iBookstore Top 50 Football Ebooks

The top 50 most popular and best selling football ebooks at the Apple iBookstore. Chart of the football iBook best sellers updated daily.

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Sports Ebook Best Sellers

Top Football Ebook Best Sellers

1

Friday Night Lights (25th Anniversary Edition) - H. G. Bissinger Cover Art

Friday Night Lights (25th Anniversary Edition)

Friday Night Lights (25th Anniversary Edition) A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H. G. Bissinger

Named Sports Illustrated' s best football book of all time and a #1 NYT bestseller, this is the classic story of a high school football team whose win-loss record has a profound influence on the town around them. Return once again to the timeless account of the Permian Panthers of Odessa -- the winningest high-school football team in Texas history. Socially and racially divided, Odessa isn't known to be a place big on dreams, but every Friday night from September to December, when the Panthers play football, dreams can come true. With frankness and compassion, Pulitzer Prize winner H. G. Bissinger unforgettably captures a season in the life of Odessa and shows how single-minded devotion to the team shapes the community and inspires -- and sometimes shatters -- the teenagers who wear the Panthers' uniforms. The inspiration for the hit television program and film of the same name, this anniversary edition features a new afterword by the author.

2

Billion-Dollar Ball - Gilbert M. Gaul Cover Art

Billion-Dollar Ball

Billion-Dollar Ball A Journey Through the Big-Money Culture of College Football by Gilbert M. Gaul

•  A Boston Globe Best Book of 2015  • “A penetrating examination of how the elite college football programs have become ‘giant entertainment businesses that happened to do a little education on the side.’” — Mark Kram , The New York Times Two-time Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Gilbert M. Gaul offers a riveting and sometimes shocking look inside the money culture of college football and how it has come to dominate a surprising number of colleges and universities.  Over the past decade college football has not only doubled in size, but its elite programs have become a $2.5-billion-a-year entertainment business, with lavishly paid coaches, lucrative television deals, and corporate sponsors eager to slap their logos on everything from scoreboards to footballs and uniforms. Profit margins among the top football schools range from 60% to 75%—results that dwarf those of such high-profile companies as Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft—yet thanks to the support of their football-mad representatives in Congress, teams aren’t required to pay taxes. In most cases, those windfalls are not passed on to the universities themselves, but flow directly back into their athletic departments. College presidents have been unwilling or powerless to stop a system that has spawned a wildly profligate infrastructure of coaches, trainers, marketing gurus, and a growing cadre of bureaucrats whose sole purpose is to ensure that players remain academically eligible to play. From the University of Oregon’s lavish $42 million academic center for athletes to Alabama coach Nick Saban’s $7 million paycheck—ten times what the school pays its president, and 70 times what a full-time professor there earns—Gaul examines in depth the extraordinary financial model that supports college football and the effect it has had not only on other athletic programs but on academic ones as well. What are the consequences when college football coaches are the highest paid public employees in over half the states in an economically troubled country, or when football players at some schools receive ten times the amount of scholarship awards that academically gifted students do?  Billion-Dollar Ball considers these and many other issues in a compelling account of how an astonishingly wealthy sports franchise has begun to reframe campus values and distort the fundamental academic mission of our universities.

3

Their Life's Work - Gary M. Pomerantz Cover Art

Their Life's Work

Their Life's Work
The Brotherhood of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers, Then and Now by Gary M. Pomerantz

“The definitive book of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers” (Scott Brown, ESPN), Their Life’s Work is a triumphant yet intimate literary sports book that—through exquisite reportage, love, and honesty—tells the full story of the best team to ever play the game. The Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s won an unprecedented and unmatched four Super Bowls in six years. A dozen of those Steelers players, coaches, and executives have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and three decades later their names echo in popular memory: “Mean” Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mike Webster, Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, and John Stallworth. In ways exhilarating and heartbreaking, they define not only the brotherhood of sports but those elements of the game that engage tens of millions of Americans: its artistry and its brutality. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, Their Life’s Work is a richly textured story of a team and a sport, what the game gave these men, and what the game took. It gave fame, wealth, and, above all, a brotherhood of players, twelve of whom died before turning sixty. To a man, they said they’d do it again, all of it. They bared the soul of the game to Gary Pomerantz, and he captured it wondrously. “Here is a book as hard-hitting and powerful as the ‘Steel Curtain’ dynasty that Pomerantz depicts so deftly. It’s the NFL’s version of The Boys of Summer , with equal parts triumph and melancholy. Pomerantz’s writing is strong, straightforward, funny, sentimental, and blunt. It’s as working class and gritty as the men he writes about” ( The Tampa Tribune , Top 10 Sports Books of the Year).

4

Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming - Terry Frei Cover Art

Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming

Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming Texas vs. Arkansas in Dixie's Last Stand by Terry Frei

On December 6, 1969, the Texas Longhorns and Arkansas Razorbacks met in what many consider the Game of the Century. In the centennial season of college football, both teams were undefeated; both featured devastating and innovative offenses; both boasted cerebral, stingy defenses; and both were coached by superior tacticians and stirring motivators, Texas's Darrell Royal and Arkansas's Frank Broyles. On that day in Fayetteville, the poll-leading Horns and second-ranked Hogs battled for the Southwest Conference title -- and President Nixon was coming to present his own national championship plaque to the winners. Even if it had been just a game, it would still have been memorable today. The bitter rivals played a game for the ages before a frenzied, hog-callin' crowd that included not only an enthralled President Nixon -- a noted football fan -- but also Texas congressman George Bush. And the game turned, improbably, on an outrageously daring fourth-down pass. But it wasn't just a game, because nothing was so simple in December 1969. In Horns, Hogs, & Nixon Coming, Terry Frei deftly weaves the social, political, and athletic trends together for an unforgettable look at one of the landmark college sporting events of all time. The week leading up to the showdown saw black student groups at Arkansas, still marginalized and targets of virulent abuse, protesting and seeking to end the use of the song "Dixie" to celebrate Razorback touchdowns; students were determined to rush the field during the game if the band struck up the tune. As the United States remained mired in the Vietnam War, sign-wielding demonstrators (including war veterans) took up their positions outside the stadium -- in full view of the president. That same week, Rhodes Scholar Bill Clinton penned a letter to the head of the ROTC program at the University of Arkansas, thanking the colonel for shielding him from induction into the military earlier in the year. Finally, this game was the last major sporting event that featured two exclusively white teams. Slowly, inevitably, integration would come to the end zones and hash marks of the South, and though no one knew it at the time, the Texas vs. Arkansas clash truly was Dixie's Last Stand. Drawing from comprehensive research and interviews with coaches, players, protesters, professors, and politicians, Frei stitches together an intimate, electric narrative about two great teams -- including one player who, it would become clear only later, was displaying monumental courage just to make it onto the field -- facing off in the waning days of the era they defined. Gripping, nimble, and clear-eyed, Horns, Hogs, & Nixon Coming is the final word on the last of how it was.

5

Football Is a Numbers Game - Matthew Coller Cover Art

Football Is a Numbers Game

Football Is a Numbers Game Pro Football Focus and How a Data-Driven Approach Shook Up the Sport by Matthew Coller

In the 1980s, Neil Hornsby was one of very few National Football League fans in England. Never one to do anything casually, he began keeping hand-written score sheets of every game using his own tracking system. Soon he'd enlisted some fellow British super fans in his mission to take football information an extra layer deeper. This was the beginning of Pro Football Focus, an analytics company that now supplies data to all 32 NFL teams and every major broadcasting corporation. PFF player grades appear on the screen during Sunday Night Football broadcasts, and PFF's pioneering research and analysis informs discussions at the highest level, from coaching to drafting to game-planning and player evaluation. In Football Is a Numbers Game, Matthew Coller chronicles this improbable start-up tale with unprecedented access, exploring the company's origin as a band of obsessive outsiders, its pivotal acquisition by Cris Collinsworth, and its role in the proliferation of data in the NFL and professional sports. Featuring a cast of memorable characters, this is a portrait of an unlikely business success as well as a behind-the-scenes look at the forces guiding modern NFL teams as they search for a competitive edge.

6

Polamalu - Jim Wexell Cover Art

Polamalu

Polamalu
The Inspirational Story of Pittsburgh Steelers Strong Safety Troy Polamalu by Jim Wexell

The inspirational story of Pittsburgh Steelers strong safety Troy Polamalu Troy Polamalu was the guiding spirit behind a Pittsburgh Steelers dynasty that won two Super Bowls and led the NFL in total defense five times during his 12-year career. His explosiveness and instinct shone on the field, yet is is Polamalu's grace and character, his humility and dignity that have made the greatest impression on those closest to him. This biography, the first written on the Steelers' Hall of Famer, was over a decade in the making. Author Jim Wexell covered every step of Polamalu's career and interviewed countless family members, friends, coaches, team officials, front office executives, and teammates to produce a moving portrait of a remarkable athlete. Polamalu's days as a child in Santa Ana, California; his formative years in Tenmile, Oregon; his college days at the University of Southern California; and his glory days with the Steelers are all covered in this essential chronicle of a Pittsburgh great.

