The Language of the Game: How to Understand Soccer


Laurent Dubois - 2018
    The Language of the Game is a passionate and engaging introduction to soccer's history, tactics, and human drama. Profiling soccer's full cast of characters -- goalies and position players, referees and managers, commentators and fans -- historian and soccer scholar Laurent Dubois describes how the game's low scores, relentless motion, and spectacular individual performances combine to turn each match into a unique and unpredictable story. He also shows how soccer's global reach makes it an unparalleled theater for nationalism, international conflict, and human interconnectedness, with close attention to both men's and women's soccer.Filled with perceptive insights and stories both legendary and little known, The Language of the Game is a rewarding read for anyone seeking to understand soccer better -- newcomers and passionate followers alike.

NFL Century: The One-Hundred-Year Rise of America's Greatest Sports League


Joe Horrigan - 2019
    In the hundred years that have passed since that fateful day, the former scrappy upstart league that once struggled to stay afloat has become America's most popular and lucrative professional sport. Along the way it has survived a host of challenges--the Great Depression and WW2, controversies and scandals, battles over labor rights and competition from rival leagues--even as it has produced American icons like Vince Lombardi, Joe Montana and Tom Brady. It is an extraordinary and entertaining history that could only be told by Joe Horrigan, Executive Director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and perhaps the greatest living historian of the NFL. By drawing upon decades of NFL archives, Joe has written the definitive history of the NFL. Compelling, eye-opening and authoritative, NFL Century is a must-read for NFL fans and anyone who loves the game of football.

Winning Fantasy Baseball: Secret Strategies of a Nine-Time National Champion


Larry Schechter - 2014
    Play to win. Play like a champion.In Winning Fantasy Baseball, Larry Schechter discloses the secrets of his proven methods. Packed with commonsense, easy-to-use strategies for beginners through experienced players, Schechter supplies readers with a toolkit to achieve the most important thing in fantasy ball--winning! Some have called Schechter one of the best fantasy baseball players in the world. He is the only two-time winner of the CDM Sports national salary-cap challenge, having defeated 7,500 competitors in 2002 and 6,000 in 2005. He is also a five-time winner of the renowned Tout Wars experts league and a member of the USA Today-sponsored League of Alternative Baseball Reality (LABR).Readers will learn directly from the champ everything they need to know about:- how to project player stats;- how to convert those stats into a specific value;- strategy for snake drafts, and mono-league and mixed auctions;- selecting teams using a salary cap;- playing in keeper leagues;- and performing in-season management.Although the book is primarily about fantasy baseball, many of the concepts also apply to fantasy football and other fantasy sports.

Totally Frank: The Autobiography of Frank Lampard


Frank Lampard - 2006
    In his book, Lampard opens up on his early years, how he dealt with the fame and fortune that has come his way since becoming a key member of the England side, his frank opinions on former England boss Sven-Goran Eriksson and his manager at Chelsea Jose Mourinho, fascinating insights into Roman Abramovich and revealing tales on his current team-mates. He reveals both the privileges and the pressures of being one of the 'golden generation' of England players. He gives a fascinating inside account of World Cup 2006 in Germany, and describes the disappointment of not fulfilling the dream of bringing the biggest prize in football back to England.

State of Play: Under the Skin of the Modern Game


Michael Calvin - 2018
    *** Award-winning author of The Nowhere Men, Living on the Volcano and No Hunger in Paradise returns with his magnum opus on the state of modern football ***First he revealed the extraordinary lives of football scouts in The Nowhere Men.Next he unearthed the pressures on football managers in Living on the Volcano.Then he chronicled the hardships of young players striving to make it in No Hunger in Paradise.Now in State of Play, in what marks the pinnacle of a career investigating the human stories of football, award-winning writer Michael Calvin turns his eye to the biggest story of all - the game itself.From mental health to money, concussion to Champions league, fan-owners to oligarchs, women's football to world cups, Calvin gets under the skin of the beautiful game, and reveals why it is truly the game of our lives.Based on hundreds of hours of interviews with leading figures around the world, from Arsene Wenger to Steven Gerrard, Calvin reveals the winners, the losers, the politics, the pleasure, the hope, and the despair of the world's most popular sport.

The Football Man: People & Passions in Soccer


Arthur Hopcraft - 1968
    This definitive, magisterial study of football and society profiles includes interviews with all-time greats like Bobby Charlton, George Best, Alf Ramsay, Stanley Matthews, Matt Busby and Nat Lofthouse. It is a snapshot of a pivotal era in sporting history; changes and decisions were made in the sixties that would create the game we know today.

The Accidental Footballer


Pat Nevin - 2021
    

Terry Mac: Living For The Moment: My Autobiography


Terry McDermott - 2017
    Scally kid from Kirkby turned multiple European Cup winner. Adopted Geordie. Liverpool legend and scorer of arguably Anfield’s most famous goal. Kevin Keegan’s trusted right-hand man at Newcastle United. And partial to a pint or five and a punt on the horses. Now, for the first time, the 1980 PFA Player of the Year and Football Writers’ Footballer of the Year lifts the lid on his successes at Liverpool, the near misses at Newcastle, controversies he found himself caught up in and the famous players he shared a dressing room with. It’s a roller-coaster tale spanning more than half a century that takes McDermott from the high-rise flats of his home town to the pinnacle of European football; from the booze and banter of a Merseyside social club to the madness of a matchday dugout. A read every bit as thrilling as his FA Cup wonder goal against Tottenham, McDermott’s long-awaited autobiography will appeal to Kopites and Toon fans alike, plus football followers intrigued about one of the most colourful characters in the game. Like the man himself, Terry Mac: Living For The Moment is cheerful, entertaining and straight to the point.

