Gaining access to personal letters, albums and scrapbooks, plus spending hours with family members among some 300 interviews, has allowed the authors to craft the definitive biography of Pistol Pete Maravich, who lived a life of triumph and tragedy.

    Dear, simple mother, in her terrible clothes, and the twins, got up with more thought for economy than for beauty! I shopped extravagantly with them. The youngsters wanted to see everything in New York; but mother, despite all of those hard, lonely years in our rough country and the many interesting things for her to do and see in New York-- mother wanted nothing better than to stay with the baby.

    But she proved them all wrong. . . . Laura Vikmanis has got spirit . . . and pom-poms, too! But before she stepped onto the field as the oldest cheerleader in the National Football League, she was sidelined by a bad marriage and the many responsibilities of stay-at-home motherhood. She finally got the courage to leave her husband and to ask herself something she had never asked before: What do I want to do? Remembering her teenage love of dance, she signed up for a pole-dancing fitness class, where she met a former cheerleader for the Cincinnati Bengals. When the woman suggested that Laura audition to be a “Ben-Gal,” Laura laughed her off but soon realized that the audition process could be a way of healing herself—and regaining her confidence. Her boots were made for walking—but also for stomping on a football field.She tried out for the team next to girls young enough to be her daughters. Girls with tighter abs, fuller hair, no kids, and no crow’s-feet. After much adversity and multiple auditions, she finally made the team, becoming the oldest cheerleader in the League.It’s Not About the Pom-Poms follows Laura’s inspiring, funny, and eye-opening journey from demoralized divorcée to high-kicking Cincinnati Ben-Gal. Readers will cheer her on as she rediscovers her passion for dancing, takes hip-hop classes with twelve-year-olds, loses twenty-five pounds, discovers her abs, finds love again, and becomes a new kind of role model to her daughters. Laura also provides an inside look into the fascinating world of NFL cheerleaders—the grueling workouts, bad pay, twice-weekly weigh-ins, but, most important, the lifelong bond between the women, who do it all for the glory.Leading with her heart, Laura Vikmanis faces adversity with her head held high as she learns in mid-life to take a flying leap. Powerful and uplifting, It’s Not About the Pom-Poms shows that, no matter your age, it’s never too late to go, fight, and win!

    Twenty-three-year old Paul Gascoigne has been one of the breakout stars of the tournament. His athleticism, speed of thought and incredible natural gifts have given England fans renewed faith in their perennially underachieving national side. Then in the 99th minute of a tense semi-final against Germany, Gascoigne lunges into a mistimed tackle. The ref awards him his second yellow card of the tournament, meaning that if England were to win, he would miss the final. Gascoigne turns away, tries to hold it together, but can’t. Floods of tears run down his face. We understand. We feel his pain and anguish. The legend of Gazza is born. Two years later, after an injury-stricken season at Spurs, he arrives at Lazio for a then record transfer fee. Expectations are sky high; he is welcomed as a footballing Messiah by the Roman fans. But all is not what it seems. There are doubts over his fitness, doubts over how he will adjust to life in Italy, doubts over whether his obvious potential can finally be achieved. The three subsequent years in Italy, shot through with incredible highs and self-inflicted lows, show Gascoigne in all his complexity – an immense natural talent flawed by a too-fragile personality.In Gazza in Italy, award-winning writer Daniel Storey brilliantly shines a light on an unexamined moment in Gascoigne’s career that encapsulates everything that we have come to associate with this most mercurial of talents: childish joy, public gaffes, wondrous skill and saddening self-destruction. Funny and harrowing in equal measure, this book allows us a better, more rounded understanding of one of our greatest sporting idols, and of a tragically misunderstood human being.

