He was 19 years old when he won the 2005 French Open in his very first appearance at the event. A left-hander with a booming forehand, Nadal had been known as a clay-court specialist since playing his first pro tournaments in 2001. His aggressive style, flowing hair, and muscular build have made him a fan favorite as well. He won his first singles title in 2004, and had a breakout season in 2005, winning at Monte Carlo, Rome, Barcelona, and Stuttgart as well as at Roland Garros. He won the French Open again in 2006, 2007, and 2008, defeating rival Roger Federer in the final each time. In 2008 he broke through at Wimbledon, beating Federer to win the men's singles title in a spectacular fashion. No Nadal fan will want to be without this comprehensive biography.

    The Essential Vince Lombardi compiles Lombardi's most memorable quotes and phrases, alphabetically by topic, for use in speeches, memos, and documents--or just for fingertip inspiration and insight.More than just a simple quote book, however, The Essential Vince Lombardi contains interviews from family members and associates, rare photographs, Lombardi Lessons for applying Lombardi's wisdom to everyday situations, and more. It places the leadership wisdom of Vince Lombardi in the context of today and is a valuable reference for businesspeople and Lombardi aficionados alike.

    This work recounts Ward's rise to hero status, his rivalry with his imprisoned brother, and the negotiations and betrayals that shaped him into a sporting champion.

    The son of poor Italian immigrants, with short arms and stubby legs, Rocky Marciano accomplished a feat that eluded legendary heavyweight champions like Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Muhammad Ali, and Mike Tyson: He never lost a professional fight. His record was a perfect 49-0.Unbeaten is the story of this remarkable champion who overcame injury, doubt, and the schemes of corrupt promoters to win the title in a bloody and epic battle with Jersey Joe Walcott in 1952. Rocky packed a devastating punch with an innocent nickname, "Suzie Q," against which there was no defense. As the champ, he came to know presidents and movie stars - and the organized crime figures who dominated the sport, much to his growing disgust. He may have "stood out in boxing like a rose in a garbage dump," as one sportswriter said, but he also fought his own private demons.In the hands of the award-winning journalist and biographer Mike Stanton, Unbeaten is more than just a boxing story. It's a classic American tale of immigrant dreams, exceptional talent wedded to exceptional ambitions, compromises in the service of a greater good, astounding success, disillusionment, and a quest to discover what it all meant. Like Suzie Q, it will knock you off your feet.

    During that time, every home game was a sellout. Every play, call, word, gesture—on the field and off—was analyzed by thousands. And every decision was either genius, or disastrous. In those eight years, the Red Sox were transformed from a cursed franchise to one of the most successful and profitable in baseball history—only to fall back to last place as soon as Francona was gone. Now, in Francona: The Red Sox Years, the decorated manager opens up for the first time about his tenure in Boston, unspooling the narrative of how this world-class organization reached such incredible highs and dipped to equally incredible lows. But through it all, there was always baseball, that beautiful game of which Francona never lost sight. As no book has ever quite done before, Francona escorts readers into the rarefied world of a twenty-first-century clubhouse, revealing the mercurial dynamic of the national pastime from the inside out. From his unique vantage point, Francona chronicles an epic era, from 2004, his first year as the Sox skipper, when they won their first championship in 86 years, through another win in 2007, to the controversial September collapse just four years later. He recounts the tightrope walk of managing unpredictable personalities such as Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez and working with Theo Epstein, the general managing phenom, and his statistics-driven executives. It was a job that meant balancing their voluminous data with the emotions of a 25-man roster. It was a job that also meant trying to meet the expectations of three owners with often wildly differing opinions. Along the way, readers are treated to never-before-told stories about their favorite players, moments, losses, and wins. Ultimately, when for the Red Sox it became less about winning and more about making money, Francona contends they lost their way. But it was an unforgettable, endlessly entertaining, and instructive time in baseball history, one that is documented and celebrated in Francona, a book that examines like no other the art of managing in today’s game.

