With Greene, Jordan let down his guard.In an extraordinary book that transcends sports biography, Greene takes the reader along with Jordan over two seasons with the Chicago Bulls, during glorious championship surges and trying personal moments. With rare insight, Greene reveals the person inside the icon: a man who makes millions but cannot go for a quiet walk around the block without getting mobbed, a man who competes ferociously on the court, but who performs some of his most remarkable and unexpected feats away from the limelight.Drawn from inside Michael Jordan's daily life, rich with the sound of Jordan's own voice, Hang Time is a startlingly candid and intimate story of time spent with a champion, and of the growing friendship between two men.

    Over six feet tall, clean cut, and college educated, he didn't pitch on the Sabbath and rarely spoke an ill word about anyone. He also had one of the most devastating arms in all of baseball. New York Giants manager John McGraw, by contrast, was ferocious. The pugnacious tough guy was already a star infielder who, with the Baltimore Orioles, helped develop a new, scrappy style of baseball, with plays like the hit-and-run, the Baltimore chop, and the squeeze play. When McGraw joined the Giants in 1902, the Giants were coming off their worst season ever. Yet within three years, Mathewson clinched New York City's first World Series for McGraw's team by throwing three straight shutouts in only six days, an incredible feat that is invariably called the greatest World Series performance ever. Because of their wonderful odd-couple association, baseball had its first superstar, the Giants ascended into legend, and baseball as a national pastime bloomed.

    His beliefs in hard work and preparedness brought the UCLA Bruins an unparalleled 10 NCAA basketball championships. Now in this bestselling autobiography--with a Foreword by Hall-of-Famer Bill Walton--the college basketball legend reflects on his record-breaking career, his life behind the scenes, and how his top players went on to shape and change the NBA.From the everyday basics to important life lessons (It's not how tall you are, but how tall you play), Wooden shares his worldly wisdom on and off the court to offer a personal history of an unforgettable time in college basketball, answering the most-asked questions about his life, his career, and the players who made his teams unbeatable.They Call Me Coach is grass-roots Americana, a story bigger than basketball. One of those rare sports books that is must reading for everyone.--Chicago TribuneWhat Knute Rockne was to football, Connie Mack to baseball, and Wilbur and Orville Wright to flying, John Wooden is to basketball. This book captures the full flavor of the man, the philosophies that work in life, and the philosophies that work on the court. I commend it to people who want to succeed at either--or both.--Los Angeles Times

    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 personal journey has been rewarding and challenging in equal measure, spanning many of the sport's most passionate heartlands such as New Zealand, Ireland, England and Wales. Gatland reflects in characteristically forthright and intelligent fashion on a lifetime spent playing and coaching the sport which has been his passion since as a young boy he first picked up an oval ball on New Zealand's North Island, dreaming of joining the ranks of the mighty All Blacks.Along the way we encounter the greatest matches, players and rivalries the sport has to offer, get introduced to a stunning cast of unforgettable characters who grace the story with their humour and humanity, and emerge with a striking appreciation of how rugby has managed to retain its appeal for millions around the globe.

    Sort of. As the back-up for several legendary goalies, he saw everything - except much playing time. In this book, McLennan looks back on his career, from breaking into the NHL, to working with the legends, to life on the road and in the league.

    He spent three years on the floor of his house, eating his meals there and crawling to the bathroom, where he could barely hoist himself up onto the toilet. The excruciating pain and slow recovery tested Walton to the fullest. But with extraordinary patience, fortitude, determination, and sacrifice—and pioneering surgery—he recovered, and now shares his life story in this remarkable and unique memoir.Walton grew up in San Diego in the 1950s and 1960s and was deeply influenced by the political and cultural upheavals of that period. Although he strongly identified with the cool people, particularly in music and politics, his greatest role model outside his family was super-straight UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, a thoughtful, rigorous mentor who seemed immune to the turmoil of the times. Although there was always tension and conflict between them, the two men would speak nearly every day for forty-three years, until Wooden’s death at age ninety-nine.Despite a lifelong stuttering affliction, Walton chose a career in broadcasting after his playing days ended. He eventually won an Emmy Award and other accolades for broadcasting and was recognized as a leading media pundit.John Wooden once said that no greatness ever came without sacrifice. Nothing better illustrates this saying than the real story of Walton’s life. In his own words, Back from the Dead shares this dramatic story, including his basketball and broadcasting careers, his many setbacks and rebounds, and his ultimate triumph as the toughest of champions.

