American Football History

Ever met a boy whose heart beats faster at the roar of a football stadium? If you know a 9-12-year-old with eyes wide at touchdown replays? Does your son, grandson, or nephew re-enact the famous moves of legendary players whenever they have a ball to hand?

In Marjorie Herrera Lewis’s debut historical novel the inspiring true story of high school teacher Tylene Wilson—a woman who surprises everyone as she breaks with tradition to become the first high school football coach in Texas—comes to life. ""A wonderfully touching and beautiful...

In The First Star, acclaimed sports writer Lars Anderson recounts the thrilling story of Harold "Red" Grange, the Galloping Ghost of the gridiron, and the wild barnstorming tour that earned professional football a place in the American sporting firmament.

That afternoon was the last time the high-school Patriots would see one another for weeks; some teammates they'd never see again. Hurricane Katrina was about to tear their lives apart. Hurricane Season is the story of a great football coach, his team, his family, and their school - and a remarkable fight back from shocking tragedy.

Aliquippa, Pennsylvania is famous for two things: the Jones and Laughlin Steel mill, an industrial behemoth that helped win World War II; and football, with a high school team that has produced numerous NFL stars, including Mike Ditka and Darrelle Revis. But the mill, once the fourth largest producer in America, closed for good in 2000. What happens to a town when a dream dies? Does it just disappear?

The 1960 Missouri Tigers football team entered the season with low expectations. But over the course of their incredible season, they set or broke nearly every record in school history en route to a controversial national championship run. Not only is this true story a record of on the field football accomplishments, but it also follows the story of Norris Stevenson and Mel West, the first two African-American players to ever play at Missouri.

It was the end of an era in professional football. After years of competing against each other, the American Football League (AFL) and the National Football League (NFL) merged to form one football powerhouse in 1970. After the merger, the league split into two conferences: the AFC and the NFC. In the year 1970, 13 teams would battle in each conference to meet in Super Bowl V. After a history of tough losses in big games, two teams rose to the top—the Dallas Cowboys and the Baltimore Colts.

“Moving, thoughtful, redemptive. The Strangers is an important book. It will become a Black classic.”— Ben Okri, author of The Famished Road “Thrilling and ingenious, propulsive and genre-defying: The Strangers is an outstanding book. Compelling and imaginatively expansive, this is...

From Darkness to Dynasty tells the unlikely history of the New England Patriots as it has never been told before. From their humble beginnings as a team bought with rainy-day money by a man who had no idea what he was doing, to the fateful season that saw them win their first Super Bowl, Jerry Thornton shares the wild, humiliating, unbelievable, and wonderful stories that comprised the first 40 years of what would ultimately become the most dominant franchise in NFL history.

In the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the 1942 Rose Bowl was moved from Pasadena to Durham, North Carolina, out of fear of Japanese attacks on the West Coast. It remains the only Rose Bowl game to ever be played outside of Pasadena. Duke University, led by legendary coach Wallace Wade Sr., faced off against underdog Oregon State College, with both teams preparing for a grueling fight on the football field while their thoughts wandered to the battlefields they would soon be on.

This book has 106 questions of interesting trivia and fun facts on baseball, basketball, American football, and Olympic questions to keep you entertained.

As Don Shula and Johnny Unitas elevated the brutal game of football, the world around them clashed about Vietnam, civil rights, and sex. Collision of Wills looks at the complicated relationship between Don Shula, the league's winningest coach of all time, and his star player Johnny Unitas, and how their secret animosity fueled the Colts in an era when their losses were as memorable as their victories.

Spies on the Sidelines: The High-Stakes World of NFL Espionage details the collection techniques that NFL teams utilize to gather information on their opponents in order to gain a game-day advantage, as well as the countermeasures used to defend against them. The book spans the entire history of the league and contains anecdotes from every NFL team. Topics include spying on practices, stealing paperwork and signals, debriefing personnel that switch teams, listening devices, headset tampering, elicitation, Spygate, Deflategate, and so much more!

In between Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan there was Joe Namath, one of the very few sports heroes who transcended their game. The son of a Hungarian immigrant, Namath left the steel country of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, for the Deep South, where he played quarterback for Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama. Almost four years later, he signed a $427,000 contract with the New York Jets that changed football forever, transforming a crude, violent game into show business.

Dallo Stadium, gigantesca arena inaugurata a Torino nel 1911, allo Juventus Stadium, aperto - sempre a Torino - nel 2011: nell'arco di un secolo il nostro football ha vissuto momenti epici e tragici. Ricordiamo la vittoria dell'Italia ai mondiali del 1934, disputati in casa; i trionfi del Grande Torino; lo storico scudetto del Cagliari di Gigi Riva e quelli del Verona di Bagnoli e del Milan di Sacchi; ma anche la drammatica morte del tifoso laziale Vincenzo Paparelli in un derby Roma-Lazio del 1979, e il "Totonero", primo grande scandalo calcistico.

On December 28, 1958, the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts met under the lights of Yankee Stadium for that season's NFL Championship game. Football was still greatly over-shadowed by the country's favored pastime - baseball - but the 1958 championship proved to be the turning point for pro football.

On the field and roaming the sidelines were 17 future Hall of Famers, including Colts stars Johnny Unitas, Raymond Berry, and Gino Marchetti, and Giants greats Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, and assistant coaches Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry.

The Best Game Ever is a brilliant portrait of how a single game changed the history of American sports.

Marion Motley was recognized as one of the gridiron's most outstanding players when he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1968. His legacy as one of four Black players to reintegrate pro football in 1946 helped blaze a path for Black athletes in the highest echelons of professional sports. This book tells Motley's story of adversity, personal tragedy, and triumphs using archival interviews and new interviews with historians, friends, and descendants.

John Eisenberg's That First Season is the seldom-studied prequel to a phenomenal football career for Vince Lombardi and the Packers, drawing on exhaustive new research and interviews to tell an incredible ensemble tale of a team, a town, and their leader. The once-vaunted Green Bay Packers were a laughingstock by the late 1950s. They hadn't fielded a winning team in more than a decade and were close to losing their franchise to another city. They were in desperate need of a savior, and he arrived in a wood-paneled station wagon in the dead of winter from New York City.

In the long annals of sports and crime, no story compares to the one that engulfed the Luckman family in 1935. As 18-year-old Sid Luckman made headlines across New York City for his high school football exploits at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, his father, Meyer Luckman, was making headlines in the same papers for a very different reason: the gangland murder of his own brother-in-law. Amazingly, the connection between sports celebrity son and mobster father was studiously ignored by the press and ultimately overlooked for eight decades.

Football, known as ‘The Beautiful Game,’ transcends borders, cultures, and generations, captivating millions around the globe with its thrilling blend of athleticism, strategy, and unyielding passion. From the dusty streets of small villages to the grand stadiums of bustling metropolises, football unites people in a shared love for the sport, creating unforgettable memories and lifelong bonds.