Dan Carter: The Autobiography of an All Blacks Legend


Dan Carter - 2015
    Indeed, heading into the 2015 World Cup he had never finished the competition on his own terms.His autobiography tells of that redemption, and gets you up close and personal with one of the most celebrated sportsmen of our time.Threaded throughout the book is an intimate diary of his final year as a Crusader and All Black, during which he worked tirelessly to make one last run at that elusive goal: a World Cup victory achieved on the field.Dan Carter's autobiography is essential reading for all sports fans.

Cheer Up Peter Reid: My Autobiography


Tony Barrett - 2017
     As a player, he established himself as one of the leading midfielders of his era, being named PFA Player of the Year in 1985 and credited with being the fourth best footballer in the world. He won numerous honours with Everton, including two league titles, one FA Cup and one European Cup Winners’ Cup during the most successful period in the Blues’ history. He also won 13 England caps, playing at the 1986 World Cup – where a date with destiny at the ‘hand’ and feet of Diego Maradona would provide a lasting, painful memory. As a manager, his journey has taken him from Manchester to Sunderland, India to Thailand, each step a voyage into the unknown and sometimes into difficulties and even controversy. This is the unique story of a footballer who got to the top and yet never forgot his roots, who mixed with the powerful but has never been afraid to challenge authority. Told with typical forthrightness, Peter’s book will capture the imagination of football fans far and wide.

American Son: My Story


Oscar De La Hoya - 2008
    From boxing to business, from the recording industry to the charitable accomplishments of his foundation, his success is a testament to what one can achieve in the United States. But who is this man who has changed the lives of so many? Who has imprinted a positive mark upon the sport of boxing, for which many have all but given up hope? Who has become a symbol of success for an entire community, without many heroes to call their own?American Son answers these questions.Born into a boxing family, De La Hoya has defeated more than a dozen world champions and won six world titles as well as an Olympic gold medal—a moment forever marked in the memory of anyone who has followed his career. Yet within the maelstrom of this success lay a man whose earnest belief in the goodness of everyone around him sometimes led him to stray far from his intended path. This book is The Golden Boy, and he bares his most heartbreaking mistakes as well as his most stunning triumphs for all of the world to see.This thrilling tale of an immigrant's son—a quintessentially American story—is the chronicle of an amazing journey that will provide readers with new insight into the private life of a figure who has to many reached iconic status.

Muhammad Ali: A Life From Beginning to End


Hourly History - 2019
     Cassius Clay Jr. The Greatest. The Louisville Lip. The People’s Champion. Muhammad Ali. All are names for one of the greatest boxers of all time. Muhammad Ali lived a life that produced some of the most notable boxing matches ever. He also had battles outside of the boxing ring—battles that included fighting with the federal government for his freedom as well as fighting against his debilitating Parkinson’s disease. Inside you will read about... ✓ Growing up in the Jim Crow South ✓ Becoming the Greatest ✓ The King of Trash Talk ✓ Refusing to Join the Vietnam War ✓ Politics and Parkinson’s ✓ Personal Life and Marriages And much more! You’re about to embark on a journey of greatness. Dive into the life of one of the greatest athletes ever to grace the boxing ring, Muhammad Ali. Ali’s life wasn’t perfect—it was full of twists and turns and conflicts, inside and outside the ring. But his life was truly meaningful, and it made Muhammad Ali worthy of the title he often used to describe himself, “The Greatest.”

Paolo Di Canio: The Autobiography


Paolo Di Canio - 2000
    The autobiography of Italian striker, Paolo Di Canio, worshipped by West Ham fans and a footballer who has won the hearts of supporters wherever he has played - this despite his infamous tantrums and volatile behaviour on the pitch.

Dalglish: My Autobiography


Kenny Dalglish - 1996
    This edition has been updated to cover the 1996/1997 season and Dalglish's move to become Newcastle manager.

The Keeper: The Tim Howard Story


Jeremy V. Jones - 2012
    Christians are active in all areas of life, preaching, singing, acting, competing, and always working for the glory of God and his kingdom.

