The Long Snapper: A Second Chance, a Super Bowl, a Lesson for Life


Jeffrey Marx - 2009
    Marx, the New York Times bestselling author of Season of Life, tells of Brian Kinchen’s remarkable journey from Bible teacher to New England Patriot to Super Bowl champion in this transcendent tale of football and faith.

Building a Champion: On Football and the Making of the 49ers


Bill Walsh - 1990
    The celebrated coach shares his philosophy of football, profiles players he has coached, and recounts key moments in his career.

Bud, Sweat & Tees: A Walk on the Wild Side of the PGA Tour


Alan Shipnuck - 2001
    The Tour is home to rowdy, randy young men often drunk with money and fame; fueled by alcohol and adrenaline, they barnstorm from town to town like rock stars, with all the attendant excesses. And in each player's shadow is his faithful caddie -- performing a thankless six-figure job that comes with all the security of a handshake deal. The PGA Tour offers fabulous rewards, but its good life does not come without a price. In Bud, Sweat, and Tees, Alan Shipnuck takes a no-holds-barred look at modern professional golf. Rich Beem, the hero of our story, joined the Tour as the most clueless of rookies, a logo-free rube only a couple of years removed from the straight world, where he made seven dollars an hour hawking cell phones. Beem took his winnings from big-money matches all across the state of Texas and scraped together enough to go out on Tour, but as he would quickly find out, getting to the big leagues is only half the battle. The fun-loving Beem, more likely to pound beers than range balls, first struggled to fit in among the country-club brats who populate the pro golf scene, and then had to fight to survive the cutthroat competition and crushing self-doubt. Staying true to his girl back home would prove equally challenging.Meanwhile, Steve Duplantis, the one-time golden boy of the Tour's caddie ranks, was enduring his own tribulations. At the tender age of twenty-one Duplantis began packing for Jim Furyk, and together they reached the pinnacle of the golf world, from Ryder Cup dustups to near misses at the Masters. But like Beem, Duplantis has a taste for thewild life, which helps explain how he wound up as a single dad, trying to balance the demands of fatherhood with the siren song of the road -- a juggling act that eventually cost him his lucrative job on Furyk's bag. Fate brought Duplantis and Beem together, and in their first tournament, the Kemper Open, they pulled off one of the most improbable triumphs in golf history.What happens next, at this unlikely intersection of lives and careers? How does a lifelong underdog like Beem handle overnight fame and fortune? Would Duplantis make good on this second chance and turn his career, and maybe his life, around? And would Beem and Duplantis's partnership survive the course of a turbulent season chock full of enough misadventures to land them in a Scottish jail?"Bud, Sweat, and Tees" is a sometimes bawdy, often hilarious, and always unpredictable account of a strange and magical year in the lives, on and off the course, of golfer and caddie. An exciting and often poignant story, it stands as the best insider's sports book since Jim Bouton's Ball Four, and marks Alan Shipnuck as a writer of extraordinary promise.

Duke Sucks: A Completely Evenhanded, Unbiased Investigation into the Most Evil Team on Planet Earth


Reed Tucker - 2012
    It's like a nasty virus you catch from a door handle at a public toilet.No team in sports is as uniquely hated as those smug, entitled, floor-slapping, fist-pumping, insufferable Blue Devils. The loathing has almost reached the level of a religion. Christian Laettner is a punk. Amen. The Cameron Crazies are obnoxious. The Plumlees are worthless times three. Coach K is a jerk. Kumbaya.The team is dogged by an intense hatred that no other team can match—and for good reason. Millions of hoops fans and March Madness aficionados around the world are not imagining things. Duke really is evil, and within the pages of Duke Sucks, Reed Tucker and Andy Bagwell show readers exactly why Duke deserves to be so detested. They bruise and batter the Blue Devils with fact after fact, story after story, statistic after statistic. They build an airtight case that could stand up in a court of law.So sit back in your "I Hate Duke" t-shirt, and in true Duke fashion, force someone poorer than you to do your work as you crack open the ultimate guide to Duke suckitude.