7

976-1313: How Sports Phone Launched Careers and Broke New Ground - Scott Orgera & Howie Karpin Cover Art

976-1313: How Sports Phone Launched Careers and Broke New Ground

976-1313: How Sports Phone Launched Careers and Broke New Ground by Scott Orgera & Howie Karpin

Sports Phone set out to change the way scores and breaking news were consumed, and in turn ended up setting the tone for the up-to-the-second updates we take for granted today. Found among those who called the service home are some of the most well-known broadcasters, reporters, public address announcers, and other prominent media figures — as well as several who've been successful in Hollywood and the music industry. A veritable breeding ground for these now-polished professionals, the dial-up platform that once handled 50 million calls in a year churned out talent at a level likely not seen before or since. Brought to you by media veterans Scott Orgera and Sports Phone alum Howie Karpin,  976-1313: How Sports Phone Launched Careers and Broke New Ground  features never-before-told tales of triumph and tragedy, a mix of hilarity, inspiration, and regret from the broadcasting hopefuls and sports junkies that comprised the brains and voices behind the pioneering operation. If you were assembling an All-Star team of media personnel, you'd only have to look as far as Sports Phone's ranks. As colorful as that cast of characters was, those who dialed 976-1313 regularly had their own yarns to spin. They form a tapestry of hardcore fans, award-winning actors, well-known comedians, impulsive gamblers, Broadway singers, and infamous mobsters, each with captivating stories told within these pages. With 75 years of collective experience between them, Karpin and Orgera interviewed more than a hundred people en route to creating what is a must-read. The esteemed list of interviewees includes Rich Ackerman, Joe Benigno, Steve Cangialosi, Chris Carrino, Ricky Cobb (Super 70s Sports), Gary Cohen, Linda Cohn, Ed Coleman, Chuck Cooperstein, Mark Cuban, Jack Curry, Gordon Damer, Frank "The Tank" Fleming, Jeff Garlin (Curb Your Enthusiasm), John Giannone, Don La Greca, Bill James, Brian Kilmeade, Denis McNamara, Sweeny Murti, Daniel Okrent (the founder of fantasy sports), Eddie Olczyk, Pat O'Keefe, Bob Papa, Howie Rose, Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo, Peter Schwartz, Dave Sims, Charlie Slowes, Leigh Steinberg (the real-life Jerry Maguire), Jeffrey Townes (DJ Jazzy Jeff), Mike "King Wally" Walczewski, Suzyn Waldman, and many more. Much of what we see and hear today was started by Sports Phone, and this tome covers untapped historical territory from every angle, kicked off with a compelling foreword written by revered broadcaster Kenny Albert. Featured between its covers are anecdotes involving Muhammad Ali, The Beatles, David Bowie, Joe Carter, Howard Cosell, Roger Daltrey, Joey Diaz, Roberto Duran, Julius Erving, Joe Frazier, Wayne Gretzky, Marvin Hagler, Hulk Hogan, Keith Hernandez, Brett Hull, Reggie Jackson, Mick Jagger, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Tommy Lasorda, Ronnie Lott, Billy Martin, Bob McAdoo, Burgess Meredith, Thurman Munson, Phil Rizzuto, Pete Rose, Bruno Sammartino, Bo Schembechler, Iron Sheik, Will Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Vanna White, and several others. Also included is a chapter on the 1978-79 Boston College point-shaving scandal and the record-setting Lufthansa heist, the latter of which was immortalized in Martin Scorsese's blockbuster film,  Goodfellas . At the center of the scheme to fix games were infamous mobsters Henry Hill (portrayed by Ray Liotta in the movie) and Jimmy "The Gent" Burke (Robert De Niro), as were a slew of calls to Sports Phone placed by multiple defendants. Behind-the-scenes insight from former federal prosecutor Ed McDonald (who played himself in one of the film's most iconic scenes) and ex-FBI Special Agent Ed Guevara (who arrested Hill) is provided, as are the actual phone records from the BC trial.

8

The TB12 Method - Tom Brady Cover Art

The TB12 Method

The TB12 Method How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance by Tom Brady

The #1 New York Times bestseller by the 7-time Super Bowl champion The first book by NFL legend Tom Brady, former quarterback with the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who reached unimaginable heights of excellence into his forties—a gorgeously illustrated and deeply practical “athlete’s bible” that reveals Brady’s revolutionary approach to sustained peak performance for athletes of all kinds and all ages. In this new edition of The TB12 Method , Tom Brady further explains and details the revolutionary training, conditioning, and wellness system that has kept him atop the NFL at an age when most players are deep into retirement. Brady—along with the expert Body Coaches at TB12, the performance lifestyle brand he cofounded in 2013 with Alex Guerrero—explain the principles and philosophies of pliability, a paradigm-shifting fitness concept that focuses on a more natural, healthier way of exercising, training, and living. Filled with lessons from Brady’s own training regimen, The TB12 Method provides step-by-step guidance on how develop and maintain one’s own peak performance while dramatically decreasing injury risks. This illustrated, highly visual manual also offers more effective approaches to functional strength & conditioning, proper hydration, supplementation, cognitive fitness, restorative sleep, and nutritious, easy-to-execute recipes to help readers fuel-up and recover. Brady steadfastly believes that the TB12 approach has kept him competitive while extending his career, and that it can make any athlete, male or female, in any sport and at any level achieve his or her own peak performance and do what they love, better and for longer. With instructions, drills, photos, in-depth case studies that Brady himself has used, along with personal anecdotes and experiences from his legendary career, The TB12 Method gives you a better way to train and get results with Tom Brady himself as living proof.

9

Draw the Line - Hunter Taylor Cover Art

Draw the Line

Draw the Line Jeff Traylor, The Gilmer Buckeyes, And a Season Deep in the Heart of East Texas by Hunter Taylor

In East Texas, a region primarily made up of small, country towns, football is more than a sport for young men. It's a means of modeling character, instilling discipline, and pride—a way of life led by a brotherhood of coaches; each generation molding the next. On the football field and off, coaches lead not only their teams but also the towns, garnering respect for their dedication and will to succeed, sometimes against great odds. The ethos of East Texas is especially embodied in the story of Jeff Traylor, former head coach of the Gilmer Buckeyes, and his long-time coaching staff. This is the story of the coach, the team, and the region.

10

Swing Your Sword - Mike Leach Cover Art

Swing Your Sword

Swing Your Sword
Leading the Charge in Football and Life by Mike Leach

Newly-minted Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach tells his captivating story––from rural Wyoming to law school to the upper echelons of the SEC. SWING YOUR SWORD is the first ever book by one of the most fascinating and successful coaches in sports today. A maverick who took an unlikely path to coaching through law school, Mike Leach talks about his unorthodox approach to coaching and the choices that have brought him success throughout his career. A lover of the game who started creating formations and drawing his own plays as a kid, Leach took his Texas Tech Red Raiders to numerous bowl games, achieving the #2 slot in national rankings and being voted 2008 Coach of the Year before being unceremoniously fired at the end of the 2009 season. The scandalous nature of his dismissal created a media frenzy and began a personal battle between Leach and his accusers that remains unresolved.

11

Belichick and Brady - Michael Holley Cover Art

Belichick and Brady

Belichick and Brady Two Men, the Patriots, and How They Revolutionized Football by Michael Holley

New York Times bestselling sportswriter Michael Holley takes readers behind the scenes of the relationship that transformed the Patriots from a middling franchise to the envy of the NFL. No head coach-quarterback pair has been more successful in NFL history than Bill Belichick and Tom Brady of the New England Patriots. They have won four Super Bowls, six AFC championships, and thirteen division titles. And now Holley takes us inside their relationship, dissecting how these men and their team came to dominate football. Belichick, a genius as a defensive coordinator, had been a five-year flop as head coach of the Cleveland Browns. Upon his controversial arrival in Foxboro, though, he quickly began to remake the team at every level--scouts, coaches, and players. His bold, calculated approach had fans up in arms, sportswriters questioning his intelligence, and players wondering how long they would last on the team. Meanwhile, buried down in the 2000 NFL draft, the 199th overall pick was a skinny kid from the University of Michigan named Tom Brady who many scouts thought would never succeed at a professional level. The lowest of the four quarterbacks on the team's depth chart, he appeard to be just one of the guys. Like Belichick, though, he lived for football, and he knew the playbook as well as Drew Bledsoe, the franchise quarterback. And when Bledsoe was injured in 2001, Brady took the job and vowed to never give it back. The handsome Brady became a star, wearing hand-tailored suits, appearing in movies and on magazine covers, and marrying a supermodel. Belichick, with his trademark cut-off hoodies, was the opposite of a fashion plate. Together, the odd couple somehow rose above controversies and tragedies. Draft picks were lost, suspensions given, lawsuits filed. As their legends have grown, so have their critics, with some of those critics operating from NFL headquarters. Despite that, with Belichick's deft and brilliant strategy in the draft year in year out and Brady's exacting decision-making on the field, the Patriots cultivated an atmosphere of success and won a stunning 75 percent of their games together. Respected and reviled, Belichick and Brady have set the bar high for excellence in a league designed for parity. They have rarely been understood. Until now. Based on dozens of interviews with former and current players, coaches, and executives, Belichick and Brady is an eye-opening look at the minds, motives, and wild ambitions of two men who have left an indelible mark on the game of football.