    Later inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, his achievements as a competitor and a coach are the stuff of legend. But Noll always remained an intensely private and introspective man, never revealing much of himself as a person or as a coach, not even to the players and fans who revered him.             Chuck Noll did not need a dramatic public profile to be the catalyst for one of the greatest transformations in sports history. In the nearly four decades before he was hired, the Pittsburgh Steelers were the least successful team in professional football, never winning so much as a division title. After Noll’s arrival, his quiet but steely leadership quickly remolded the team into the most accomplished in the history of professional football.  And what he built endured well beyond his time with the Steelers – who have remained one of America’s great NFL teams, accumulating a total of six Super Bowls, eight AFC championships, and dozens of division titles and playoff berths.             In this penetrating biography, based on deep research and hundreds of interviews, Michael MacCambridge takes the measure of the man, painting an intimate portrait of one of the most important figures in American football history. He traces Noll’s journey from a Depression-era childhood in Cleveland, where he first played the game in a fully integrated neighborhood league led by an African-American coach and then seriously pursued the sport through high school and college.  Eventually, Noll played both defensive and offensive positions professionally for the Browns, before discovering that his true calling was coaching.  MacCambridge reveals that Noll secretly struggled with and overcame epilepsy to build the career that earned him his place as “the Emperor” of Pittsburgh during the Steelers’ dynastic run in the 1970s, while in his final years, he battled Alzheimer’s in the shelter of his caring and protective family.             Noll’s impact went well beyond one football team. When he arrived, the city of steel was facing a deep crisis, as the dramatic decline of Pittsburgh’s lifeblood industry traumatized an entire generation. “Losing,” Noll said on his first day on the job, “has nothing to do with geography.” Through his calm, confident leadership of the Steelers and the success they achieved, the people of Pittsburgh came to believe that winning was possible, and their recovery of confidence owed a lot to the Steeler’s new coach. The famous urban renaissance that followed can only be understood by grasping what Noll and his team meant to the people of the city. The man Pittsburghers could never fully know helped them see themselves better.             Chuck Noll: His Life’s Work tells the story of a private man in a very public job. It explores the family ties that built his character, the challenges that defined his course, and the love story that shaped his life. By understanding the man himself, we can at last clearly see Noll’s profound influence on the city, players, coaches, and game he loved. They are all, in a real sense, heirs to the football team Chuck Noll built.

    Winner of the three national Coach of the Year honors, the only coach ever to lead six different schools to season-ending bowl games, and the ninth-winningest coach in college football history, Holtz is still teaching and coaching, although he is no longer on the gridiron.In his most telling work to date, the man still known as "Coach" by all who cross his path reveals what motivated a rail-thin 135-pound kid with marginal academic credentials and a pronounced speech impediment to play and coach college football, and to become one of the most sought-after motivational speakers in history. With unflinching honesty and his trademark dry wit, Holtz goes deep, giving us the intimate details of the people who shaped his life and the decisions he would make that shaped the lives of so many others.His is a storied career, and Holtz provides a frank and inside look at the challenges he overcame to turn around the programs at William and Mary, North Carolina State, Arkansas, and Minnesota. From growing up in East Liverpool, Ohio, to his early days as a graduate assistant at the University of Iowa, to his national championship runs at Notre Dame and his final seasons on the sidelines in South Carolina, Lou Holtz gives his best, a poignant, funny, and instructive look into a life well lived.

    It's not about the money or the fame; it's about their passion for what they do.And passion is something that has fueled Gruden's entire career. From his college playing days and his climb through the coaching ranks -- from college to assistant coaching jobs with the NFL's elite teams, to his first head coach job with the Oakland Raiders, and finally, with the Tampa Bay Bucs -- his meteoric rise is unparalleled. Underneath it all, though, he's just a humble, hardworking, no-nonsense guy who has no hobbies: "I'm not a scratch golfer. I don't know how to bowl. I can't read the stock market. Hell, I have a hard time remembering my wife's cell phone number. But I can call 'Flip Right Double X Jet 36 Counter Naked Waggle at 7 X Quarter' in my sleep."Now, in this motivational memoir, Gruden provides insight into what makes him tick. Do You Love Football?! is an intimate look at his life as a player, coach, and head coach, as well as the principles that have made him the hottest coach in the NFL.