The Express: The Ernie Davis Story


Robert C. Gallagher - 1983
    . . except one.”–plaque honoring Ernie Davis, in the lobby of Elmira Free AcademyErnie Davis was an All-American on the gridiron, and a man of integrity off the field. A multi-sport high school star in Elmira, New York, Davis went on to Syracuse University, where as a sophomore he led his team to an undefeated season and a national championship in 1959, and earned his nickname, the Elmira Express. Two seasons later, Davis had broken the legendary Jim Brown’s rushing records, and became the first black athlete to be awarded the Heisman Trophy. The number one pick in the 1962 NFL draft, Davis signed a contract with the Cleveland Browns and appeared to be headed for professional stardom. But Davis never ended up playing in the NFL: He was diagnosed with leukemia during the summer before his rookie season and succumbed to the disease less than a year later. In battling his illness, Davis showed great dignity and courage, inspired the nation, and moved President John F. Kennedy to eulogize him as “ an outstanding man of great character.”An enduring story of a true scholar-athlete, The Express is a touching, impeccably researched, deeply personal portrait of Ernie Davis, and a vivid look at sport in America at the dawn of the Civil Rights era.

Bump and Run


Mike Lupica - 2000
    But when Jack Molloy inherits half of the NFL's New York Hawks, he must take a crash course in steroids, gambling, crooked quarterbacks, control-freak coaches, and idiot sportswriters. As an instant celebrity, he has to steel himself for a season in tabloid hell.

A Girl Raised by Wolves: An inspiring memoir of one woman's journey through sex trafficking, cancer, murder and more.


Lockey Maisonneuve - 2018
    town, an adolescent girl is unwittingly handed a one-way ticket by her mother to allegedly "visit" her estranged father in Florida. Young and vulnerable, Lockey Maisonnueve has no idea she is being abandoned and sent to live with a vile and dangerous pedophile who would spend the next several years violently raping, abusing and mercilessly selling his daughter's body into childhood prostitution to other adult men. After being rescued by her naive, but well-intentioned, grandparents, her troubled life is further devastated by cancer and ravaged by the subsequent brutal murder of her mother, in which Lockey is briefly considered a suspect. "A Girl Raised by Wolves' is the inspirational memoir of a survivor of the darkest circumstances one can endure in a single lifetime and still emerge with a sense of humor and to defiantly proclaim "they didn't break me!"

The Joke Man: Bow to Stern


Jackie Martling - 2017
    Jackie saw it all, and in The Joke Man: Bow to Stern he shares personal stories as well a look from behind the scenes at one of the highest-rated radio shows of all time. You’ll also get his take on his falling out with Howard and the show, and plenty of the raunchy, laugh-out–loud humor that Jackie “The Joke Man” is famous for. So sit back, relax, and enjoy as “The Joke Man” riffs on his one-of-a-kind career in show business, Howard Stern and the gang, and his very unique life—an American success story like no other.

Flip the Script: Lessons Learned on the Road to a Championship


Ed Orgeron - 2020
    In Flip the Script you will learn the life-changing lessons of leadership and determination Coach O discovered on the road to a championship. Ed Orgeron, head coach of the record-breaking national champion LSU Tigers football team, tells the inspiring story of reversing the team's fortunes and culture, as well as his own remarkable leadership journey from disappointment and setback to the apex of college sports.The storybook football season for the LSU Tigers in 2019 was the stuff of legend: a team with recently unmet expectations became the undefeated national champion with a Heisman trophy-winning transfer quarterback under the leadership of a coach whose previous coaching stops had been disappointments. Yet that coach, Ed Orgeron, had turned everything around. He flipped the script, transforming a program that lately had not reached its potential into a team of unprecedented dominance. Flip the Script is the story of how it happened, with lessons for anyone who wants to succeed. Telling the story of his own journey that culminated in the Cinderella season, Orgeron highlights the traits he learned are necessary for success:an ability and willingness to learn from mistakes,the necessity of perseverance,recognizing and focusing on what you’re truly good at,building unity, andovercoming hardship.The road to success is never easy, as Ed Orgeron's life reveals. But his life also shows that with determination and a willingness to learn from experience, your trajectory can change--your script can be flipped--and you can achieve more than you ever dreamed.

Paper Lion: Confessions of a Last-String Quarterback


George Plimpton - 1966
    Displaying his characteristic wit and insight, Paper Lion was met with both critical and commercial success, and inspired a movie starring Alan Alda. The late

I Am Third: The Inspiration for Brian's Song


Gale Sayers - 1970
    "Gale Sayers' book I Am Third, with Al Silverman, is a stirring, painfully honest account of his struggle to become the greatest running back in history and that agonizing moment between immortality and becoming a cripple."—The New York Times Book Review