12

The Genius - David Harris Cover Art

The Genius

The Genius How Bill Walsh Reinvented Football and Created an NFL Dynasty by David Harris

The Genius is the gripping and definitive account of Bill Walsh’s career and how he built a football dynasty from the rubble of a fallen franchise. David Harris gives a stellar account of the silver-haired sophisticate from humble working-class roots who was hired as head coach and general manager of the San Francisco Forty Niners in January 1979 and became the architect of what is arguably the greatest ten-year run in NFL history. With unmatched access to players, fellow coaches, executives, the reporters who covered the Niners’ heyday, and Walsh himself, Harris recounts how Walsh, through tactical and organizational genius, created a football juggernaut. There were also the demons that pushed and haunted Walsh throughout his career: his clash with his former mentor, Paul Brown, who denied Walsh his first pro head-coaching job with the Cincinnati Bengals; Walsh’s struggle with self-doubt and criticism; the toll his single-minded devotion to football exacted on his family; and his complex relationship with the Forty Niners’ owner, Edward DeBartolo, Jr. Walsh’s pre-Niners coaching odyssey was arduous–a longtime assistant coach, he developed his legendary and now-standard pass-oriented West Coast offense during stops at all levels of the game. Despite never having run a team’s draft before, Walsh, along with his right-hand man John McVay, quickly built the foundation for a dynasty by drafting or trading for a durable core of stars, including Joe Montana, Fred Dean, Hacksaw Reynolds, Dwight Clark, and Ronnie Lott. (Walsh would later restock the team with such players as Jerry Rice, Steve Young, and Charles Haley.) The key to Walsh’s genius perhaps lay in his keen understanding of his athletes’ psyches–he knew what brought out the best in each of them. But the scope of Walsh’s impact on the game extended well beyond the field and locker room. The Forty Niners’ life-skills counseling program, which Walsh spearheaded with the sports sociologist and activist Dr. Harry Edwards, and the internship program Walsh devised to bring minority coaches into the game have since been adopted by the NFL for all league franchises. In the annals of sport, few individuals have had as great an impact on their game–or on its relevance to life outside the lines–as Bill Walsh. With knowledge, skill, passion, and a critical eye, David Harris reveals the brilliant man behind the coaching legend. The vision Bill Walsh brought to all his pioneering efforts was a function of his perception of himself as someone who was far more than a football coach. He cherished his standing and participation in the larger world outside the NFL and nurtured them at every opportunity. “Knowing Bill Walsh was kind of like the blind man describing an elephant,” one of the sportswriters who covered him observed. “We all knew just one little piece of him. But he had all these other areas we knew nothing about. He dealt with lots of people outside of football, outside of our scope entirely. He was able to deal with politicians, people who were intellects in other areas. They were impressed by him.” –from The Genius From the Hardcover edition.

13

That First Season - John Eisenberg Cover Art

That First Season

That First Season How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set It on the Path to Glory by John Eisenberg

The story of a team, a town, and a leader: Vince Lombardi’s first year as head coach of the Green Bay Packers, and how he turned them into a powerhouse.   The once-vaunted Green Bay Packers were a laughingstock by the late 1950s. They hadn’t fielded a winning team in more than a decade, and were close to losing their franchise to another city. They were in desperate need of a savior—and he arrived in a wood-paneled station wagon in the dead of winter from New York City.   In a single year, Vince Lombardi—the grizzled coach who took no bull—transformed a team of underachievers into winners and resurrected a Wisconsin city known for its passion for sport. He would lead them to championship to championship, and bring out the best in players including Bart Starr, Jim Taylor, Willie Davis, Forrest Gregg, and many more. From an award-winning sportswriter, That First Season is “a compelling read about perhaps the most compelling coach ever to stride an NFL sideline” ( Washington Times ).   “Richly detailed in seamless prose, this is historical sportswriting at its finest.”—Lars Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of The Mannings: The Fall and Rise of a Football Family  

14

Freezing Cold Takes: NFL - Fred Segal Cover Art

Freezing Cold Takes: NFL

Freezing Cold Takes: NFL Football Media’s Most Inaccurate Predictions—and the Fascinating Stories Behind Them by Fred Segal

Sports fans love holding media "experts" accountable for bad predictions. Since 2015, Fred Segal has chronicled “unprophetic” sports predictions on the internet. His Freezing Cold Takes social media pages feature quotes and predictions from members of the sports world that have aged poorly or were, in hindsight, flat-out wrong. The pages have become a guilty pleasure for hundreds of thousands of sports fans who love to see (okay, and mock in good humor) sports media’s infamous “hot takes” that went cold.   With this book, Segal focuses on the NFL, and provides a vast collection of poorly aged predictions and analysis from NFL media members and personalities about some of the most famous teams and players in the league’s history.  He also explores ill-fated commentary related to draft picks, hiring decisions, and some of the NFL’s most notable games.  But this book is not simply a list of quotes. It delves through content mined from internet archives and original interviews with media, players, and coaches. Segal provides important background surrounding each featured mistake to offer essential context as to why the ill-fated prediction was made as well as why the personality who made the prediction is eating their words. Together, the fourteen chapters—each spotlighting Freezing Cold Takes about a specific team or topic within a certain defined period—create a wholly unique and endlessly entertaining lens through which to explore NFL history.   A few illustrative examples: (1987-94 San Francisco 49ers) : “The 49ers should do everyone a favor. Trade Steve Young. The myth.  And the man.” (1989-93 Dallas Cowboys): “The Vikings fleeced the Cowboys to get Herschel Walker” (2000 New England Patriots) : "The Patriots will regret hiring Bill Belichick" (2008 Green Bay Packers) : "Brian Brohm has more upside than Aaron Rodgers" (NFL Draft Picks) : “The Dolphins could have had their next Dan Marino if they selected Brady Quinn” (2007)

15

Best of Rivals - Adam Lazarus Cover Art

Best of Rivals

Best of Rivals Joe Montana, Steve Young, and the Inside Story behind the NFL's Greatest Quarterback Controversy by Adam Lazarus

In this revealing, in-depth look at the NFL's greatest quarterback controversy, Adam Lazarus takes readers into the locker room and inside the huddle to deliver the real story behind the rivalry—when Joe Montana and Steve Young battled on and off the field and forged one of the finest football dynasties of all time. From 1987 to 1994, the two future Hall of Famers spurred each other on to remarkable heights, including three Super Bowl wins and four MVP awards, and set new standards for quarterback excellence. The two men couldn't have been more different in background, personality, and playing style, and their competition created as much tension as it did greatness, forcing Montana to prove that he was still the game's best quarterback and Young to prove that he was a worthy successor. Featuring candid interviews with Montana, Young, Jerry Rice, George Seifert, and many more, Best of Rivals brings to life the story of two sports legends, the golden era of football their rivalry presided over, and the amazing legacy it produced.

16

Press Box Revolution - Rich Coutinho Cover Art

Press Box Revolution

Press Box Revolution How Sports Reporting Has Changed Over the Past Thirty Years by Rich Coutinho

Press Box Revolution is a journey through the evolution of reporting in New York and around the nation by a reporter who has witnessed every second of it in the past three decades. Rich Coutinho, a New York-based reporter who has covered numerous major sporting events, will escort readers into corners of the press box and locker room they have never seen and discusses what the business will look like down the road. Coutinho gives an insider’s view of the evolving technology in the business, the growth of women in sports creating much needed diversity in the reporting landscape, the emergence of sports talk radio and the Internet, as well as the personalities on the New York sports scene that make it so challenging to cover. Press Box Revolution lifts the curtain on all the myths about how sports is reported and it will help fans realistically evaluate the information they read and hear that is labeled “Breaking News” or “Insider Report.” It is a must-read for all well-informed fans and aspiring sports journalists.

