends meet. The kid, such a natural athlete that he sometimes competed on his older brother’s baseball team, soon realized that he could throw a baseball or football farther than anyone around. He was convinced that he would become a professional ballplayer or drag racer and, in time, he would be both, as well as a professional speedboat racer.By the time he was a Houston Oiler, Pastorini was into pills, booze, and flashy women - often to the point that his self-destructive lifestyle became a conversation of topic around town. And, of course, in this era of professional football, team doctors were known to give their players whatever it took to kill the pain long enough to get them through the next game. The stories that got out about Pastorini’s scuffle with a rather obnoxious sportswriter, run-ins with local cops, his affair with Farrah Fawcett and his ten-year-marriage to June Wilkinson, and his relationship with team owners and coaches was just the tip of the iceberg. He tells it all in Taking Flak, and he takes full responsibility for all the missteps along the way.Dante Pastorini is lucky to be alive, but his personal future may be brighter today than it ever has been. Read his story, shake your head a little, and applaud a man who is finally getting it right.Rated at: 5.0