... lively ... Rosen delves not only into the lives of the Luckman family but also into the history of crime boss Lepke Buchalter and his Murder Inc. ... A terrific read that should draw interest from all general nonfiction readers.

One of the pleasures of this biography is its salting with quaint details of American life from not so long ago ... We’ve certainly missed the chance to explore how growing up with a man capable of such violence influenced the young athlete. The author does his best to glean what can be learned, but records and recollections offer little ... The book glancingly refers to the anti-Semitism that Sid Luckman faced in his athletic career—he was one of the few Jewish players in the NFL—but in general the role of religion in his life rarely comes up ... Mr. Rosen invests considerable effort to link Luckman’s father to one of the most infamous Jewish gangsters of the era, Louis 'Lepke' Buchalter.

Rosen focuses on Luckman’s football exploits but also looks at organized crime in the thirties and forties and Meyer Luckman’s involvement in it, noting how the story of Luckman’s family was buried by the press, which was then more interested in promoting heroes than reporting scandals. A fascinating book that is sure to be popular as the NFL approaches its 100th anniversary.

The book con­tains lengthy digres­sions on the his­to­ry of crime in NYC dur­ing the 1930s, but their rela­tion­ship to Luckman’s sto­ry is murky at best. There is lit­tle evi­dence of any con­nec­tions between Luck­man, the rise of the mod­ern NFL, and Mur­der Incor­po­rat­ed. For Jew­ish read­ers, the sig­nif­i­cance of Luck­man lies else­where.

Although interesting and well-written, Tough Luck toggles to and fro throughout, alternating between the worlds of professional football and organized crime, and this approach betrays a weakness in the narrative. Luckman, a classic extrovert, rarely revealed his true feelings about difficult matters. Little if anything is shared from his internal voices. Therefore a central question about Sid Luckman’s feelings about his father, other than remembering fondly receiving a football from him at age eight, are unresolved ... The chapters about Murder Inc. are well-written and interesting, but have much less to do with Sid Luckman and the National Football League than the book’s title would lead one to believe ... This is a good story, well written, and its portrayal of the infancy of professional football is interesting. But it suffers in the end by bouncing between unrelated worlds with only hints of connectedness. The story of Sid Luckman is fascinating, but he remains frustrating as a biographical subject because so much of his life was shrouded from those closest to him, a veil that Rosen is only occasionally able to pierce. Tough Luck is less a traditional biography and more a slice of time in the history of the country, when politics, sports, and crime intersected.

... intriguing ... There are many moving parts to the story, and Rosen does a good job of keeping the narrative clear and moving smoothly ... Vigorous storytelling at the intersection of sports and crime history.

With great research and storytelling, Rosen brings to life Depression-era New York and WWII-era Chicago in a wonderful family saga that will captivate history and sports fan alike.