The Russian Affair: The True Story of the Couple who Uncovered the Greatest Sporting Scandal


David Walsh - 2020
    The candour...is rare and gripping' Matt Dickinson, The TimesIt was the story that shocked the world: Russian athletics was revealed to be corrupt from top to bottom, with institutionalised doping used to help the nation's athletes win medals they did not deserve. But the full story of the couple who blew the whistle has never been told - until now. When Russian anti-doping official Vitaly Stepanov met the young 800m athlete Yuliya Rusanova, for him it was love at first sight. Within two months, they were married. But there was a problem – in fact, there were lots of problems. She admitted she was doping and that everyone else was doping, and she let him know that she came from a dark place …   It could all have brought a very swift end to a very hasty marriage, but gradually the Stepanovs began to realise that whatever you did, the system in Russia was stacked against you. In the end, the only ones they could rely upon were each other. Fully aware of the risks they were taking, they decided to turn the tables on those who had manipulated them and cheated the sporting world.   The result of their investigative work sent shockwaves around the planet and led to Russia’s athletes being banned from world sport, while the Stepanovs themselves had to go into hiding. The Russian Affair is a gripping true-life drama that at times reads like a spy novel and at others like an epic love story. But, at the centre of it all, is a quietly determined couple who knew that if they stood together they could shine a light on a corrupt system and bring it crashing to the ground.

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.

Tunney: Boxing's Brainiest Champ and His Upset of the Great Jack Dempsey


Jack Cavanaugh - 2006
    Yet within a few years of retiring from the ring, Tunney willingly receded into the background, renouncing the image of jock celebrity that became the stock in trade of so many of his contemporaries. To this day, Gene Tunney’s name is most often recognized only in conjunction with his epic “long count” second bout with Dempsey.In Tunney, the veteran journalist and author Jack Cavanaugh gives an account of the incomparable sporting milieu of the Roaring Twenties, centered around Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey, the gladiators whose two titanic clashes transfixed a nation. Cavanaugh traces Tunney’s life and career, taking us from the mean streets of Tunney’s native Greenwich Village to the Greenwich, Connecticut, home of his only love, the heiress Polly Lauder; from Parris Island to Yale University; from Tunney learning fisticuffs as a skinny kid at the knee of his longshoreman father to his reign atop boxing’s glamorous heavyweight division. Gene Tunney defied easy categorization, as a fighter and as a person. He was a sex symbol, a master of defensive boxing strategy, and the possessor of a powerful, and occasionally showy, intellect–qualities that prompted the great sportswriters of the golden age of sports to portray Tunney as “aloof.” This intelligence would later serve him well in the corporate world, as CEO of several major companies and as a patron of the arts. And while the public craved reports of bad blood between Tunney and Dempsey, the pair were, in reality, respectful ring adversaries who in retirement grew to share a sincere lifelong friendship–with Dempsey even stumping for Tunney’s son, John, during the younger Tunney’s successful run for Congress. Tunney offers a unique perspective on sports, celebrity, and popular culture in the 1920s. But more than an exciting and insightful real-life tale, replete with heads of state, irrepressible showmen, mobsters, Hollywood luminaries, and the cream of New York society, Tunney is an irresistible story of an American underdog who forever changed the way fans look at their heroes.From the Hardcover edition.

Tall Men, Short Shorts: The 1969 NBA Finals: Wilt, Russ, Lakers, Celtics, and a Very Young Sports Reporter


