American Football History

Tom Kelly, the legendary signature voice of USC sports for nearly five decades, combines with co-author Tom Hoffarth of the Daily News of Los Angeles to take Trojan fans on a journey of memories and previously untold anecdotes from and about many of the great coaches, players, teams, and games in USC football history, as well as other sports. His story in Southern California starts with the recommendation of Jack Buck that he be hired as Chick Hearn’s color man on USC football and basketball games in 1961.

A book that explores the enduring legends of Snake, Foo, Dr. Death, and John Madden's Oakland Raiders, Badasses is the definitive biography of arguably the last team to play old-fashioned tough-guy football. Peter Richmond, co-author of the New York Times best seller The Glory Game, offers a fascinating look at the 1970s Oakland Raiders, led by colorful greats from another era.

Since their founding in 1919, the Chicago Bears have carried the hearts and souls of football fans throughout the country. Now supporters of one of the NFL’s most storied franchises will go into the locker room and onto the turf with over 20 Bears legends in Game of My Life: Chicago Bears. In this newly revised edition, sportswriter Lew Freedman opens the doors to players’ private remembrances of how it was and how they reacted to the spotlight. Big touchdowns, career-making moments, and championship glory.

Relive the greatest Giants moments through the eyes of the players themselves - newly revised to include Super Bowl XLVI! The New York Giants have long been one of the NFL’s most popular and storied franchises. Now fans of this dynamic football powerhouse will relive all the greatest gridiron moments through the eyes of the players themselves in this newly updated edition of Game of My Life New York Giants.

This is the story of Ohio State's undefeated run to the 1968 national championship. For Ohio State football loyalists, there hasn't been a time like the 1968 season. In '68, OSU completed a 10-0-0 sweep, won the Rose Bowl over O.J. Simpson and Southern Cal, and finished as the national champion. It was a team of household names for Ohio State fans: Kern, Brockington, Otis, Tatum, Hayden, Stillwagon, Gillian, Provost, Polaski, Foley, Worden, Adams, White, Whitfield, Jankowski, Long, Maciejowski, and Zelina.

At five feet ten inches tall, running back Walter Payton was not the largest player in the NFL, but he developed a larger-than-life reputation for his strength, speed, and grit. Nicknamed “Sweetness” during his college football days, he became the NFL’s all-time leader in rushing and all-purpose yards, capturing the hearts of fans in his adopted Chicago.

Auburn Tigers football legends recall their greatest moments - newly updated to include the Tigers' recent BCS championship. What creates a championship team? Spirit, determination, and a legacy that refuses to die. Game of My Life: Auburn Tigers is a collection of the greatest Tigers moments from past and present as seen through the eyes of the players themselves. In this vivid collection of sports moments, Mark Murphy has brought together passionate Auburn football players to share their fondest experiences and memories.

Win one for The Gipper. Has there ever been a better-known and widely-used exhortative phrase in sports? Not likely. But who was the "Gipper", this mythical-like sports figure whose nickname has aroused, in turn, awe, wonderment, curiosity, and amusement since the second decade of the 20th century, and why is his story important? Answering those questions is the formidable task taken on here by veteran sportswriter Jack Cavanaugh.

For the first time ever, legends of the Longhorns share their greatest football moments. How did Earl Campbell prove that he was worthy of the Heisman? How did a Snickers bar help convince Ricky Williams to return to Texas for his senior year? What was Vince Young really thinking just before the 2006 Rose Bowl? In Game of My Life: Texas Longhorns, fans will find the answers to these questions and many more as 20 of the greatest players relive the moment that shaped their college football career.

Penn State fans will finally get the chance to walk onto the field with their favorite Nittany Lions in Game of My Life Penn State Nittany Lions. In this newly updated edition, Penn State alum Jordan Hyman asks over 20 of the school’s greatest football legends to share their favorite memories and most poignant moments while wearing the white and blue. A must-listen for any Nittany Lions fan.