    With Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls he has given himself the greatest challenge and produced his greatest triumph.In Playing for Keeps, Halberstam takes the first full measure of Michael Jordan's epic career, one of the great American stories of our time. A narrative of astonishing power and human drama, brimming with revealing anecdotes and penetrating insights, the book chronicles the forces in Jordan's life that have shaped him in to history's greatest basketball player and the larger forces that have converged to make him the most famous living human being in the world.

    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.

    In his twentieth season with the Villanova program, including a five-year stint as an assistant to Coach Rollie Massimino, Coach Jay Wright had achieved his lifelong dream—and witnessed the culmination of a decades-long effort to build a culture of winning around a set of core values. In Attitude, Coach Wright shares some of the leadership secrets that have enabled Villanova, a private university with an undergraduate enrollment of less than 6,500, to thrive in the hypercompetitive world of college athletics. As he recounts the story of the 2015–16 Wildcats, Coach Wright offers anecdotes from his own journey up the ladder of success, with lessons learned on the Little League playing fields of his youth and wisdom passed down from his coaches and mentors. Each step of Villanova’s journey to a national championship incorporates a signature term torn from Coach Wright’s own motivational playbook. Here are key principles that aspiring leaders can apply, not only on the basketball court but in the boardroom, the classroom, and the living room. From learning to accept your role to remembering to honor those who came before us, Jay Wright’s core values provide a positive blueprint for transformational team building based on the idea that anyone—from the head coach to the last player on the bench—can be a leader when the moment demands it. The product of a lifetime’s worth of championship-level preparation, Attitude is perfect for anyone looking to build a team, achieve a goal, or nurture their own winning culture.Praise for Attitude “Jay Wright’s Attitude is filled with wonderful anecdotes, life lessons, and that which we all seek: wisdom.”—Phil Knight, co-founder and chairman emeritus, Nike “In 2015–16, Villanova displayed the best attributes of a champion by playing hard, smart, and together. Jay Wright instilled those traits in his team, and in Attitude he shares the universal leadership lessons that helped it succeed.”—Mike Krzyzewski, head coach, Duke University basketball

    I am the shop window and he is the goods in the back.’ Often outrageous and always compelling, Peter Taylor and Brian Clough’s partnership shook the very foundations of the footballing world. They took two peripheral clubs – Derby County and Nottingham Forest – from the sleepy backwaters of East Midlands football to international renown. The first to pay £1 million for a player and the first to win two European Cups and two League Cups in successive seasons, their journey was a whirlwind of trophies, record-breaking transfers, bust-ups and sackings.In a first-hand account told with immense candour, Taylor reveals the highs and lows of their relationship, and details the events that led to their unprecedented success.Originally published in 1980 and available now for the first time in forty years, With Clough, By Taylor is the definitive account of the partnership that revolutionised English football and the trade of the football manager.

     He has played in World Cups and FA Cup finals; shared a dressing room with football greats like Roy Keane, Alan Shearer and Robbie Keane and worked under celebrated managers like Kenny Dalglish, Bobby Robson and Martin O’Neill. But Shay has had to show courage and strength of mind to get where he wanted in life. At four years old, he cruelly lost his mother to cancer at the age of just 41. Mum Agnes’s dying wish was that Dad Seamus would keep the family together. Seamus kept his word and the Given clan watched with pride as Shay forged a record-breaking career in the sport he loved. From Donegal to Saipan, Glasgow to Wembley and Tyneside to Paris, it’s been some journey. Shay has seen it all. Glorious highs and desperate lows. Dressing room wind-ups and team-bonding punch-ups. Brutal injuries and crippling self-doubt. Along the way, he has made so many friends. When one of his closest pals, Gary Speed, died suddenly in 2011, he was devastated. He played on, doing the only thing he knew to get him through the pain – pulling on a shirt and a pair of gloves. Shay loves football – for him, nothing can beat the buzz of a Saturday afternoon or the thrill of a big match night under lights. But he has never lost touch with the fans who make the game what it is. Entertaining, opinionated and inspirational, his long-awaited autobiography ANY GIVEN SATURDAY features a stellar cast of famous football names from the past 25 years. It tugs at the heart strings, bubbles with banter and lets slip secrets behind the big stories. This is a rare journey behind the scenes as told by one of our own.