Leigh Montville - 2021
    Seven riveting games. One young reporter. Welcome to the 1969 NBA Finals. They don't set up any better than this. The greatest basketball player of all time - Bill Russell - and his juggernaut Boston Celtics, winners of ten (ten!) of the previous twelve NBA championships, squeak through one more playoff run and land in the Finals again. Russell's opponent? The fearsome 7'1" next-generation superstar, Wilt Chamberlain, recently traded to the LA Lakers to form the league's first dream team. Bill Russell and John Havlicek versus Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor. The 1969 Celtics are at the end of their dominance. The 1969 Lakers are unstoppable.Add to the mix one newly minted reporter. Covering the epic series is a wide-eyed young sports writer named Leigh Montville. Years before becoming an award-winning legend himself at The Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated, twenty-four-year-old Montville is ordered by his editor at the Globe to get on a plane to L.A. (first time!) to write about his luminous heroes, the biggest of big men.What follows is a raucous, colorful, joyous account of one of the greatest seven-game series in NBA history. Set against a backdrop of the late sixties, Montville's reporting and recollections transport readers to a singular time - with rampant racial tension on the streets and on the court, with the emergence of a still relatively small league on its way to becoming a billion-dollar industry, and to an era when newspaper journalism and the written word served as the crucial lifeline between sports and sports fans. And there was basketball - seven breathtaking, see-saw games, highlight-reel moments from an unprecedented cast of future Hall of Famers (including player-coach Russell as the first-ever black head coach in the NBA), coast-to-coast travels and the clack-clack-clack of typewriter keys racing against tight deadlines.Tall Men, Short Shorts is a masterpiece of sports journalism with a charming touch of personal memoir. Leigh Montville has crafted his most entertaining book yet, richly enshrining luminous players and moments in a unique American time.

Benoit: Wrestling with the Horror that Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport


Steven Johnson - 2007
    In June 2007 Benoit committed suicide after killing his wife and son, and the media coverage surrounding this event—as well as the facts of the case and its effects on professional wrestling—are all extensively addressed. Benoit’s life prior to and during his pro wrestling career is examined, as is his significant impact on the wrestling world and widespread popularity. This close-up look at one of pro wrestling’s greatest and most lamented figures also presents the place of his tragedy in the darker side of wrestling’s history.

Tour de Lance: The Extraordinary Story of Lance Armstrong's Fight to Reclaim the Tour de France


Bill Strickland - 2010
    After battling cancer and becoming an inspiration to millions, Armstrong won the Tour de France a record-breaking seven consecutive years before retiring from competition in 2005. Four years later, at thirty-seven, Armstrong decided to come out of retirement and go for the win yet again. He was racing for no salary, in a season when his greatest rival--Tour de France, Tour of Italy, and Tour of Spain champion Alberto Contador--was on his own team. The twenty-five-year-old Spaniard had been handpicked by Armstrong's own mentor, Johan Bruyneel, to be his successor. Now he would be his fiercest competition. Armstrong was about to suffer like never before--and, for the first time in recent memory, appear to be human on a bicycle. After seven Tour victories--and beating cancer--did Lance Armstrong really need to prove anything? Beyond the thrill of another possible victory, what drove him to race again? What was he seeking--and would he find it? Cycling insider Bill Strickland had unprecedented access to Armstrong, Johan Bruyneel, and the team. He takes readers behind the scenes during the 2009 racing season and along for the ride on the Tour de France with a dramatic mile-by-mile account. Offering a penetrating and candid glimpse into the man behind the myth, Tour de Lance goes beyond a single season or a single race to reveal the heart of the sport and the soul of the cyclist.

The Other Side of the Medal


Andreea Răducan - 2012
    

Perspective


Ellyse Perry - 2019
    Ellyse Perry is among the all-time cricket greats, and the only player, female or male, to represent Australia in both cricket and football World Cups, making her international debut in both sports at the age of 16.PERSPECTIVE is about sitting back from the world you're involved in and evaluating what it means to you. What are the important things that you know make experiences special? What are the things that motivate you? What are the things that give you joy? The things that challenge you but, ultimately, make you a better person? Most importantly, who are the people whose unwavering help and support you couldn't go without?From the lessons of a high-performance athlete's career to appreciating the small things in life, this inspiring illustrated book features stories and reflections from Ellyse's childhood and career on the themes of dreaming, belief, work, resilience, appreciation, opportunity, balance and perseverance - and their importance in everything we do. This empowering book is a unique view from one of Australia's most admired sports stars about what it is to be an elite athlete.