    While there, she reached out to the trapped Jewish families, going from door to door and asking the parents to trust her with their young children. She started smuggling them out of the walled district, convincing her friends and neighbors to hide them. Driven to extreme measures and with the help of a network of local tradesmen, ghetto residents, and her star-crossed lover in the Jewish resistance, Irena ultimately smuggled thousands of children past the Nazis. She made dangerous trips through the city’s sewers, hid children in coffins, snuck them under overcoats at checkpoints, and slipped them through secret passages in abandoned buildings.But Irena did something even more astonishing at immense personal risk: she kept secret lists buried in bottles under an old apple tree in a friend’s back garden. On them were the names and true identities of those Jewish children, recorded with the hope that their relatives could find them after the war. She could not have known that more than ninety percent of their families would perish.

    But it wasn't until the Masters Tournament that his career would definitively change forever. Woods, then only 21, won the Masters by a historic 12 shots, which remains the widest margin of victory in the tournament's history, making it an iconic moment for him and sports.Now, 20 years later, Woods is ready to explore his history with the game, how it has changed over the years, and what it was like winning such an important event. With never-before-heard stories, this book will provide keen insight from one of the game's all-time greats.

    The commissioner, executives, and players were shocked. Sportswriters called author Jim Bouton a traitor and "social leper." Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force him to declare the book untrue. Fans, however, loved the book. And serious critics called it an important social document. Today, Jim Bouton is still not invited to Oldtimer's Days at Yankee Stadium. But his landmark book is still being read by people who don't ordinarily follow baseball.

    In 1982, the lifelong avid sports fan joined Tom Cheek as full-time play-by-play radio announcer for the Blue Jays, and for the next 23 years, "Tom and Jerry" were the voices of the franchise. Jerry became part of the fabric of a nation and a team, covering historic moments like the rise of the Blue Jays through the 1980s that culminated in back-to-back World Series Championships in 1992 and 1993. His Hall of Fame-worthy broadcasting career has been nothing short of legendary. When Jerry retired in February 2018, the tributes poured in and made one thing perfectly clear: Toronto baseball would never be the same.Howarth brings together thoughts on life, family, work, and baseball. Featuring stories about everyone from Dave Stieb, Jack Morris, Duane Ward, Roberto Alomar, and Joe Carter to John Gibbons, Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Donaldson, and the late Roy Halladay, Hello, Friends! is a must-read for sports fans everywhere.

    Rock and Roll legend Ted Nugent contends that a lot of what is wrong with this country could be remedied by a simple, but controversial concept: gun ownership.

    A profile of the iconic Civil War general explores the paradoxes attributed to his character to discuss such topics as his achievements as a military strategist, his contributions to the Transcontinental Railroad, and his tempestuous family relationships.

    In this revised edition of "When the Game Stands Tall," author Neil Hayes, who had unrestricted access to the De La Salle team, writes from the inside about the games, the players, and their visionary coach, Bob Ladouceur, who managed to amass the highest winning percentage in football history (.995) through standing for something greater than winning. The book, which also features interviews with major sports figures like Bill Walsh and John Gruden, is a revealing portrait of the coach who believed above all in instilling basic life skills where winning is not the goal, but merely the byproduct of playing the game. The Streak had become a national story long before it ended in September 2004. In this revised paperback, Neil Hayes catches up on the lives of the main characters and takes readers through the final tumultuous year. What results is a timeless and inspirational story of struggle, tragedy, and triumph.

    His soccer talent was spotted at a young age and, in 1985, he signed with City. Just three years later he was handed the team captaincy, becoming the youngest ever City captain. An international career soon beckoned and, after trying out for the England under–21 team, he was called up to the England training camp for Italia ’90. Despite missing out on a place in the final squad he suitably impressed the management, with Bobby Robson marking him as an England captain in the making. As a rising star Paul became a target for top clubs like Manchester United, Arsenal, Spurs, and Liverpool, but he always stayed loyal to his beloved club, deeming Maine Road the spiritual home at which his destiny lay. But then, in September 1990, disaster struck. Paul ruptured his crucial ligament and so began his nightmare. Neglected, ignored, and misunderstood by his club after a career–saving operation was irreversibly botched, Paul’s career began to fall apart. Watching from the sidelines as similarly injured players regained their fitness, he spiraled into a prolonged bout of severe depression. With a forced retirement from the game he adored, the death of his father, and the collapse of his marriage, Paul was left a broken man. Set against the backdrop of one of the world’s wealthiest football clubs at the end of their era at Maine Road, I'm Not Really Here is the powerful story of love, loss, and the cruel, irreparable damage of injury. It is a story of determination, spirit, resilience, and broken dreams.