A continuing and ongoing drama, LSU football has been marked by a string of improbable victories and sometimes valiant defeas. Game Of My Life LSU Tigers is the chronicle of over 30 of the greatest players as they tell the story of the game that meant it all. Marty Mul has compiled the vivid and poignant single-game stories from three dozen of the most remembered Tiger games of the last eight decades. Readers will relive the fingertip catches, the bone-crunching hits, and epic touchdowns through the eyes - and from the memories - of the LSU players themselves.

Jeanne Marie Laskas first met the young forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu in 2009, while reporting a story for GQ that would go on to inspire the movie Concussion. Omalu told her about a day in September 2002, when, in a dingy morgue in downtown Pittsburgh, he picked up a scalpel and made a discovery that would rattle America in ways he’d never intended. Omalu was new to America, chasing the dream, a deeply spiritual man escaping the wounds of civil war in Nigeria.

This wide-ranging history synthesizes scholarship and media sources to give the listener an inside view of the television contracts, labor issues, and other off-the-field forces that shaped the National Football League. Historian Richard Crepeau shows how Commissioner Pete Rozelle's steady leadership guided the league's explosive growth during the era of Monday Night Football and the Super Bowl's transformation into a mid-winter spectacle.

New York Times best-selling, award-winning historian S. C. Gwynne tells the incredible story of how Hal Mumme and Mike Leach - two unknown coaches who revolutionized American football in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s - changed the way the game is played at every level, from high school to the NFL. Hal Mumme is one of a handful of authentic offensive geniuses in the history of American football. In 2015 ESPN Magazine, the nation's leading sports magazine, called him the single most influential football coach in the last quarter century.

The 1923 FA Cup final—aka the White Horse final—was the first football match played at the British Empire Exhibition Stadium. Although best-remembered for non-playing reasons that afternoon marked the historic opening chapter of the stadium’s long and eventful history, of the stadium soon to be known simply as Wembley. Nige Tassell chooses 100 matches—from the well known to the unusual—that have shaped Wembley's legacy and tells a lively and original alternative history of the past 100 years of football, and of Britain.

What if Babe Ruth had not been sold to the Yankees in 1920 and instead played his entire career in Boston? What if Muhammad Ali had lost or quit in his first fight against Sonny Liston? What if the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants had never moved to the West Coast? What if Vince Lombardi had become head coach of his hometown Giants instead of heading to Green Bay? How would sports history, and our perception of it, be different today?

America's Game traces pro football's grand transformation, from the World War II years, when the NFL was fighting for its very existence, to the turbulent 1980s and 1990s, when labor disputes and off-field scandals shook the game to its core, and up to the sport's present-day preeminence. A thoroughly entertaining account of the entire universe of professional football, from locker room to boardroom, from playing field to press box, this is an essential book for any fan of America's favorite sport.

Step onto the gridiron with the greatest legends from Miami Dolphins football - newly updated! This unique and humorous look at life with the Dolphins brings fans onto the field and into the locker room through the eyes of Garo Yepremian, one of Miami’s most recognizable figures. From kicking in his first professional football game to being named “Kicker of the Decade”, Yepremian relives the Dolphins epic 1972 season and so much more.

In A Giant Win, Coach Tom Coughlin reveals the intricacies of football, sharing details only a coach would know. He also details relationships with some of the most iconic players from the Giants, including Eli Manning and Michael Strahan. A Giant Win provides a frame for Coach Coughlin to discuss his life in football—including his years with the Giants as an assistant coach in the late 1980s and 1990, when he helped win a Super Bowl working under Hall of Fame Head Coach Bill Parcells and alongside the coach he’d oppose in Super Bowl XLII: Bill Belichick.

The 1972 Miami Dolphins had something to prove. Losers in the previous Super Bowl, a ragtag bunch of overlooked, underappreciated, or just plain old players, they were led by Don Shula, a genius young coach obsessed with obliterating the reputation that he couldn't win the big game. And as the Dolphins headed into only their seventh season, all eyes were on Miami. For the last time, a city was hosting both national political conventions, and the backdrop to this season of redemption would be turbulent.