American Football

There are moments in life when it comes down to your decision. Whatever you're facing, you know that no one else can bail you out. You have to make the call. Mark Richt, former head football coach at the University of Georgia and the University of Miami and long-time assistant coach at Florida State University, knows a thing or two about making the call.

It’s almost impossible to talk about Oakland football without bringing up the name of the consummate Raider, Tom Flores. Legendary for both his skills on the field and his coaching guidance from the sideline, Flores has been an integral part of the Raiders organization since its inception in 1960. Now Flores shares the greatest stories and anecdotes from his time with the team in Tales from the Oakland Raiders Sideline.

Comprised of exclusive interviews with Jets players, coaches, and other figures surrounding the organization, Sack Exchange: The Definitive Oral History of the 1980s New York Jets is an eye-opening account of a memorable era in one team's history, which also takes a step back and looks at the state of the National Football League as a whole during the 1980s.

In the spring of 2013, a study showed that despite huge economic problems, 27 states were awarding their highest salaries to college football coaches. College football has doubled in size in the last decade thanks to generous tax breaks, lavish TV deals, and corporate sponsors eager to slap their logos on everything from scoreboards to footballs and uniforms. In one recent year, the 10 biggest programs took in $800 million from football, with profit margins far surpassing those of Fortune 500 companies.

In the 1960s, on the heels of the “Greatest Game Ever Played”, professional football began to flourish across the country - except in Texas, where college football was still the only game in town. But in an unlikely series of events, two young oil tycoons started their own professional football franchises in Dallas the very same year: the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, and, as part of a new upstart league designed to thwart the NFL’s hold on the game, the Dallas Texans of the AFL. Almost overnight, a bitter feud was born.

Game of My Life: Dallas Cowboys takes you inside the most memorable game of 24 players and of head Coach Jimmy Johnson that earned each of them a place in the history and lore of America’s Team. Each chapter provides colorful detail on the player’s favorite game and its significance to the history of one of the world’s most recognized franchises. Learn how these men joined the Cowboys fraternity.

A story of risk, adventure, and daring as four American bobsledders race for the gold in the most dangerous competition in Olympic history. In the 1930s, as the world hurtled toward war, speed was all the rage. Bobsledding, the fastest and most thrilling way to travel on land, had become a...

From America’s premier sportswriter, the definitive, #1 New York Times bestselling biography of Joe Paterno and the story of America’s love affair with football. Joe Paterno believed that football was a way to teach young men how to live. He coached at Penn State for 62 years. In the course...

Johnathan Thurston is widely regarded as rugby league's greatest player. This autobiography will follow Thurston's journey from a Brisbane kid who was written off as too skinny, too slow, and too wild to play professionally, to his debut with the Canterbury Bulldogs in 2003, to State of Origin star, to Dally M and Clive Churchill Medal winner, and the fairytale premierships.

Tennyson Clark is getting a life. First step: quitting her job as assistant to Dominic Anderson, star quarterback for the Washington Warriors, her best friend…and the man she’s been secretly in love with for years. But since the gorgeous, if overprotective playboy has only ever seen her as his BFF, she’s finally ready to relinquish her tattered fantasy and move on. Enter steps two and three: new job and new man. Football is Dominic's life, and with his contract soon up for renewal, all his focus needs to be on the game.

In an instant he became her hero. Then he became her lover and her friend. My name is Jaxon Hart. You watched me grow up. You watched me fight for my life. Now, I’m fighting for hers. From the second I laid eyes on Annika Leander, I wanted to help her. Protect her. Vindicate her. But she’s got baggage to get through. Hell, we both do. A funny thing happens, though, when you finally connect with someone in a different way than you ever have before. The baggage doesn’t seem so heavy. I suppose that’s really the only thing that matters when the heart gets involved.

Five years removed from winning a state championship in Nowata, Jerry Bailey had ended his run as the head coach at Sapulpa and was ready to move on to another high school and another football team. However, Bailey and his assistant Reagor left school on a January morning and never returned. Because of the Hate is the true story about the murder of Jerry Bailey, a beloved high school football coach in Oklahoma. In 1976, Jerry Bailey had resigned as the Sapulpa High School head football coach but was murdered by his assistant Paul Reagor, Jr.

Lauren: Graham is my brother's best friend. He's always been my protector and my confident because he accepts me the way I am - and not many do. I can't imagine not having him in my life. Our weekend together was supposed to be a celebration. I graduated from college, Graham got engaged and signed with a pro football team, and my brother landed his dream job. It should have been the best time of our lives. Except that the weekend started with me walking in on Graham's fiancée going down on my brother. I complicated the situation by having sex with Graham after that.

On the heels of the cult television hit Friday Night Lights, The New York Times best-selling author of The Junction Boys pens the story of Texas high school football integration, and the three men who put together a championship team.

At 5-foot-8, 175 pounds, Daniel Rodriguez was an unlikely recruit for the gridiron. But on the battlefield, under the daily rain of sniper fire, he made a promise to his best friend. "When I get out of this shit hole, I'm going to play college football." Daniel had joined the Army just weeks after graduating from high school, having recently suffered a devastating loss. At age nineteen he had no idea what war really was; he just wanted to get out of town.

At 5-19, the odds against Gene Chizik leading Auburn to a national championship were staggering. But the odds were about to change. All In chronicles the remarkable journey of Gene Chizik, who in two short years went from being the much-maligned 5-19 coach of the Iowa State Cyclones to the undefeated AP SEC Coach of the Year of the 2010 national champion Auburn Tigers.

Gene Washington’s football career ended long before his daughter Maya was born. She never saw the legendary powerhouse as anything but her dad. She didn’t yet grasp the impact he’d had on the sport - and on America. To understand his historic role in the integration of college football and fully appreciate his legacy, Maya had a lot of catching up to do. Maya retraces her father’s journey from the segregated south to Michigan State during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement and his journey as an NFL pioneer after the 1967 draft.

Barney and Hattie Frank are 12-year-old twins who play football together on the school team. The team is trying to win the County Cup. Hattie is the better player but Barney thinks he can see where the school team is going wrong. So, when a TV talent show is looking for a new manager to help a failing Premiership team to start scoring again, Barney's sure he knows the answer. Maybe, to demonstrate his skills, he could train Hattie to be a top goal scorer.

In our Christian faith, we're either drawing closer to God and to his purposes for our lives or drawing further away. Like an athlete in training, there can be no middle ground.

In this hilariously funny essay collection, former ESPN columnist Rick Reilly com­piles the best of his sports columns - essays that include his expert opinion on athlete tattoos, NFL cheerleaders, and even running with the bulls in Pamplona.