Just Show Up: And Other Enduring Values from Baseball's Iron Man


Cal Ripken Jr. - 2019
    is a baseball legend. But legends arent born, theyre made. For twenty-one seasons Ripken took the field day in and day out, through cold, heat, rain, and sometimes snow, playing in more than 3,000 games for the Baltimore Orioles. In 1983, the revered shortstop helped lead his team to victory in the World Series. On September 6, 1995, Ripken did the seemingly impossible, he surpassed Lou Gehrigs unbreakable fifty-six-year-old Iron Man record, setting a new mark of 2131 consecutive gamesthen played another 501 consecutive games. Throughout his career, Ripken was admired for his consistency, hard work, and loyalty. There were successes and failures, but above all was an old-fashioned sense of doing whats right, every single day.Since retiring in 2001, Ripken has enjoyed a successful career as a baseball analyst, entrepreneur, and author. Now, In An Iron Life, he reflects on his life and career to offer lessons for the next generation and those to come. Ripken speaks eloquently about the timeless values he has lived by: Life is a streakplay the long game; Success and money are not the same; Play fairwin fair. And he shares stories of his legendary father, Baltimore Oriole coach and manager Cal Ripken Sr., what it took to keep the streak alive, and what it meant to bring the World Series to Baltimore.Cal Ripkens message is simple yet poignant; wisdom essential to anyone trying to forge a successful life in times that are often chaotic. Blending insights from sports, business, and a life well-lived, An Iron Life is the story of an American legend and the principles he has lived bystandards our time needs.

Gold Dust Woman: A Biography of Stevie Nicks


Stephen Davis - 2017
    Just as Nicks (and Lindsay Buckingham) gave Fleetwood Mac the shot of adrenaline they needed to become real rock stars--according to Christine McVie--Gold Dust Woman is vibrant with stories and with a life lived large and hard: ●How Nicks and Buckingham were asked to join Fleetwood Mac and how they turned the band into stars ●The affairs that informed Nicks' greatest songs ●Her relationships with the Eagles' Don Henley and Joe Walsh, and with Fleetwood himself ●Why Nicks married her best friend's widower ●Her dependency on cocaine, drinking and pot, but how it was a decade-long addiction to Klonopin that almost killed her ●Nicks' successful solo career that has her still performing in venues like Madison Square Garden ●The cult of Nicks and its extension to chart-toppers like Taylor Swift and the Dixie Chicks

Dear Me: More Letters to my Sixteen Year Old Self


Joseph Galliano - 2011
    J.K. Rowling, Hugh Jackman, Kathleen Turner, Stan Lee, James Belushi, Moon Zappa, Seth Green, Piers Morgan, Jodi Picoult, Stephen King, Phil Ramone, Michael Winner, Alan Cumming, Jerry Springer, Armistead Maupin, E from The Eels, Ferran Adrià, Rose McGowan, James Woods or Gillian Anderson.It is the perfect gift for your mum or dad, sister or brother, gran or granddad, or someone who is a teenager, even turning 16.

Wide-Eyed and Legless


Jeff Connor - 1988
    In this new edition of 'Wide-Eyed and Legless', Connor describes in detail what it takes to compete, survive and win during those 26 days of gruelling effort in the name of sport.

Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend


Larry Tye - 2009
    This is the definitive biography of a black showman-athlete. The author interviewed more than 200 veteran fellow players of the Negro and Major Leagues.

Straw: Finding My Way


Darryl Strawberry - 2009
    A National League Rookie of the Year, eight-time MLB All Star, and four-time World Series Champion, Strawberry’s baseball achievements were often overshadowed by his struggles off the field. In Straw, he tells it all: his boyhood in Crenshaw, Los Angeles; his rise to baseball superstardom; the high life and low life; his brushes with the law; his triumphant battle over cancer; his religious awakening, and his marriage to the love of his life.

