Never Give Up On Your Dream

Description

The Inspiring Story of the Only Player Ever Inducted into Both the Pro Football and Canadian Football Halls of Fame

As a seven-year-old African-American growing up in Los Angeles, Warren Moon lost his father to alcoholism. Believing that her son needed some direction, Warren’s mother decided that football was the answer.

Beginning in the Pop Warner League as a ten-year-old Moon played flanker and quarterback. With a cannon for an arm and a stoic confidence that would become his trademark, he pursued his dream of playing quarterback even when several coaches tried to dissuade him — blacks, they believed, just didn’t have what it takes to lead an offense. Moon refused to switch positions, and by the time he was a high school senior, he was named to the all-city team–as starting quarterback.

In his senior year at the University of Washington, Moon took his underdog Huskies to a Rose Bowl victory over Big-10 powerhouse Michigan. But even that wasn’t enough to convince teams that Moon could quarterback in the NFL, so he went north and signed with the Edmonton Eskimos, leading them to five consecutive championships and securing his place in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. Later he finally got his shot with the NFL, playing seventeen years with the Houston Oilers, Minnesota Vikings, Seattle Seahawks, and Kansas City Chiefs, and retiring as one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the game.

In Never Give Up on Your Dream, Warren Moon talks about all this–also about his divorce, his decision to undergo therapy, the death threats and racist taunts he endured as a player, his disappointment at never earning a Super Bowl ring, and the six concussions he had while playing pro football, which led him to push for greater NFL player safeguards. The book is an unforgettable account of the many challenges and doubts Moon overcame to become the first and only African-American quarterback into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.