In the Name of the Father

Family, Football, and the Manning Dynasty

By: Mark Ribowsky

Narrated by: Barry Abrams

Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's summary

No family in the history of American sports has ascended to the storybook level of greatness and royal succession quite like the Mannings. Although the façade has occasionally cracked-murmurs of locker-room scandal, flashes of fraternal jealousy - this talented trio of quarterbacks is enshrined in American culture, epitomizing once-proud but dying nostrums of Southern Christian manhood.

With remarkable nuance, "outstanding biographer" (Dallas Morning News) Mark Ribowsky traces their roots from red-clay Mississippi. From patriarch Archie's heyday at Ole Miss, with its complicated history, to the rise of his Super Bowl champion sons Peyton and Eli, a complex new cultural reality emerges. Drawing on dozens of new interviews, Ribowsky tells us that the path to football immortality has not always been smooth, nor completely glorious. The result is a distinctly American saga of a flawed lineage that forever changed the game.

©2018 Mark Ribowsky (P)2018 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Ribowski’s “expose” really blows the lid off all-American families

Not all all Mark Ribowski’s best work. In fact, it’s hardly worth the listen. Although the man does excellent research, he misses the mark with hyperbole, stretched metaphors and corny phrases. Worse, it’s as though he can’t find common ground between a syrupy “puff piece” biography and a no-holds-barred tell-all.

An honest attempt at fairness would’ve sufficed. Instead, Ribowski treats an otherwise gracious and rather conservative southern family like the Nixon White House. He all but accuses Archie Manning of racism by dint of his growing up white in 1950s Mississippi. No proof, mind you, just the elitist assumptions of a man and his annoyingly cynical mindset. Throughout the book Ribowski seems to treat people from the southeastern United States as yokels and rednecks. At first it seems strange, then a tad unfair and finally bigoted. And then there’s narrator Barry Abrams’ bizarre efforts to add voice to Ribowski’s words. His pathetic attempt to do a southern accent for any and all Manning quotes comes off as pure condescension. Abrams does Ribowski no favors and, in fact, makes the biographer’s writing seem smarmy and almost mean-spirited.

To my knowledge, none of the Mannings have ever claimed to be above fault or failure. Rather, it would seem Archie and Olivia Manning simply attempted to raise a family the best way they could. One gets the feeling Ribowski takes umbrage with this and is determined to expose the whole family as … what? Human beings?

As a sports fan, I went into the listen expecting Ribowski to treat the Mannings with fairness without becoming a glorified cheerleader. There’s room for a little cynicism in that expectation. Ribowski on the other hand seems to think he’s writing a Hollywood tell-all. It eventually makes him seem untrustworthy.