Book picks similar to
Les Canadiens by Rick Salutin
hockey
non-fiction
plays
sports
The Deal: Inside the World of a Super-Agent
Jon Smith - 2016
. . an in-depth excavation of the murky and mysterious world of football business. Smith's candid and often shocking book reveals the true workings of football business that take into account things few of us even could even imagine . . . The Deal answers some of those questions and leaves you wanting more. It is an educational tool that most fans could do with researching' Joe Short, ExpressFootball analysis has grown at the same exponential rate as the sport's popularity and yet one of its most intrinsic elements remains tantalisingly opaque: the role of 'agent'. The Deal is a unique and fascinating perspective into the business of sports management through the eyes of 'Mr Football', 'super-agent', Jon Smith. 800,000 watch their professional football team play each week and TV pulls in audiences of around 600 million. Despite these phenomenal figures, the complex money-making scene behind sport is one of its biggest mysteries. The Deal will be an unprecedented insight into this world, showing what goes on as players and big money change hands. The Deal is also the story of one of the shrewdest and most successful businessmen of our time. Documented through Jon's personal rollercoaster of high-flying success to near bankruptcy, the book's over-arching narrative will offer an inspiring personal journey as well as insider knowledge of brokering deals at a high level and under extreme pressure. The Deal will appeal strongly to buyers of business books as well as a significant number of sports fans interested to know what goes on in the back room of their favourite sport.
Fishing on the Edge
Mike Iaconelli - 2005
In Fishing on the Edge, Iaconelli tells his own story–and it’s a whopper: a Philly-born, Jersey-bred Yankee who’s been stealing the spotlight from bass fishing’s traditionally all-Southern anglers, attracting fans and dominating one of the fastest-growing sports in America.How did Mike Iaconelli, a college-educated kid from New Jersey, come blasting into a sport dominated by old-school stars like Gary Klein, Kevin VanDam, and Denny Brauer? How did Mike, aka “Ike,” take a secret childhood passion and turn it into a profession, earning million-dollar sponsorships and a storm of media attention, ranging from ESPN’s SportsCenter to profiles in The New York Times and Esquire? While Mike has attracted both fans and foes on the tour, his success speaks for itself, especially his victory at the 2003 CITGO Bassmaster Classic, the Super Bowl of competitive fishing.Forty-four million Americans fish, but no one does it quite like Mike Iaconelli. In Fishing on the Edge, he lets you in on the secrets to his extraordinary success–how he developed his “power” fishing style, how he attacks the water, positions the boat, and perseveres through those days when the bass just aren’t biting. With sidebar tips that can be used by any fisherman–from using spinner baits to picking out the right rod to his no-fail “secret weapons”–this is an intensive, informative, and often raucous journey through the life of a brash young man destined to do for fishing what Tony Hawk did for the X Games: take the sport to a whole new level. At the same time, it’s the compelling first-person story of a man who prepared carefully every step of the way, kept notes on every fish he ever caught, and executed the perfect plan to get to the top.A tale of passion, competition, and extreme personality, Fishing on the Edge is a book for anyone who loves the sport of fishing, wants to turn a hobby into a career, or is simply fascinated by a man’s unstoppable drive to succeed.From the Hardcover edition.
Best Seat in the House
Spike Lee - 1998
The first is professional basketball's metamorphosis from a fringe sport whose championship games would air tape-delayed at 11:30 p.m., after the local news had already given the scores, to become the big-money sports spectacular it is today, filled with outrageously inflated salaries and egos. The other journey is that of Shelton Jackson Lee himself, who has gone from a skinny kid playing ball on the streets of Brooklyn, sneaking into Madison Square Garden to watch his beloved Knicks, to Morehouse College and NYU film school, to being a world-renowned film director and hoops fan. The book charts Spike's artistic journey from his first college film (Super 8), called "Last Hustle in Brooklyn," and his gradual move down from the raucous, nosebleed blue seats just below the Garden's rafters, closer and closer to the on-court action until, in the year "Malcolm X" was released, Spike landed the coveted courtside seats he has today - the best seats in the house. From there, his blue-seat emotions, transplanted to within arm's reach of the action, have led to numerous confrontations with refs and opposing players - some of them public, like the notorious Reggie Miller incident - but most never before discussed. Along the way Spike takes readers on entertaining and provocative detours, including a one-on-one with that other film-directing, Brooklyn-born, Garden-inhabiting hoops fan, Woody Allen; reviews of sports movies (Spike has seen them all, and the results aren't pretty); an unusually candid and revelatory interview with Michael Jordan; and astark assessment of the role of African-American athletes both in the big business of sports and in the broader culture.
Success vs Joy
Geet Sethi - 2004
These are personal experiences of Geet Sethi, a seven time world billiards champion. It's a book about his experiences sharing joy and what society views as success.It is both a philosophical journey outlining one man's self discovery and a road map highlighting themany emotional upheavals that exist off the path to a full, rewarding life. Of course, it's an inspirational book on Mind Control.
Future Greats and Heartbreaks: A Year Undercover in the Secret World of NHL Scouts
Gare B. Joyce - 2007
Joyce's year on the hockey beat is a steep learning curve for him; NHL scouts spend each season gathering information on players fighting it out to break into the world of professional hockey. They watch hundreds of games, speak to scores of players, parents, team-mates and other scouts, amassing profiles on all the top contenders. It's a form of risk assessment—is this young hopeful deserving of a multi-million dollar contract?—and it can be a tough and thankless task. Scouts are ground into the game, picking up nuances of play that even the most committed fan would miss, but they are looking at more than just how well a kid can play. And come the final draft, only a tiny percentage of their full year's work might matter.Examining the amount of information gathered on the under-eighteen hopefuls, the scrutiny to which they are subjected, and the differences between the rigour of American and Canadian junior teams, Joyce opens a window on the life and methods of an NHL scout and penetrates the mysterious world of scouting as no one has before.
