Fifth Quarter

George Allen was a top-ranked NFL coach throughout the 1960s and 1970s coaching in turn the Chicago Bears the Los Angeles Rams and the Washington Redskins. Raised in a home dominated by her three football obsessed older brothers and her father''s relentless schedule the author came of age in a cauldron of testosterone and a win-at-all-costs mentality. While the household was buffeted by the coach''s tumultuous firings and hirings which periodically propelled the family to a new city Jennifer dreamed of being the first female quarterback in the NFL. But as she grew she yearned mostly to be someone that her father would notice. In a world where only football mattered what could she strive for who could she become?Allen has written a memoir of the father she tried so hard to know the family life that was wistfully sacrificed to his endless fanatical pursuit of the Super Bowl. What emerges is a fascinating and singular behind-the-scenes look at professional football and a memorable bittersweet portrait of a father and his daughter told by an accomplished and assured writer.