17

Endzone - John U. Bacon Cover Art

Endzone

Endzone The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football by John U. Bacon

The New York Times bestseller Endzone tells the story of how one of college football's most successful, richest and respected programs, the University of Michigan, almost lost it all in less than a decade--and entirely of its own doing. It is a story of hubris, greed, and betrayal--a tale more suited to Wall Street than the world's top public university. Author John U. Bacon takes you inside the offices, the board rooms and the locker rooms of the University of Michigan to see what happened, and why--with countless eye-opening, head-shaking scenes of conflict and conquest. But Endzone is also an inspiring story of redemption and revival. When those who loved Michigan football the most recognized it was being attacked from within, they rallied to reclaim the values that made it great for over a century--values that went deeper than dollars. The list of heroes includes players, students, lettermen, fans and faculty--and the leaders who had the courage to listen to them. Their unprecedented uprising produced a new athletic director, and a new coach--the hottest in the land--who vindicated the fans' faith when he turned down more money and fame to return to the place he loved most: Michigan. If you love a good story, you'll want to dive into Endzone: The Rise, Fall and Return of Michigan Football .

18

Madden - Bryan Burwell Cover Art

Madden

Madden A Biography by Bryan Burwell

No person in the sports world is as popular 80-year-olds as well as 8-year-olds. And in Madden, Bryan Burwell gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the 'Boom!' in our Sundays. From Al Davis and the Raiders to Canton, from the booth to the bus to Turduckens on Thanksgiving Day, this is the definitive Madden book, a wild collection of stories from Madden's 50 years in the NFL.

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Developing an Offensive Game Plan (Second Edition) - Brian Billick Cover Art

Developing an Offensive Game Plan (Second Edition)

Developing an Offensive Game Plan (Second Edition) by Brian Billick

Provides a basic overview of the steps involved in setting up and implementing an offensive game plan. Covers how to focus your package into a weekly game plan and practice format. Also covers how much offense to use, base offense, third down, pre-red zone, red zone, and much more.

20

Love, Zac - Reid Forgrave Cover Art

Love, Zac

Love, Zac Small-Town Football and the Life and Death of an American Boy by Reid Forgrave

" Love, Zac  is not just a vital contribution to the national conversation about traumatic brain injury in athletes, it’s so beautifully written it belongs on the shelf alongside classic works of literary journalism.” —Jeanne Marie Laskas,  New York Times  bestselling author of  Concussion In December 2015, Zac Easter, a twenty-four-year-old from small-town Iowa, decided to take his own life rather than continue his losing battle against traumatic brain injuries he had sustained as a high school football player and which led him to develop chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). For this deeply reported and powerfully moving true story, award-winning writer Reid Forgrave was given access to Zac’s own diaries and was able to speak with Zac’s family, friends, and coaches. He explores Zac’s tight-knit, football-obsessed Midwestern community; he interviews leading brain scientists, psychologists, and sports historians; he takes a deep dive into the triumphs and sins of the sports entertainment industry; and he shows us the fallout from the traditional notions of manhood that football instills. For parents wondering about whether to allow their kids to play football, for players, former players, and fans, for anyone concerned about concussions and sports, this eye-opening, heart-wrenching, and ultimately inspiring story may be one of the most important books they will read.

21

Lombardi and Landry - Ernie Palladino Cover Art

Lombardi and Landry

Lombardi and Landry How Two of Pro Football's Greatest Coaches Launched Their Legends and Changed the Game Forever by Ernie Palladino

Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry could not have had two more divergent personalities. Yet, while working for the New York Giants in the mid-1950s under head coach Jim Lee Howell, the pair formed what still stands as the greatest set of coordinators on one team. Given their personalities, one might have likened Howell’s job to that of Dwight Eisenhower’s as the general struggled to control the egos and politics of his allied subordinates during WWII. But for some reason, Lombardi and Landry worked almost seamlessly, leading the Giants to the top of the NFL. In the five seasons the two men coached together between 1956 and 1959, the Giants appeared in three championship games, winning the NFL title in ‘56. Both coaches would go on to NFL stardom, Lombardi with the Green Bay Packers and Landry with the Dallas Cowboys. But it was during their years as Giants coordinators that they developed the coaching philosophies they would employ later in their careers. For Lombardi, it was the reliance on the running game that started with Frank Gifford and would continue in the “Packers Sweep” days of Paul Hornung. For Landry, it was his own invention of the 4-3 defense that led to the “Flex” defense of his Super Bowl winners in Dallas. How they developed their ideas, and how they were allowed to implement them, was a testament not only to their genius, but Howell’s willingness to let them handle the strategic matters while he looked after the big picture. In Lombardi and Landry , veteran sportswriter Ernie Palladino takes an in-depth look at these two legends’ formative years in New York, offering up a vivid, revealing portrait of two brilliant coaches just coming into an understanding of their formidable powers.

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Smart Money - Alex Duff Cover Art

Smart Money

Smart Money The Fall and Rise of Brentford FC by Alex Duff

In 1978, when Alex Duff first went to watch Brentford, players would go on midweek pub crawls near the Griffin Park stadium. Sometimes, in no fit state to go home, they would crash out in a terraced home where one of them lived opposite the stadium gates. The next morning, they clambered into a white van which one of them would drive to training, stopping on the way for a bacon sandwich and cup of tea at a greasy spoon café. Brentford had once played in the top-flight but now, idling in the third division, were a second home for players and supporters, but there was neither the ambition nor money to revive their best days. They bumbled along until in 2005, fed up with trying to make a profit from a club with an ageing stadium in an unfashionable west London suburb, owner Ron Noades agreed to hand over the business to supporters on the condition they take over responsibility for their £5.5 million overdraft. One of the fans, an Oxford University physics graduate called Matthew Benham, was making millions of pounds from professional gambling and threw in a £500,000 lifeline to help keep the club afloat. Initially, as a sort of academic challenge, he began figuring out if he could employ the mathematics which he used in beating the bookmakers to improve the club's performance on the pitch. Smart Money is the story of how a scientist with an inquiring mind was set loose in a backwater of professional football, and how he turned a modest, little-known team into a competitor in one of the world's most-watched sports leagues.

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The System - Jeff Benedict & Armen Keteyian Cover Art

The System

The System The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football by Jeff Benedict & Armen Keteyian

A Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year  NCAA football is big business. Every Saturday millions of people file into massive stadiums or tune in on television as "athlete-students" give everything they've got to make their team a success. Billions of dollars now flow into the game. But what is the true cost? The players have no share in the oceans of money. And once the lights go down, the glitter doesn't shine so brightly. Filled with mind-blowing details of major NCAA football scandals, with stops at Ohio State, Tennessee, Texas Tech, Missouri, BYU, LSU, Texas A&M and many more, The System explores and exposes the complex, and perhaps broken, machine that churns behind the glamour of college football.  With a New Afterword

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Boys Will Be Boys - Jeff Pearlman Cover Art

Boys Will Be Boys

Boys Will Be Boys The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty by Jeff Pearlman

New York Times bestseller From celebrated sports writer Jeff Pearlman, author of The Bad Guys Won, a rollicking, completely unabashed account of the glory days of the legendary Dallas Cowboys They were called America's Team. Led by Emmitt Smith, the charismatic Deion "Prime Time" Sanders, Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin—and lorded over by swashbuckling, power-hungry owner Jerry Jones and his two hard-living coaches, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer—the Cowboys seemed indomitable on the football field throughout the 1990s. Off the field the 'Boys were a dysfunctional circus, fueled by ego, sex, drugs, and jaw-dropping excess. What they achieved on game day was astonishing; what they did the rest of the week was unbelievable. Boys Will Be Boys is the story of the Dallas Cowboys in their prime—a team of wild-partying, out-of-control glory-hounds that won three Super Bowls in four years and earned their rightful place in sports lore as the most beloved and despised dynasty in NFL history.

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Football Rules and Positions In A Day For Dummies - Howie Long & John Czarnecki Cover Art

Football Rules and Positions In A Day For Dummies

Football Rules and Positions In A Day For Dummies by Howie Long & John Czarnecki

Tackle football basics in a day? Easy. If you've ever wanted to know the difference between a touchdown and a touchback, or how a running back's role differs from a linebacker's, this handy guide gets you up-to-speed in no time. Football Rules & Positions In A Day For Dummies gives you a focused guide to the rules, regulations, and player roles of one of the most popular American sports. The essential information you need to understand and enjoy America's greatest game Expert coverage of the game's rules and regulations Helpful breakdowns of football positions and their roles in offense, defense, and special teams Online component takes you beyond the book with bonus content and features Get set to impress your friends with your newfound knowledge in no time!

