Review: Bouncing Back is a superb story of a great Argonauts’ team, written by an expert

The idea of telling the story of a particular season for a particular team is an oft-used one, and it’s produced some spectacular books, including Roy Blount Jr.’s Three Bricks Shy Of A Load and David Halberstam’s The Breaks Of The Game. Not every book on a season can live up to those standards, though, and there have been plenty of pedestrian ones produced as well. What tends to stand out about the great ones is how they go beyond merely the action on the field to get at the core of the personalities involved and describe how the particular season in question has relevance beyond only its specific timeframe. Paul Woods’ Bouncing Back book on the 1981-1983 Toronto Argonauts fulfills both of those criteria and lives up to the potential he described in interviews with me, providing a tremendous look inside the Argos’ teams of that era and illustrating their importance to the CFL at large. The material here’s perfectly assembled by Woods, and his background as an avid Argonauts fan allows him to focus on small-but-pivotal moments that might have been missed by someone else, turning Bouncing Back into a terrific book for any CFL fan, one that answers not just “What happened with those Argonauts?” but “Why did it happen?”

Woods’ familiarity with the subject at hand is demonstrated throughout Bouncing Back, but one of the most powerful examples of it comes right on the front cover with the “From National Joke To Grey Cup Champs” subtitle. Many often consider CFL seasons as only loosely tied together, so it could have been tempting to focus only on the Argos’ 1983 Grey Cup season while paying just lip service to what came before in a brief introduction. Woods’ background as someone who followed those teams closely allowed him to see the significant connections between the futile 2-14 Argos of 1981 and the dominant Grey Cup champions of 1983 and advance the thesis that the former laid a significant amount of the groundwork for the latter. That thesis isn’t just his opinion, either, as it’s strongly backed up by comments in interview after interview from players, coaches and executives. That’s another excellent feature of this book: Woods’ knowledge of the subject gives him the right starting points and a good list of questions to pursue, but his rigourous interviews with so many of the key participants make it clear that this isn’t just a book based on his own opinions. It’s a thoroughly-researched look at exactly what happened both in front of the cameras and behind the scenes.

Another element where Woods’ knowledge of the team proves vital is in how he opens the first chapter. Rather than flashing forward to the 1983 Grey Cup, starting at the beginning of the 1983 season or even beginning with the start of the 1981 season, Woods chooses to begin with a detailed description of an August 7, 1982 regular-season game against the Edmonton Eskimos. That game likely wouldn’t even bear mention in a conventional history of a team that didn’t win the Grey Cup until the next year, but Woods makes a stellar argument that it was a crucial turning point for these Argonauts (and his opinion’s been backed by many sources in the book, plus other expert reviewers such as my Yahoo! colleague Don Landry). That wasn’t merely a typical regular-season game, but a game where the Argos stuck it to the four-time defending champions (who would go on to beat them in the 1982 Grey Cup, but in a game that was a match of two solid teams rather than a powerhouse against a league laughingstock). It was also a crucial point where the famed run-and-shoot offence installed by offensive coordinator Darrel “Mouse” Davis started to click.

The extensive discussion of Davis and the Run-And-Shoot is the most widely-applicable part of this book, and it should be of interest to football fans everywhere, not just those who follow the CFL. Davis was one of the most crucial figures in the evolution of that particular offensive scheme, which is highly based on quarterbacks and receivers both making reads on the run, and after years of success at Portland State, the Argos gave him the chance to try it out in the pros. It took time to implement, as it was so staggeringly different from the offences of that day, but although the true run-and-shoot offence is rarely used these days, many of its principles have shown up in almost every modern offence both north and south of the border.

This is another case where Woods’ extensive background with the Argonauts comes in handy. Davis left the Argonauts during their 1983 training camp, so he’d be largely a footnote in a conventional history of that season, but his imprints were all over what they did offensively. Woods recognizes that and gives him his fair due, also including plenty of fascinating context on the evolution of the run-and-shoot. (Interestingly enough, one of the most notable run-and-shoot coaches in later years, June Jones—who’s currently teaming up with fellow offensive legend Hal Mumme at SMU—was a backup quarterback for the 1982 Argos and learned the run-and-shoot from Davis there.) That offence is a large part of what makes this book interesting to an audience besides hardcore CFL history fans, and Woods does a great job of describing not only how it operated, but how Davis (along with head coach Bob O'Billovich, quarterbacks Condredge Holloway and Joe Barnes and others) adapted it to the Canadian game and how it influenced many subsequent offensive innovations on both sides of the border.

Beyond merely the insights, though, this is an excellent narrative. Woods keeps the pace flowing while providing plenty of insight from the numerous interviews he conducted, and he wisely chooses to set many of those interviewees' quotes aside in their own paragraphs, giving a flavour of how each of these guys talk. In many ways, Bouncing Back follows the recent trend of oral history pieces, but unlike a good deal of those, it's not just quotes; Woods' overarching comments and descriptions tie it all together and make the book feel much more cohesive than it might if it was merely quotations. The tension's also well-constructed; although how the story ends is obvious from the book's title, the well-constructed narrative makes it difficult to put down. There's a substantial effort to explain why these Argonauts did so well, too, especially in the various player profiles and overarching thoughts at the end. Overall, it's a remarkable work, and one that should be of interest to Argos' fans, CFL fans and those who enjoy any sort of football history.

Bouncing Back can be ordered through Lulu.com here. For more information on it, check out the book's website, or my two-part interview with Woods.