Fifth Quarter: The Scrimmage of a Football Coach's Daughter

George Allen was a top-ranked NFL coach throughout the sixties and seventies, 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, Jennifer Allen came of age in a cauldron of testosterone and win-at-all-costs mentality.

Buffeted by the coach's tumultuous firings and hirings, the Allen family was periodically propelled to new teams in new cities. And while her French-Tunisian mother attempted to teach Jennifer proper feminine etiquette, the author dreamed of being the first female quarterback in the NFL. But as she grew up, she yearned mostly to be someone her father would notice. In a macho world where only foot-ball mattered, what could she strive for? Who could she become?

Allen has written a poignant memoir of the father she tried so hard to know, about a family life that was willfully 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, written in a fresh and perceptive voice.

George Allen was a top-ranked NFL coach throughout the sixties and seventies, coaching in turn the Chicago Bears, the Los Angeles Rams, and the Washington Redskins.

Washington Post - Jonathan Yardley

In [Allen's] loving but candid portrait, George Allen emerges as a vastly more interesting and sympathetic man than he ever was in his glory days. If he was an inflexible perfectionist (and indeed he was), he was also a goofball, an eccentric, living out there on Planet Football and only occasionally touching down on Mother Earth. When she quotes his mantra--"I just want to coach. All I want to do is coach"--she illuminates his innermost soul and gives us not a football coach but a human being. Her account of his last years in involuntary retirement, writing notes meant to boost his own spirits and guide him to some new coaching jobs, is heartbreaking. Fifth Quarter is a wonderful book.

Jennifer Allen is a freelance journalist and the author of Better Get Your Angel On, a collection of stories. She has contributed pieces to numerous magazines, including Rolling Stone, Mirabella, and The New Republic. Allen lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the author Mark Richard, and their sons, Roman and Deacon.