Ex-Cowboy, author Peter Gent dies

[rdmtimp]

Source: ESPN/AP

BANGOR, Mich. -- Former NFL player Peter Gent, whose book about the seamier side of football was made into the movie, "North Dallas Forty," has died in his native Michigan. He was 69.

Gent had been ailing for months and died Friday from a pulmonary illness at his boyhood home in Bangor in western Michigan, where he had lived since 1990, his son, Carter Gent, said Saturday.

Gent was a star basketball player at Michigan State University in the 1960s. He didn't play college football but got an NFL tryout with the Dallas Cowboys in 1964 and played five seasons with the team.

His 1973 novel "North Dallas Forty" dealt with drugs, sex, greed and self-preservation in pro football. It was made into a movie six years later, starring Nick Nolte as an aging player and Mac Davis as a quarterback. Gent wrote a sequel, "North Dallas After Forty," as well as other books, including a memoir about coaching his son's baseball team, "The Last Magic Summer: A Season With My Son."

Read more: http://espn.go.com/dallas/nfl/story/_/id/7043394/north-dallas-forty-author-former-dallas-cowboy-peter-gent-dies-michigan

[BeyondGeography]

1. It was a great read and a gutsy book

Many thanks, Peter. RIP and condolences to your family.

[safeinOhio]

2. As kid, I use to watch him

play basketball at MSU.

[bluedigger]

3. RIP, Mr. Gent.

He made a true contribution in his revelations of pro sports culture in the US.

[Doc Holliday]

4. North Dallas Forty

was as much a book of social commentary as it was about football. His outsider-looking-in insights on what it was like to live in the Texas of the sixties, to be a near-untouchable Master of the Universe because you happen to be involved with a popular game-- to be in the pantheon of gods of Texas' unofficial state religion, football...all were written with a keen eye, a discerning ear and a deft hand.

The book was awesome; the movie, on the other hand, was merely popular. It showed the sex and drugs and politics, but left out many real insights into human nature. It's a pity they sweetened up the ending when they wrote the screenplay.

RIP, MR. Gent...and thank you.

[Blue_Tires]

5. k+r

farewell, Mr. Gent