    He outslugged Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Mickey Mantle when they were in their prime, but while they made repeated World Series appearances in the 1950s and 60s, Banks spent his entire career with the woebegone Chicago Cubs, who didn't win a pennant in his adult lifetime.Today, Banks is remembered best for his signature phrase, "Let's play two," which has entered the American lexicon and exemplifies the enthusiasm that endeared him to fans everywhere. But Banks's public display of good cheer was a mask that hid a deeply conflicted, melancholy, and often quite lonely man. Despite the poverty and racism he endured as a young man, he was among the star players of baseball's early days of integration who were reluctant to speak out about Civil Rights. Being known as one of the greatest players never to reach the World Series also took its toll. At one point, Banks even saw a psychiatrist to see if that would help. It didn't. Yet Banks smiled through it all, enduring the scorn of Cubs manager Leo Durocher as an aging superstar and never uttering a single complaint.Let's Play Two is based on numerous conversations with Banks and on interviews with more than a hundred of his family members, teammates, friends, and associates as well as oral histories, court records, and thousands of other documents and sources. Together, they explain how Banks was so different from the caricature he created for the public. The book tells of Banks's early life in segregated Dallas, his years in the Negro Leagues, and his difficult life after retirement; and features compelling portraits of Buck O'Neil, Philip K. Wrigley, the Bleacher Bums, the doomed pennant race of 1969, and much more from a long-lost baseball era.

    

    A renegade from the wrong side of the tracks, Connors broke the rules with a radically aggressive style of play and bad-boy antics that turned his matches into prizefights. In 1974 alone, he won 95 out of 99 matches, all of them while wearing the same white shorts he washed in the sink of his hotel bathrooms. Though he lived the rock star life away from tennis, his enduring dedication to his craft earned him eight Grand Slam singles titles and kept him among the top ten best players in the world for sixteen straight years—five at number one.In The Outsider, Connors tells the complete, uncensored story of his life and career, setting the record straight about his formidable mother, Gloria; his very public romance with America's sweetheart Chris Evert; his famous opponents, including Björn Borg, John McEnroe, Arthur Ashe, Ivan Lendl, and Rod Laver; his irrepressible co-conspirators Ilie Nastase and Vitas Gerulaitis; and his young nemesis Andre Agassi. Connors reveals how his issues with obsessive-compulsive disorder, dyslexia, gambling, and women at various times threatened to derail his career and his long-lasting marriage to Playboy Playmate Patti McGuire.Presiding over an era that saw tennis attract a new breed of passionate fans—from cops to tycoons—Connors transformed the game forever with his two-handed backhand, his two-fisted lifestyle, and his epic rivalries.The Outsider is a grand slam of a memoir written by a man once again at the top of his game—as feisty, unvarnished, and defiant as ever.

    Whether he's bringing clowns and live bear cubs to spring training or leading the Chicago Cubs to their first World Series victory in 108 years, Maddon is always one to watch.  In Try Not to Suck, ESPN's Jesse Rogers and MLB.com's Bill Chastain fully explore Maddon's life and career, delving behind the scenes and dissecting that mystique which makes Maddon so popular with players and analysts alike. Packed with insight, anecdotes, and little-known facts, this is the definitive account of the curse-breaker and trailblazer at the helm of the Cubs' new era.

    So will Dan Rooney. In Dan Rooney, the owner talks about growing up on Pittsburgh’s North Side, competing with Johnny Unitas for top high school quarterback honors in western Pennsylvania, learning the ropes of big-time sports from his father and mentor, Art Rooney (“the Chief”), helping to shape the modern NFL into America’s all-consuming passion, and forging the Steelers into a Super Bowl-winning dynasty. He also speaks frankly about winning and losing, and discusses his relationships with family, coaches, players, owners, NFL commissioners, the media, and the fans-“Steeler Nation.” It’s all here: the difficult contract negotiations, controversial decisions, memorable teams, and many behind-the-scenes stories of the growth of America’s favorite game. A dedicated family man and proud native of Pittsburgh, this chairman of one of the most successful franchises ever reveals the dynamics that have made him such a respected owner in the NFL.