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Football Done Right - Michael Lombardi Cover Art

Football Done Right

Football Done Right Setting the Record Straight on the Coaches, Players, and History of the NFL by Michael Lombardi

Former NFL general manager and three-time Super Bowl winner Michael Lombardi takes readers on the ultimate journey through the NFL's history to present his calls on the greatest players and coaches the sport has ever seen.  From Monday Night Football to Super Bowl Sunday, the NFL is a dominating force in the lives of millions of fans who tune in and passionately cheer for their favorite teams. And when the games are over, the conversation is just getting started. Who's the greatest player of all time? Which coaches truly shaped the game we known and love today? What was the most unforgettable game? Why is professional football such an undeniable part of our culture?  Three-time Super Bowl winner Michael Lombardi has done it all—from scout to executive to coach—and now he sets the record straight on these questions and more. With Football Done Right , Lombardi tackles all aspects of the sport, discussing the best of the best. He channels his 35+ years of experience with the NFL into an all-encompassing celebration of the game. More than just ranking the giants of the league, Lombardi shows how and why each affected the game. Mixing first-person, in-the-locker-room experience with little known history and hard stats, Lombardi makes a definitive case for the most influential coaches and the best players, and also offers an insider look to how drafts and trades operate behind the scenes and honoring the sportscasters who played an essential role in popularizing the sport. Both a full history of the sport and a comprehensive re-imagining of the Football Hall of Fame to honor every deserving athlete and coach, Football Done Right will change the way you watch, discuss, and debate the gridiron.

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Football For A Buck - Jeff Pearlman Cover Art

Football For A Buck

Football For A Buck The Crazy Rise and Crazier Demise of the USFL by Jeff Pearlman

From Jeff Pearlman—the New York Times best-selling author of Three Ring Circus—comes the rollicking, outrageous story of the USFL, full of larger-than-life characters and you-can’t-make-this-up stories featuring some of the biggest celebrities and buffoons in the game. The United States Football League—known fondly to millions of sports fans as the USFL—did not merely challenge the NFL, but cause its owners and executives to collectively shudder. In its three seasons from 1983-85, it secured multiple television deals, drew millions of fans and launched the careers of legends such as Steve Young, Jim Kelly, Herschel Walker, and Reggie White. But then it died beneath the weight of a particularly egotistical and bombastic team owner—a New York businessman named Donald J. Trump. In Football for a Buck, Jeff Pearlman draws on more than four hundred interviews to unearth all the salty, untold stories of one of the craziest sports entities to have ever captivated America. From 1980s drug excess to airplane brawls and player-coach punch outs, to backroom business deals and some of the most enthralling and revolutionary football ever seen, Pearlman transports readers back in time to this crazy, boozy, audacious, unforgettable era of the game. He shows how fortunes were made and lost on the backs of professional athletes and how, forty years ago, Trump was already a scoundrel and a spoiler. For fans of Terry Pluto’s Loose Balls or Jim Bouton’s Ball Four and of course Pearlman’s own stranger-than-fiction narratives, Football for a Buck is sports as high entertainment—and a cautionary tale of the dangers of ego and excess.

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The Ancient Eight - John Feinstein Cover Art

The Ancient Eight

The Ancient Eight College Football's Ivy League and the Game They Play Today by John Feinstein

Inside the Ivy League, college football’s oldest teams, amid a rapidly changing and increasingly monetized collegiate sports world—from award-winning and bestselling author of  A Season on the Brink  and  A Good Walk Spoiled , and contributing columnist for  The Washington Post, John Feinstein. There is a tremendous amount of history surrounding the Ivy League, dating back to Princeton playing in what is considered to be the first college football game, in 1869, against Rutgers. That history, however, is not what this book is about. This book is about Ivy League football today—specifically, the 2023 season. Why? Because Ivy League football is underrated—there are typically about a dozen former Ivy players in the NFL. To play in the league, you have to be smart and a good student and a good football player. The rivalries are as intense as in the SEC or the Big Ten, even if the linemen aren’t quite as large. There are some arcane rules—not letting the league champion play in the NCAA postseason, not allowing eligible graduate students to play, and insisting on playing ten straight weeks with no bye. But there is also a real purity—not one that’s made up for marketing purposes—in the Ivy League. ​ The story of the 2023 season began with tragedy when longtime Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens suffered fatal injuries in a bicycle accident in March; one of his players died of cancer the day of the accident. But Dartmouth would fight through the tragedies to win a share of the Ivy title, along with both Harvard and Yale—the result of a nail-biting 138th meeting of those two schools in The Game. On the field, inside the locker room, and around campus, The Ancient Eight explores the phenomenal stories of the young men who play in today’s Ivy League and the men who coach them.

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Take Your Eye off the Ball - Pat Kirwan Cover Art

Take Your Eye off the Ball

Take Your Eye off the Ball How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look by Pat Kirwan

Take Your Eye Off the Ball is not a beginner's introduction to football, nor is it a technical manual for only the most studious of fans.  Instead, it clearly and simply explains the intricacies and nuances that affect the outcomes of every NFL game.

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How Good Do You Want to Be? - Nick Saban & Brian Curtis Cover Art

How Good Do You Want to Be?

How Good Do You Want to Be? A Champion's Tips on How to Lead and Succeed at Work and in Life by Nick Saban & Brian Curtis

The winning philosophy for creating and inspiring success that will help you triumph at work and in life from renowned football coach Nick Saban—with a foreword by Bill Belichick Excellence doesn’t happen overnight. It comes from hard work, consistency, the drive to be the best, and a passion for what you do. Few understand this better than Nick Saban. With more than three decades of experience as a player and coach, Saban has worked alongside some of the game’s legends and has seen firsthand how great leaders encourage greatness in others. In this candid and thoughtful guide, he shares his unique wisdom: • Organization, Organization, Organization: Create an environment where everybody knows his or her responsibilities—and each is responsible to the entire group. • Motivate to Dominate: Understand the psychology of teams and individuals, and use that knowledge to breed success. • No Other Way than Right: Practice ethics and values—and demand the same from your team. • Look in the Mirror: Maintain an understanding of who you are by knowing your strengths and your weaknesses. How Good Do You Want to Be? is more than the story of how Nick Saban motivates his staff and players to excel—it is also the memoir of one of America’s most successful coaches. Filled with instructive anecdotes and illuminated by never-before-told stories of his life and career, this is a book that challenges and inspires us all to be our best.

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League of Denial - Mark Fainaru-Wada & Steve Fainaru Cover Art

League of Denial

League of Denial The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth by Mark Fainaru-Wada & Steve Fainaru

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “meticulously documented and endlessly chilling” ( The New York Times ) exploration of the NFL’s decades-long attempt to deny and cover up mounting evidence connecting football and brain damage. “A first-rate piece of reporting [that] adds crucial detail, texture, and news to the concussion story, which despite the NFL’s best efforts, isn’t going away.”— Time   ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Boston Globe, NPR “Professional football players do not sustain frequent repetitive blows to the brain on a regular basis.” So concluded the National Football League in a December 2005 scientific paper on concussions in America’s most popular sport. That judgment, implausible even to a casual fan, also contradicted the opinion of a growing cadre of neuroscientists who worked in vain to convince the NFL that it was facing a deadly new scourge: chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a chronic brain disease that was driving an alarming number of players—including some of the all-time greats—to madness.   Everyone knows that football is violent and dangerous. But what the players who built the NFL into a $10 billion industry didn’t know—and what the league sought to shield from them—is that no amount of padding could protect the human brain from the force generated by modern football.   In League of Denial, award-winning ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru expose the public health crisis that emerged from the playing fields and examine how the league used its power and resources to attack independent scientists and elevate its own flawed research—a campaign with echoes of Big Tobacco’s fight to deny the connection between smoking and lung cancer. They chronicle the tragic fates of players like Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, who was so disturbed at the time of his death he fantasized about shooting NFL executives, and former San Diego Chargers great Junior Seau, whose diseased brain became the target of a scientific battle between researchers and the NFL.    Based on exclusive interviews, previously undisclosed documents, and private e-mails, League of Denial is the story of what the NFL knew and when it knew it—questions at the heart of a crisis that threatens American football—and of the battle for the sport’s future.

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It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness - Seth Wickersham Cover Art

It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness

It's Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness by Seth Wickersham

NOW WITH A NEW EPILOGUE ON THE 2021 SEASON AND TOM BRADY’S BRIEF RETIREMENT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER SPORTS ILLUSTRATED • NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR National Sports Media Association • Book of the Year Kirkus Reviews • Best Nonfiction of the Year “Seth Wickersham has managed to do the impossible: he has pulled off the definitive document of the Belichick/Brady dynasty.” —Bill Simmons, The Ringer The explosive, long-awaited account of the making of the greatest dynasty in football history—from the acclaimed ESPN reporter who has been there from the very beginning. Over two unbelievable decades, the New England Patriots were not only the NFL’s most dominant team, but also—and by far—the most secretive. How did they achieve and sustain greatness—and what were the costs? In It's Better to Be Feared, Seth Wickersham, one of the country’s finest long form and investigative sportswriters, tells the full, behind-the-scenes story of the Patriots, capturing the brilliance, ambition, and vanity that powered and ultimately unraveled them. Based on hundreds of interviews conducted since 2001, Wickersham’s chronicle is packed with revelations, taking us deep into Bill Belichick’s tactical ingenuity and Tom Brady’s unique mentality while also reporting on their divergent paths in 2020, including Brady’s run to the Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Raucous, unvarnished, and definitive, It’s Better to Be Feared is an instant classic of American sportswriting in the tradition of Michael Lewis, David Maraniss, and David Halberstam.