Best Seat in the House: Your Backstage Pass Through My WWE Journey


Justin Roberts - 2017
    From playing with action figures of the Ultimate Warrior, the "Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels, Bret "Hitman" Hart and Hulk Hogan to actually announcing these larger-than-life characters to the ring, Roberts lived out the dream of countless, passionate wrestling fans worldwide. Best Seat in the House is the inspirational story of Roberts' ambitious journey to becoming a full-time ring announcer at WWEperforming all over the world and announcing weekly live events, TV shows, and the enormously popular pay-per-view spectacularsfor more than a decade.In addition to announcing the top wrestlers in sports entertainment from "Nature Boy" Ric Flair, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, Sgt. Slaughter, King Kong Bundy and the Iron Sheik to Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, John Cena, Brock Lesnar, CM Punk, Chris Jericho and the Undertaker, Roberts also relives entertaining and candid moments with his real-life superhero co-workers, workplace politics, grueling travel schedules, harsh requirements of WWE talent, and the overall merciless treatment from the higher-ups whose decisions can affect nearly the entire wrestling industry.This book is the all-access backstage pass for those who have always wondered what it would be like to work at WWE under the infamous Vince McMahon and travel all over the world in cars, buses and planes with the biggest stars of professional wrestling.Justin Roberts pulls no punches and gives you an uncensored, raw look at the journey of a young man chasing, catching and living his dream.

Shunt: The Story of James Hunt


Tom Rubython - 2010
    In this account of his life, the author has examined every detail of the driver's life - from his very earliest days to the last hours of his existence - as well as the lives of those he left behind.

Lucky Bastard: My Life, My Dad, and the Things I'm Not Allowed to Say on TV


Joe Buck - 2016
    They know his father, Jack Buck, is a broadcasting legend and that he was beloved in his adopted hometown of Saint Louis.   Yet they have no idea who Joe really is. Or how he got here. They don't know how he almost blew his career. They haven't read his funniest and most embarrassing stories or heard about his interactions with the biggest sports stars of this era.They don't know how hard he can laugh at himself—or that he thinks some of his critics have a point. And they don't know what it was really like to grow up in his father's shadow. Joe and Jack were best friends but it wasn't that simple. Jack gave Joe his broadcasting start but it wasn't that easy. And Joe's childhood as the son of a famous broadcaster was not as idyllic as it seemed. In Lucky Bastard, Joe takes the reader into the broadcast booth and into his childhood home. Hilarious and occasionally heartbreaking, this is a book that any sports fan will love.

A Season in the Sun


Lars Anderson - 2021
    An unprecedented inside look at the Tampa Bay Bucs’ Super Bowl-winning season, written with the participation of Coach Bruce Arians, Tom Brady and the Bucs’ key staff and players.

Miracle at Merion: The Inspiring Story of Ben Hogan's Amazing Comeback and Victory at the 1950 U.S. Open


David B. Barrett - 2010
    The crowning moment of Hogan’s comeback was his dramatic victory in the1950 U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club near Philadelphia, where his battered legs could barely carry him on the 36-hole final day.Miracle at Merion tells the stirring story of Hogan’s triumph over adversity—the rarely-performed surgery that saved his life, the months of rehabilitation when he couldn’t even hit a golf ball, his stunning return to competition at the Los Angeles Open, and,finally, the U.S. Open triumph that returned him to the pinnacle of the game.While Hogan was severely injured in the accident, fracturing his pelvis, collarbone, rib, and ankle, his life wasn’t in danger until two weeks later when blood clots developed in his leg, necessitating emergency surgery. Hogan didn’t leave the hospital until April and didn’t even touch a golf club until August. It wasn’t until November,more than nine months after the accident, that he was able to go to the range to hit balls. Hogan’s performance at the Los Angeles Open in early January convinced Hollywood to make a movie out of his life and comeback (Follow the Sun, starring Glenn Ford).Five months later, Hogan completed his miraculous comeback by winning the U.S. Open in a riveting 36-hole playoff against Lloyd Mangrum and George Fazio, permanently cementing his legacy as one of the sport’s true legends.