Book Review: Warren Moon’s Story

Never Give Up on Your Dream, by Warren Moon with Don Yaeger. Published by Da Capo Press. 264 pages. $25. Available through amazon.com and barnesnoble.com.

Warren Moon’s time in Kansas City with the Chiefs was short, just two seasons tacked on to the end of a remarkable career. If the reader is looking for a lot of insight on the 1999-2000 seasons that Moon spent with the Chiefs, this book will not prove satisfying.

There’s still every reason to read this autobiography, Never Give Up on Your Dream. Moon and writer Don Yaeger take the reader from childhood days in Los Angeles through his unique career as a quarterback, where he was a star at the high school level, the college ranks, the Canadian Football League and finally the NFL.

Most of the book is basic stuff that can be found in dozens of other books written by or with the help of the athlete. What makes Moon’s book a bit different is that he did not try to sweep under the rug or ignore some of the bumps in the road that came in his life. In fact, he talks at great length about the altercation with his first wife which led to him being charged with spousal abuse. He also covers his arrests in the last few years for driving under the influence while living in Seattle and working as a color commentator for the Seahawks Radio Network.

In a chapter titled “Not Perfect,” Moon recounts his arrest in July 1995 for spousal abuse.

The case went to trial and his then wife Felicia testified in his defense and the chargers were dropped. It’s what happened afterwards that makes Moon a bit different. As he and Felicia were going through the divorce process, Moon began to attend counseling sessions.

He wrote:

“The truth was we were just very different people and had been trying for almost twenty years to be who we thought the other one wanted us to be instead of who we really were, and it bred frustration, resentment and anger.

“Through my counseling I came to realize that in any unhealthy marriage there tend to be some deep-rooted problems on both sides that deteriorate the partnership – except maybe when drugs or alcohol are the culprit. Otherwise it seems to always been an emotional struggle that is not being addressed honestly through real, meaningful communication.

“In the case of Felicia and me, we were two sober, level-headed people that just had a lot of pent-up stuff we were dealing with and it got to the point where we exploded.”

I can tell you from reading dozens of these types of books that this kind of deep introspection is not frequent for professional athletes. Generally the excuses are that it was somebody else’s fault, “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” or I was targeted because I was a professional athlete. None of those excuses comes through with Moon. He talks about the civil court suit filed against him by a former Minnesota Vikings cheerleader who claimed Moon made unwanted sexual advances. And he addresses the two arrests involving drinking and driving over nine months in 2007:

“I enrolled in a clinical evaluation, and they showed that I did not have a dependency on alcohol. That was good news in one sense – it meant that I wasn’t an alcoholic … but it was bad news in another sense, because it meant that I just made some truly terrible decisions with no excuse. As part of my sentence I served five days of electronically monitored home detention … my mistakes in my life have really opened my eyes. Ono and off the football field you have to be held accountable and anyone can make these mistakes. It really knocks you down a few notches and lets you know that you are no different than anyone else.”

While Moon was willing to address the blemishes in his life, he also explains in great detail why he became a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Determined to play quarterback, Moon went to the CFL when it became apparent that no NFL team would draft him or give him the opportunity to compete at the position. In fact, he signed before the NFL even held its draft in 1978. That year there were 14 quarterbacks drafted over 12 rounds. A team could have taken a late-round flier on Moon and tied up his rights, but they did not.

That allowed Moon to leave the CFL after six seasons and sign with the NFL Houston Oilers in 1984 for what was then the largest contract in NFL history – five years, $5.5 million. Twenty-five years later, those numbers seem miniscule for a proven professional quarterback, but in the day it was something else.

There’s a lot of good history here as Moon goes through his career from a 10-year old in Pop Warner football at Baldwin Hills Park in Los Angeles, through Hamilton High School, West Los Angeles Community College, the University of Washington, the Edmonton Eskimos and finally the NFL.

In the end Never Give Up on Your Dream is an uplifting story where Warren Moon did exactly that, and became one of the game’s best quarterbacks. And, it reads like he also learned an awful lot about himself.