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Home Team - Sean Payton & Ellis Henican Cover Art

Home Team

Home Team Coaching the Saints and New Orleans Back to Life by Sean Payton & Ellis Henican

The New York Times bestseller that's "heaven in hardcover" ( New Orleans Times-Picayune ) for Saints fans. In the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, no symbol of disaster was more potent than New Orleans' Superdome: it became a horrific shelter of last resort where the utterly desperate rode out the storm. Four years later, in that very stadium, the New Orleans Saints won the NFC championship and earned their first-ever trip to the Super Bowl, where they defeated the favored Indianapolis Colts 31-17. This is the inspirational true story of a city recovering from disaster and a team with a history of heartbreak, as seen through the eyes of the coach who would help elevate them both to long- forgotten greatness.

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Earn the Right to Win - Tom Coughlin & David Fisher Cover Art

Earn the Right to Win

Earn the Right to Win How Success in Any Field Starts with Superior Preparation by Tom Coughlin & David Fisher

A top NFL coach offers leadership advice that applies from the field to the office Tom Coughlin led the New York Giants to two Super Bowl victories with his unique system of relentless preparation and resilience. He teaches his players that you can never guarantee a win, but you can always earn the right to win-with focus, hard work, and anticipation of obstacles. Now Coughlin shows how his teachings apply beyond the gridiron, illustrating his points with previously untold stories about players like Eli Manning, Doug Flutie, and Michael Strahan. His wisdom can help leaders in any field rev up their own organizations. 'Tom Coughlin challenged us and prepared us to handle anything that was thrown at us ... The lessons I learned from him weren't limited to football. They were applicable to every aspect of my life' -Michael Strahan Tom Coughlin is one of the most successful coaches in NFL history. Before winning two Super Bowls with the New York Giants, he coached the Jacksonville Jaguars for nine seasons, leading them to two appearances in the AFC Championship Game. David Fisher is the co-author of seventeen New York Times bestsellers.

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Twelve Mighty Orphans - Jim Dent Cover Art

Twelve Mighty Orphans

Twelve Mighty Orphans The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football by Jim Dent

Now a movie starring Luke Wilson, Vinessa Shaw, and Wayne Knight! Jim Dent, author of the New York Times bestselling The Junction Boys , returns with his most powerful story of human courage and determination: Twelve Mighty Orphans: The Inspiring True Story of the Mighty Mites Who Ruled Texas Football. More than a century ago, a school was constructed in Fort Worth, Texas, for the purpose of housing and educating the orphans of Texas Freemasons. It was a humble project that for years existed quietly on a hillside east of town. Life at the Masonic Home was about to change, though, with the arrival of a lean, bespectacled coach by the name of Rusty Russell. Here was a man who could bring rain in the midst of a drought. Here was a man who, in virtually no time at all, brought the orphans' story into the homes of millions of Americans. In the 1930s and 1940s, there was nothing bigger in Texas high school football than the Masonic Home Mighty Mites—a group of orphans bound together by hardship and death. These youngsters, in spite of being outweighed by at least thirty pounds per man, were the toughest football team around. They began with nothing—not even a football—yet in a few years were playing for the state championship on the highest level of Texas football. This is a winning tribute to a courageous band of underdogs from a time when America desperately needed fresh hope and big dreams. The Mighty Mites remain a notable moment in the long history of American sports. Just as significant is the depth of the inspirational message. This is a profound lesson in fighting back and clinging to faith. The real winners in Texas high school football were not the kids from the biggest schools, or the ones wearing the most expensive uniforms. They were the scrawny kids from a tiny orphanage who wore scarred helmets and faded jerseys that did not match, kids coached by a devoted man who lived on peanuts and drove them around in a smoke-belching old truck. In writing a story of unforgettable characters and great football, Jim Dent has come forward to reclaim his place as one of the top sports authors in America today. A remarkable and inspirational story of an orphanage and the man who created one of the greatest football teams Texas has ever known . . . this is their story—the original Friday Night Lights.

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Concussion - Jeanne Marie Laskas Cover Art

Concussion

Concussion by Jeanne Marie Laskas

NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Dr. Bennet Omalu discovered something he could not ignore. The NFL tried to silence him. His courage would change everything.   “A gripping medical mystery and a dazzling portrait of the young scientist no one wanted to listen to . . . a fabulous, essential read.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks   Jeanne Marie Laskas first met the young forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu in 2009, while reporting a story for  GQ  that would go on to inspire the movie  Concussion . Omalu told her about a day in September 2002, when, in a dingy morgue in downtown Pittsburgh, he picked up a scalpel and made a discovery that would rattle America in ways he’d never intended.  Omalu was new to America, chasing the dream, a deeply spiritual man escaping the wounds of civil war in Nigeria. The body on the slab in front of him belonged to a fifty-year-old named Mike Webster, aka “Iron Mike,” a Hall of Fame center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of the greatest ever to play the game. After retiring in 1990, Webster had suffered a dizzyingly steep decline. Toward the end of his life, he was living out of his van, tasering himself to relieve his chronic pain, and fixing his rotting teeth with Super Glue.  How did this happen?,  Omalu asked himself.  How did a young man like Mike Webster end up like this?   The search for answers would change Omalu’s life forever and put him in the crosshairs of one of the most powerful corporations in America: the National Football League. What Omalu discovered in Webster’s brain—proof that Iron Mike’s mental deterioration was no accident but a disease caused by blows to the head that could affect everyone playing the game—was the one truth the NFL wanted to ignore.   Taut, gripping, and gorgeously told,  Concussion  is the stirring story of one unlikely man’s decision to stand up to a multibillion-dollar colossus, and to tell the world the truth.

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Gridiron Genius - Michael Lombardi Cover Art

Gridiron Genius

Gridiron Genius A Master Class in Building Teams and Winning at the Highest Level by Michael Lombardi

Former NFL general manager and three-time Super Bowl winner Michael Lombardi reveals what makes football organizations tick at the championship level. From personnel to practice to game-day decisions that win titles, Lombardi shares what he learned working with coaching legends Bill Walsh of the 49ers, Al Davis of the Raiders, and Bill Belichick of the Patriots, among others, during his three decades in football. Why do some NFL franchises dominate year after year while others can never crack the code of success? For 30 years Michael Lombardi had a front-row seat and full access as three titans--Bill Walsh, Al Davis, and Bill Belichick--reinvented the game, turning it into a national obsession while piling up Super Bowl trophies. Now, in Gridiron Genius , Lombardi provides the blueprint that makes a successful organization click and win --and the mistakes unsuccessful organizations make that keep them on the losing side time and again.      In reality, very few coaches understand the philosophies, attention to detail, and massive commitment that defined NFL juggernauts like the 49ers and the Patriots. The best organizations are not just employing players, they are building something bigger. Gridiron Genius will explain how the best leaders evaluate, acquire, and utilize personnel in ways other professional minds, football and otherwise, won't even contemplate. How do you know when to trade a player? How do you create a positive atmosphere when everyone is out to maximize his own paycheck? And why is the tight end like the knight on a chessboard?      To some, game planning consists only of designing an attack for the next opponent. But Lombardi explains how the smartest leaders script everything : from an afternoon's special-teams practice to a season's playoff run to a decade-long organizational blueprint. Readers will delight in the Lombardi tour of an NFL weekend, including what really goes on during the game on and off the field and inside the headset. First stop : Belichick's Saturday night staff meeting, where he announces how the game will go the next day. Spoiler alert : He always nails it.      Football dynasties are built through massive attention to detail and unwavering commitment. From how to build a team, to how to watch a game, to understanding the essential qualities of great leaders, Gridiron Genius gives football fans the knowledge to be the smartest person in the room every Sunday.