    Patrick and presents the authentic, stirring account of one of the greatest missionaries who ever lived. Patrick gave up a comfortable life as an upper-class citizen of Roman Britain to live in poverty, suffering, and constant danger in Ireland. Although ridiculed and rejected by his own people in Britain, Patrick changed the course of an entire nation.

    In May 2002, Tillman walked away from his $3.6 million NFL contract to enlist in the United States Army. He was deeply troubled by 9/11, and he felt a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Two years later, he died on a desolate hillside in southeastern Afghanistan.Though obvious to most of the two dozen soldiers on the scene that a ranger in Tillman’s own platoon had fired the fatal shots, the Army aggressively maneuvered to keep this information from Tillman’s wife, other family members, and the American public for five weeks following his death. During this time, President Bush repeatedly invoked Tillman’s name to promote his administration’s foreign policy. Long after Tillman’s nationally televised memorial service, the Army grudgingly notified his closest relatives that he had “probably” been killed by friendly fire while it continued to dissemble about the details of his death and who was responsible.In Where Men Win Glory, Jon Krakauer draws on Tillman’s journals and letters, interviews with his wife and friends, conversations with the soldiers who served alongside him, and extensive research on the ground in Afghanistan to render an intricate mosaic of this driven, complex, and uncommonly compelling figure as well as the definitive account of the events and actions that led to his death. Before he enlisted in the army, Tillman was familiar to sports aficionados as an undersized, overachieving Arizona Cardinals safety whose virtuosity in the defensive backfield was spellbinding. With his shoulder-length hair, outspoken views, and boundless intellectual curiosity, Tillman was considered a maverick. America was fascinated when he traded the bright lights and riches of the NFL for boot camp and a buzz cut. Sent first to Iraq—a war he would openly declare was “illegal as hell”—and eventually to Afghanistan, Tillman was driven by complicated, emotionally charged, sometimes contradictory notions of duty, honor, justice, patriotism, and masculine pride, and he was determined to serve his entire three-year commitment. But on April 22, 2004, his life would end in a barrage of bullets fired by his fellow soldiers.Krakauer chronicles Tillman’s riveting, tragic odyssey in engrossing detail highlighting his remarkable character and personality while closely examining the murky, heartbreaking circumstances of his death. Infused with the power and authenticity readers have come to expect from Krakauer’s storytelling, Where Men Win Glory exposes shattering truths about men and war.From the inside cover of ISBN 0385522266 / 9780385522267

    The Brooklyn Dodgers led the New York Giants by three runs with just three outs to go in their third and final playoff game. And not once in major league baseball’s 278 preceding playoff and World Series games had a team overcome a three-run deficit in the ninth inning. But New York rallied, and at 3:58 p.m. on October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson hit a home run off Ralph Branca. The Giants won the pennant.The Echoing Green follows the reverberations of that one moment–the Shot Heard Round the World–from the West Wing of the White House to the Sing Sing death house to the Polo Grounds clubhouse, where a home run forever turned hitter and pitcher into hero and goat.It was also in that centerfield block of concrete that, after the home run, a Giant coach tucked away a Wollensak telescope. The spyglass would remain undiscovered until 2001, when, in the jubilee of that home run, Joshua Prager laid bare on the front page of the Wall Street Journal a Giant secret: from July 20, 1951, through the very day of that legendary game, the orange and black stole the finger signals of opposing catchers. The Echoing Green places that revelation at the heart of a larger story, re-creating in extravagant detail the 1951 pennant race and illuminating as never before the impact of both a moment and a long-guarded secret on the lives of Bobby Thomson and Ralph Branca. A wonderfully evocative portrait of the great American pastime, The Echoing Green is baseball history, social history and biography–irresistible reading from any angle.