    In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke that barrier, striking a crucial blow for racial equality and changing the world of sports forever. I Never Had It Made is Robinson's own candid, hard-hitting account of what it took to become the first black man in history to play in the major leagues.I Never Had It Made recalls Robinson's early years and influences: his time at UCLA, where he became the school's first four-letter athlete; his army stint during World War II, when he challenged Jim Crow laws and narrowly escaped court martial; his years of frustration, on and off the field, with the Negro Leagues; and finally that fateful day when Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers proposed what became known as the "Noble Experiment"—Robinson would step up to bat to integrate and revolutionize baseball.More than a baseball story, I Never Had It Made also reveals the highs and lows of Robinson's life after baseball. He recounts his political aspirations and civil rights activism; his friendships with Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, William Buckley, Jr., and Nelson Rockefeller; and his troubled relationship with his son, Jackie, Jr.Originally published the year Robinson died, I Never Had It Made endures as an inspiring story of a man whose heroism extended well beyond the playing field.

    Known as one of the hardest-working and highest-achieving players in NBA history, this most dedicated competitor was legendary for his sharp shooting. From the Outside is his story in his words: a no-holds-barred look at his life and career, filled with behind-the-scenes stories and surprising revelations about the game he has always cherished.Allen talks openly about his fellow players, coaches, owners, and friends, including LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Garnett. He reveals how, as a kid growing up in a military family, he learned about responsibility and respect—the key to making those perfect free throws and critical three-point shots.From the Outside is the portrait of a gifted athlete and a serious man with a strongly defined philosophy about the game and the right way it should be played—a philosophy that, at times, set him apart from colleagues and coaches, while inspiring so many others, and lead to the most pivotal shot of his career: the unforgettable 3-pointer in the final seconds of Game 6 of the 2013 NBA finals against the San Antonio Spurs. Throughout, Allen makes clear that success in basketball is as much about what happens off the court as on, that devotion and commitment are the true essence of the game—and of life itself.

    They can be branded as heroes, ousted as scapegoats, quietly valued as friends, and everything in between. It's all in the job description for an NHL head coach. In Behind the Bench, ESPN's Craig Custance sits down for film sessions and candid conversations with some of the game's most notable modern luminaries—names like Mike Babcock, Joel Quenneville, Dan Bylsma, Todd McLellan, Ken Hitchcock, and Claude Julien—all of whom share their singular views on topics ranging from leadership secrets to on-ice game plans. Dissect some of hockey's greatest moments with the men who set the pieces in motion. Go straight to the source on what it's like to manage a dressing room full of the league's top stars or execute line changes with everything at stake. Signature games, including Stanley Cup finals, Olympic gold medal clashes, and World Championship contests—both wins and losses—are reflected upon and broken down in detail, making this essential reading for current and aspiring coaches, players, and hockey fans alike.

    From his earliest recollections, Page Falkinburg wanted to be like the Saturday afternoon heroes that he watched on TV from the floor of his grandmother's living room. He defied the odds and swayed his critics along the way, climbing the ladder of the largest spectator entertainment sports production in the world today. It was in 1985 that I met a guy who told me his name was Page ... like a book. Like most people who meet him, I knew that there was something very different about Page Falkinburg. He is cocky, and at the same time, he's humble. He is "over the top," but somehow remains "down to earth." One of the toughest "sons of bitches" you'll ever meet, Page can shock you with his sensitivity and compassion. He is an example of good old-fashioned hard work and personal commitment, but at the same time, is able to help create and better the futures of others. Almost fifteen years later, Positively Page serves as a look at that unforgettable guy who possessed the power to rise above adversity and reach his dream.

    has been in the game a long time. With one of the most recognized voices in sports broadcasting, he is a tireless perfectionist when it comes to preparing and delivering his commentary. Yet he knows that some of sports' greatest triumphs--and life's greatest rewards--come from those unscripted moments you never anticipated.In this heartfelt, gripping autobiography, the three-time Sports Emmy Award-winner and popular host of TNT's Inside the NBA provides a remarkably candid look at his life both on and off the screen. From his relationship with his sportscaster father to his own rise to the top of sports broadcasting, from battling cancer to raising six children with his wife, Cheryl, including a special needs child adopted from Romania, Ernie has taken the important lessons he learned from his father and passed them on to his own children. This is the untold story, the one Ernie has lived after the lights are turned off and the cameras stop rolling. Sports fans, cancer survivors, fathers and sons, adoptive parents, those whose lives have been touched by a person with special needs, anyone who loves stories about handling life's surprises with grace--Unscripted is for all of these.