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Big Game - Mark Leibovich Cover Art

Big Game

Big Game The NFL in Dangerous Times by Mark Leibovich

“A raucous, smash-mouth, first-person takedown of the National Football League." —Wall Street Journal The New York Times bestseller From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of This Town , an equally merciless probing of America's biggest cultural force, pro football, at a moment of peak success and high anxiety Like millions of Americans, Mark Leibovich has spent more of his life tuned into pro football than he'd care to admit. Being a lifelong New England Patriots fan meant growing up on a steady diet of lovable loserdom. That is, until the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick era made the Pats the most ruthlessly efficient and polarizing sports dynasty of the modern NFL, and its fans the most irritating in all of Pigskin America. Leibovich kept his obsession quiet, making a nice career for himself covering that other playground for rich and overgrown children, American politics. Still, every now and then Leibovich would reach out to Tom Brady to gauge his willingness to subject himself to a profile. He figured that the chances of Brady agreeing were a Hail Mary at best, but Brady returned Mark's call in summer 2014 and kept on returning his calls through epic Patriots Super Bowl victory and defeat, and a scandal involving Brady--Deflategate--whose grip on sports media was as profound as its true significance was ridiculous. So began a four-year odyssey that took Mark Leibovich deeper inside the NFL than anyone has gone before. From the owners' meeting to the draft to the sidelines of crucial games, he takes in the show at the elbow of everyone from Brady to big-name owners to the cordially despised NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell. Ultimately, BIG GAME is a chronicle of "peak football"--the high point of the sport's economic success and cultural dominance, but also the time when the dark side began to show. It is an era of explosive revenue growth, but also one of creeping existential fear. Players have long joked that NFL stands for "not for long," but as the true impact of concussions becomes inescapable background noise, it's increasingly difficult to enjoy the simple glory of football without the buzz-kill of its obvious consequences. And that was before Donald Trump. In 2016, Mark's day job caught up with him, and the NFL slammed headlong into America's culture wars. Big Game is a journey through an epic storm. Through it all, Leibovich always keeps one eye on Tom Brady and his beloved Patriots, through to the 2018 Super Bowl. Pro football, this hilarious and enthralling book proves, may not be the sport America needs, but it is most definitely the sport we deserve.

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Death to the BCS - Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter & Jeff Passan Cover Art

Death to the BCS

Death to the BCS The Definitive Case Against the Bowl Championship Series by Dan Wetzel, Josh Peter & Jeff Passan

A team of award-winning sports reporters takes down the Great Satan of college sports: the Bowl Championship Series. Every college sport picks its champion by a postseason tournament, except for one: Division I-A football. Instead of a tournament, fans are subjected to the Bowl Championship Series, an arcane mix of polling and mathematical rankings that results in just two teams playing for the championship. It is, without a doubt, the most hated institution in all of sports. A recent Sports Illustrated poll found that more than 90 percent of sports fans oppose the BCS, yet this system has remained in place for more than a decade. Built upon top-notch investigative reporting, Death to the BCS at last reveals the truth about this monstrous entity and offers a simple solution for fixing it. Death to the BCS includes findings from interviews with power players, as well as research into federal tax records, Congressional testimony, and private contracts, revealing: ?The truth behind the "Cartel"-the anonymous suits who run the BCS and who profit handsomely by protecting it ?The flawed math and corruption that determine which teams participate in the national championship ?How the system hurts competition by perpetuating "cupcake" schedules ?How "mid-major" teams are systematically denied a chance to play for the championship ?How a comprehensive sixteen-team playoff plan can solve the problem while enhancing profitability The first book to lay out the unseemly inner workings of the BCS in full detail, Death to the BCS is a rousing manifesto for bringing fairness back to one of our most beloved sports.

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I Feel Like Going On - Ray Lewis Cover Art

I Feel Like Going On

I Feel Like Going On Life, Game, and Glory by Ray Lewis

In this New York Times bestselling memoir, Ray Lewis—legendary Baltimore Ravens linebacker and one of the greatest defensive players of his generation—holds nothing back on the state of football as well as his troubled childhood, his rise to athletic greatness, the storm that threatened to ruin his NFL career, and the devastating injury that nearly cost him a final moment of glory. Ray Lewis is undeniably one of the biggest names in football—not only for his seventeen years in the NFL, but also for the dramatic events that nearly brought his career to a halt in 2000. In his memoir, Lewis shares honest accounts of his difficult childhood and delves into the anguish and controversy that he found away from the game. But these heartbreaks gave him the courage to trust in God and continue his dream to play for the NFL and win the Super Bowl. From a rookie player to a football veteran, Lewis has experienced everything imaginable during his football career, and has become one of the best defensive players in the history of the NFL. I Feel Like Going On is the story of his incredible journey, and a sincere look at the most popular sport in America from one of football’s most revered players.

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Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football - Rich Cohen Cover Art

Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football

Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football by Rich Cohen

Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football is the New York Times bestselling gripping account of a once-in-a-lifetime team and their lone Super Bowl season. For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the 1985 Chicago Bears were more than a football team: they were the greatest football team ever—a gang of colorful nuts, dancing and pounding their way to victory. They won a Super Bowl and saved a city. It was not just that the Monsters of the Midway won, but how they did it. On offense, there was high-stepping running back Walter Payton and Punky QB Jim McMahon, who had a knack for pissing off Coach Mike Ditka as he made his way to the end zone. On defense, there was the 46: a revolutionary, quarterback-concussing scheme cooked up by Buddy Ryan and ruthlessly implemented by Hall of Famers such as Dan "Danimal" Hampton and "Samurai" Mike Singletary. On the sidelines, in the locker rooms, and in bars, there was the never-ending soap opera: the coach and the quarterback bickering on TV, Ditka and Ryan nearly coming to blows in the Orange Bowl, the players recording the "Super Bowl Shuffle" video the morning after the season's only loss. Cohen tracked down the coaches and players from this iconic team and asked them everything he has always wanted to know: What's it like to win? What's it like to lose? Do you really hate the guys on the other side? Were you ever scared? What do you think as you lie broken on the field? How do you go on after you have lived your dream but life has not ended? The result is Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football , a portrait not merely of a team but of a city and a game: its history, its future, its fallen men, its immortal heroes. But mostly it's about being a fan—about loving too much. This is a book about America at its most nonsensical, delirious, and joyful.

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Collision Low Crossers - Nicholas Dawidoff Cover Art

Collision Low Crossers

Collision Low Crossers A Year Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football by Nicholas Dawidoff

An unrivaled portrait of day-to-day life in the NFL: "Riveting . . . an instant classic" ( New York Times Book Review ). By spending a year with the New York Jets, Nicholas Dawidoff entered a mysterious and private world with its own rituals and language. Equal parts Paper Lion , Moneyball , Friday Night Lights , and The Office , this absorbing, funny, and vivid narrative gets to the heart of a massive and stressful collective endeavor. Here is football in many faces: the polarizing, brilliant, and hilarious head coach; the general manager, whose job is to support (and suppress) the irrepressible coach; the defensive coaches and their in-house rivals, the offensive coaches; and of course the players. Wise safeties, brooding linebackers, high-strung cornerbacks, enthusiastic rookies, and a well-read nose tackle: they make up a strange and complex family. Dawidoff makes an emblematic NFL season come alive for fans and nonfans alike in a book about football that will forever change the way people watch and think about the sport.

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The Last Headbangers: NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s: the Era that Created Modern Sports - Kevin Cook Cover Art

The Last Headbangers: NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s: the Era that Created Modern Sports

The Last Headbangers: NFL Football in the Rowdy, Reckless '70s: the Era that Created Modern Sports by Kevin Cook

The inside story of the most colorful decade in NFL history—pro football’s raging, hormonal, hairy, druggy, immortal adolescence. Between the Immaculate Reception in 1972 and The Catch in 1982, pro football grew up. In 1972, Steelers star Franco Harris hitchhiked to practice. NFL teams roomed in skanky motels. They played on guts, painkillers, legal steroids, fury, and camaraderie. A decade later, Joe Montana’s gleamingly efficient 49ers ushered in a new era: the corporate, scripted, multibillion-dollar NFL we watch today. Kevin Cook’s rollicking chronicle of this pivotal decade draws on interviews with legendary players—Harris, Montana, Terry Bradshaw, Roger Staubach, Ken “Snake” Stabler—to re-create their heroics and off-field carousing. He shows coaches John Madden and Bill Walsh outsmarting rivals as Monday Night Football redefined sports’ place in American life. Celebrating the game while lamenting the physical toll it took on football’s greatest generation, Cook diagrams the NFL’s transformation from second-tier sport into national obsession.

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Fourth and Long - John U. Bacon Cover Art

Fourth and Long

Fourth and Long The Fight for the Soul of College Football by John U. Bacon

From New York Times bestselling author and Michigan football expert John Back, an analysis of the state of college football: Why we love the game, what is at risk, and the fight to save it. In search of the sport’s old ideals amid the roaring flood of hypocrisy and greed, bestselling author John U. Bacon embedded himself in four college football programs—Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and Northwestern—and captured the oldest, biggest, most storied league, the Big Ten, at its tipping point. He sat in as coaches dissected game film, he ate dinner at training tables, and he listened in locker rooms. He talked with tailgating fans and college presidents, and he spent months in the company of the gifted young athletes who play the game. Fourth and Long reveals intimate scenes behind closed doors, from a team’s angry face-off with their athletic director to a defensive lineman acing his master’s exams in theoretical math. It captures the private moment when coach Urban Meyer earned the devotion of Ohio State’s Buckeyes on their way to a perfect season. It shows Michigan’s athletic department endangering the very traditions that distinguish the college game from all others. And it re-creates the euphoria of the Northwestern Wildcats winning their first bowl game in decades. Most unforgettably, Fourth and Long finds what the national media missed in the ugly aftermath of Penn State’s tragic scandal: the unheralded story of players who joined forces with Coach Bill O’Brien to save the university’s treasured program—and with it, a piece of the game’s soul. This is the work of a writer in love with an old game—a game he sees at the precipice. Bacon’s deep knowledge of sports history and his sensitivity to the tribal subcultures of the college game power this elegy to a beloved and endangered American institution.