The NHL: A Century of Trials and Triumphs
D'Arcy Jenish - 2013
Millions of fans from Montreal to Miami and Edmonton to Anaheim attend NHL games leach year, millions more watch on TV and the league pays its best players multi-million annual salaries.Over the course of its first century, the NHL's fortunes have ebbed and flowed. It has experienced setbacks and triumphs and innumerable crises. The league has awarded many franchises only to see some of them falter, fail and fold. The board of governors - which has included rich eccentrics and at least one future convict - has sometimes been fractured by men who loathed each other. How on earth has the NHL survived? The answer lies in the remarkable fact that it has had only five presidents and one commissioner. Two of these chiefs were stop-gaps. For the balance of league's ninety-plus years, four men have shaped and guided its fortunes and controlled the tough, hard-nosed, sometimes unruly owners who constituted the board of governors. This is the story of two perpetual struggles -- the one on the ice and the one going on behind the scenes to keep the whole enterprise afloat. D'Arcy Jenish was granted unprecedented access to previously unpublished league files, including revelatory minutes of board meetings, and conducted dozens of hours of interviews with league executives, including commissioner Gary Bettman and former president John Ziegler, as well as well as owners, coaches, general managers and player representatives. He now reveals for the first time the true story behind some of the most significant events of the contemporary era. This is a definitive, revelatory chonicle that no serious hockey fan will want to be without.
Walk on: From Pee Wee Dropout to the NFL Sidelines--My Unlikely Story of Football, Purpose, and Following an Amazing God
Ben Malcolmson - 2018
As a reporter for The Daily Trojan, in the spirit of George Plimpton, he participated in walk-on tryouts for the team and was dumbfounded to find himself listed on the roster. His position on the team never amounted to much in a game-time contribution, but Ben felt strongly that his faith was inextricably linked to his purpose. He felt called to anonymously place Bibles in each USC teammate locker on Christmas Eve--to resounding indifference and rejection from his friends. It wasn't until three years later, when his role at USC had led to a role with Coach Pete Carroll at the Seahawks organization, that an old friend connected with Ben and told him that one of the Bibles had captivated the heart of a teammate in the three days before his death. With a humble spirit dedicated to consistent acts of discipleship, Ben Malcolmson is an authentic voice for the power of simple obedience and trust, for what can happen when a believer allows God to work in a life. Walk On is the result of God using his faithful people to work in the lives of others.
Sox and the City: A Fan's Love Affair with the White Sox from the Heartbreak of '67 to the Wizards of Oz
Richard Roeper - 2006
An account of what it was like to grow up a White Sox fan in a Cubs nation, this title covers the history of the organisation, from the heartbreak of 1967 and the South-Side Hit Men to the disco demolition and the magical 2005 season when they became world champions.
The 4 Year Olympian: From First Stroke to Olympic Medallist
Jeremiah F. Brown - 2018
But while juggling the demands of a long-term relationship, fatherhood, mortgage payments, and a nine-to-five banking career, he feels something is missing. A new goal captures his imagination: What would it take to become an Olympian?Guided by a polarizing coach, Brown and his teammates plumb the depths of physical and mental exertion in pursuit of a singular goal. The 4 Year Olympian is a story of courage, perseverance, and overcoming self-doubt, told from the perspective of an unlikely competitor.
Mentality Monsters: How Jürgen Klopp Took Liverpool FC From Also-Rans To Champions of Europe
Paul Tomkins - 2019
Flares and smoke bombs spread a red mist across Merseyside, explosions of sparkling confetti shot again and again from an air cannon into the blue skies, as the best part of a million Liverpool fans thronged the route, sitting astride traffic lights and hanging out of windows, risking life and limb to get a glimpse of the returning heroes. Jürgen Klopp, lager bottle in hand – one leg slung over the back of the open-top bus – looked at his clenched fists, then extended one finger, then two – until, one by one, he had counted to six. Another huge grin in the pyro glow, before, half-cut, he almost fell off the back of the bus. Liverpool Football Club, Champions of Europe. For a sixth time. This is the story of how Liverpool went from no-hopers in 2015 to the kings of Europe four years later. * * * Paul Tomkins is the author of over a dozen football books, an academic paper on the role football finances play in success, and the novel The Girl on the Pier. In addition, he was a columnist on the official Liverpool website between 2005 and 2012. In 2009 he set up the website The Tomkins Times. * * * Praise for Paul Tomkins and The Tomkins Times: "Phenomenal. Absolutely quintessential reading for Liverpool fans." Redmen TV. “The Tomkins Times is an indispensable website whose diagnosis of all things Liverpool is beyond compare.” LFCHistory.net "Perhaps the most intelligent guide to LFC available on the internet." The Independent on Sunday “Golddust analysis”, John Sinnott, BBC “[Football analysis] is best left to the professionals, like the admirable Mr Tomkins.” The Daily Telegraph
Ask a Pro: Deep Thoughts and Unreliable Advice from America’s Foremost Cycling Sage
Phil Gaimon - 2017
Dating and the Single Parent
Ron L. Deal - 2012
Now they're looking for help. Ron Deal, who has counseled single parents and remarried couples for many years, helps single parents--as well as those who date them--navigate the potential pitfalls involved. He gives perspective on when a relationship may be harmful to the children as well as how it can be a blessing to all. Always at the forefront is the goal of strengthening families. Includes questions for individual or group study.
Jeffanory: Stories from Beyond the Videprinter
Jeff Stelling - 2012
Two Years in St. Andrews: At Home on the 18th Hole
George Peper - 2006
Andrews.