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Brady vs Manning - Gary Myers Cover Art

Brady vs Manning

Brady vs Manning The Untold Story of the Rivalry That Transformed the NFL by Gary Myers

New York Times Bestseller  From Acclaimed sports journalist Gary Myers comes the definitive inside account of the greatest rivalry in NFL history Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are perhaps the two greatest quarterbacks of all time. They are living legends who have come to embody the quarterback position and shape an entire generation of the NFL. They have also been fierce rivals every step of the way, and their many epic duels have not only ranked among the best and most exciting games ever played, they have fundamentally shaped the lives of and careers of both men. But for all their shared brilliance, they are a study in contrasts. Tom is the underdog turned ultimate winner, an unheralded draft pick who went on to win a miraculous Super Bowl and become the leader of one of the NFL’s greatest dynasties. He is as firmly associated with big game brilliance as anyone who has ever played. Meanwhile Peyton was born into NFL royalty and a mountain of outsized expectations, yet somehow lived up to and exceeded all the hype, claiming virtually every passing record along his path to football immortality. The contrast in greatness—between the overachieving underdog and the crown prince of football, between postseason brilliance and statistical dominance—has served as an endless source of fascination for fans and media, and over the years as the two players have faced off again and again in classic games, the argument has only intensified. But until now, there has never been a definitive treatment of the debate that tells the real story. What do Tom and Peyton actually think of each other? What do their coaches think of them? What about teammates and opposing players? What are they like behind closed doors and in the locker room, and how does that influence their careers? How did their vastly different upbringings shape them, and how has each handled the injuries, setbacks and defeats they’ve dealt with over their careers? In this extraordinary book, veteran NFL correspondent Gary Myers tackles this subject from every angle and with unprecedented access and insight, drawing on a huge number of never-before-heard interviews with Brady and Manning, their coaches, their families, and those who have played with them and against them. The result is a remarkable collection of the most entertaining and revealing stories ever told about Peyton and Tom, from how they developed their vastly different leadership styles, to the unlikely friendship they’ve built over the years, to their respective exploits as locker room pranksters. Wildly entertaining and deeply thought-provoking, Brady vs Manning is essential reading for anyone who truly wants to understand these extraordinary players.

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Coaching Confidential - Gary Myers Cover Art

Coaching Confidential

Coaching Confidential Inside the Fraternity of NFL Coaches by Gary Myers

A behind-the-scenes look at the high-pressure lives of NFL head coaches Coaching Confidential chronicles a year in the life of an NFL head coach. But not just one head coach. A composite portrait is drawn through interviews with at least 20 current and former head coaches (including Super Bowl winners such as Bill Parcells, Tom Coughlin, Jimmy Johnson, Tony Dungy, Sean Payton, Mike Shanahan, Dick Vermeil, Mike Holmgren, Brian Billick, and Joe Gibbs), taking us through the professional and personal challenges of the job. This book covers the draft, free agency, big trades, training camp, family crisis, player troubles, coaching relationships with members of the staff, coach-owner dynamics, rivalries, Xs and Os, the playoffs--all the way to the Super Bowl.      Just getting to Sunday is almost a relief for NFL head coaches. It's during that three-hour window 16 days a year when they can simply concentrate on what they do best, which is trying to win football games. But the job is, of course, much more than that.

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Next Man Up - John Feinstein Cover Art

Next Man Up

Next Man Up A Year Behind the Lines in Today's NFL by John Feinstein

In the NFL there is only one certainty: that every day, someone will have to be the Next Man Up. Football is an unrelentingly punishing sport, played and practiced at undiminished intensity, and it devours its players. Confronting injuries, trades, and the grim reality of competition, every NFL team prepares constantly for the likelihood -- the certainty -- that even franchise players can go down at any time. And someone new must be ready, trained, and primed to step in at the highest level. Bestselling sportswriter John Feinstein persuaded one NFL team to lift the extraordinary secrecy that shrouds the sport and let him see how a team operates at the closest level. One team let him join every practice, every coaches' meeting, every players' gathering, every strategy debate. From the give-and-take of draft day, into the grinder of summer training camps, and from 100-degree practice games to the last game in frigid conditions, Feinstein reveals how a football team works -- or fails to work -- as no writer has done before. Next Man Up unveils rituals (what a coach tells a player at the moment he cuts him); rules (the inanities of league-appointed "uniform Nazis"); conflicts (the scouts vs. the coaches, the general managers vs. the agents, the offense vs. the defense, the special teams coaches vs. everybody); money (how much a journeyman makes, and how his life differs from the multi-million-dollar-a-year star players)-every nuance of a team's life, from the owner's goals to the coach's day-to-day travails to the feeling of the sleet-soaked ball in the hands of a receiver on artificial turf. The access John Feinstein enjoyed allows him to discuss with equal understanding the owner's management strategy, the coaches' and coordinators' plans for each new game, and how it all affects the players themselves. Anyone who loves football -- any team, in any era -- will savor the thousands of details revealed here for the first time, and the extraordinary drama that goes into following week after week, the most sensational sport in America.

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Tim Tebow - Belmont & Belcourt Biographies Cover Art

Tim Tebow

Tim Tebow An Unauthorized Biography by Belmont & Belcourt Biographies

Tim Tebow is one of the most talked about athletes of all-time. Everybody seems to have an opinion about him – especially his religious beliefs. But in order to truly understand Tim Tebow, you must first understand where he came from. Tim Tebow: An Unauthorized Biography , explores Tebow’s upbringing, his high school and college football career, and details his breakthrough into the NFL – all the way through his trade to the New York Jets . “Tebow-mania” has fans and critics alike questioning his motives and looking for where God and his career will take him next. By reading this book you will find out where it all started and learn why so many fans are “Tebowing” alongside their new national hero. From family to football to the future, all you need to know about Tim Tebow is right here, right now, in the most up-to-date coverage of Tim Tebow’s life. This book also includes all of Tim Tebow’s college and professional football statistics.

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The Cost of These Dreams - Wright Thompson Cover Art

The Cost of These Dreams

The Cost of These Dreams Sports Stories and Other Serious Business by Wright Thompson

The instant New York Times bestseller! From one of America's most beloved sportswriters and the bestselling author of Pappyland , a collection of true stories about the dream of greatness and its cost in the world of sports. "Wright Thompson's stories are so full of rich characters, bad actors, heroes, drama, suffering, courage, conflict, and vivid detail that I sometimes thinks he's working my side of the street - the world of fiction." - John Grisham There is only one Wright Thompson. He is, as they say, famous if you know who he is: his work includes the most read articles in the history of ESPN (and it's not even close) and has been anthologized in the Best American Sports Writing series ten times, and he counts John Grisham and Richard Ford among his ardent admirers (see back of book). But to say his pieces are about sports, while true as far as it goes, is like saying Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove is a book about a cattle drive. Wright Thompson figures people out. He jimmies the lock to the furnaces inside the people he profiles and does an analysis of the fuel that fires their ambition. Whether it be Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods or Pat Riley or Urban Meyer, he strips the away the self-serving myths and fantasies to reveal his characters in full. There are fascinating common denominators: it may not be the case that every single great performer or coach had a complex relationship with his father, but it can sure seem that way. And there is much marvelous local knowledge: about specific sports, and times and places, and people. Ludicrously entertaining and often powerfully moving, The Cost of These Dreams is an ode to the reporter's art, and a celebration of true greatness and the high price that it exacts.

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When the Game Stands Tall - Neil Hayes, John Madden & Bob Larson Cover Art

When the Game Stands Tall

When the Game Stands Tall The Story of the De La Salle Spartans and Football's Longest Winning Streak by Neil Hayes, John Madden & Bob Larson

De La Salle High School in Concord, California, is home to perhaps the greatest dynasty in sports history. At age 23, Coach Bob Ladouceur launched a legend, "The Streak," with no teaching or head-coaching experience, and with his teams amassed the highest winning percentage in all of football history with 138 consecutive victories. This book takes readers behind the scenes, closely following individual players, as Ladouceur guides his team through the most daunting schedule in school history, the 2002 season. Numerous interviews with major-league coaches such as Bill Walsh, Steve Mariucci, and John Gruden show the depth of respect accorded to Ladouceur and his methods and philosophies. Written with full cooperation from the coach and including dozens of photographs, this book is perfect for anyone interested in the factors behind phenomenal team success.

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