Sports Politics

Sun Tzu was a famous Chinese general whose mastery of strategy was so exceptional that he reportedly transformed 180 courtesans into skilled soldiers in a single training session. While that episode was likely exaggerated, historians agree that Sun Tzu defeated the Ch'u, Qi, and Chin states for King Ho-Lu, forging his empire. With methods so powerful they can conquer an adversary's spirit, you can use Master Tzu's strategies to overcome any challenge, from warfare to self-defense to business negotiations.

The National Basketball Association is a place where white fans and Black players enact virtually every racial issue and tension in US culture. Following the Seattle SuperSonics for an entire season, David Shields explores how, in a predominantly Black sport, White fans - including especially himself - think about and talk about Black heroes, Black scapegoats, and Black bodies. Critically acclaimed and highly controversial, Black Planet was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN USA Award, and was named one of the Top Ten Nonfiction Books of 1999.

Set against a backdrop of social change during the 1970s, State is a compelling first-person account of what it was like to live through both traditional gender discrimination in sports and the joy of the very first days of equality - or at least the closest that one high school girls’ basketball team ever came to it.

This audiobook reflects upon the martial arts as it was hundreds of years ago, before it became popular in the West and people were awarded ranks in astonishingly short periods of time. This audiobook speaks about the true spirit of the martial arts...when it should be used and when it shouldn't; it accurately recounts the history of a number of mainstream martial arts and then goes on to put forth the philosophy of "Christians in the Martial Arts".

Never Ran, Never Will tells the story of the working-class, mostly black neighborhood of Brownsville, Brooklyn; its proud youth football team, the Mo Better Jaguars; and the young boys who are often at the center of both. Oomz, Gio, Hart, and their charismatic, vulnerable friends come together on a dusty football field. All around them, their community is threatened by violence, poverty, and the specter of losing their homes to gentrification. Their passionate, unpaid coaches teach hard lessons about surviving American life with little help from the outside world.

Dave Zirin's book redefines an American icon, and not always in a flattering light. At 81 years old, Brown continues to speak out and look for fights. His recent public support of Donald Trump and criticism of Colin Kaepernick are just the latest examples of someone who seems restless if he is not in conflict. Jim Brown is a raw and thrilling account of Brown's remarkable life and a must-listen for sports fans and students of the Black freedom struggle.

Shawn Harrington returned to Marshall High School as an assistant coach years after appearing as a player in the iconic basketball documentary film Hoop Dreams. In January of 2014, Marshall's struggling team was about to improve after the addition of a charismatic but troubled player. Everything changed, however, when two young men opened fired on Harrington's car as he drove his daughter to school. Harrington was struck and paralyzed. The mistaken-identity shooting was followed by a series of events that had a devastating impact on Harrington and Marshall's basketball family.

In Golden Days, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum uses these two teams - the Jerry West/Wilt Chamberlain/Elgin Baylor Lakers and the Stephen Curry/Kevin Durant/Draymond Green Warriors - to trace the dynamic history of the National Basketball Association, which for much of the last half century has marched memorably through the state of California. Tying together the two strands of McCallum's story is Hall of Famer West, the ferociously competitive Laker guard who later became one of the key architects of the Warriors.

In The Title, Scott Murray delivers a lively, cherry-picked history of the country's football narrative through the prism of the old First Division. Rich with humour yet underpinned with solid research, this is a glorious ramble across English football's varied terrain. With as much about Preston, Burnley, Wolves, Portsmouth and West Brom as the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United, we learn the less well-known stories the sport has to tell, such as the plight of Glossop - the smallest club to ever play top-flight football.

These days, swimming may seem like the most egalitarian of pastimes, open to anyone with a swimsuit - but this wasn't always the case. In the 19th century, swimming was exclusively the domain of men, and access to pools was a luxury limited by class. Women were (barely) allowed to swim in the sea, as long as no men were around, but even into the 20th century they could be arrested and fined if they dared dive into a lake. It wasn't until the 1930s that women were finally granted equal access.

Twenty-five celebrated writers share the inspiring words and timeless wisdom of the athletic coaches who changed and influenced their lives and pass on the sage advice they received.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar brings keen insight to the fore in Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White, his most incisive and important work of nonfiction in years. He uses his unique blend of erudition, street smarts, and authentic experience in essays on the country's seemingly irreconcilable partisan divide, both racial and political; parenthood; and his own experiences as an athlete, an African American, and a Muslim.

Pro basketball player Rasheed Wallace often exclaimed the pragmatic truth "Ball don't lie!" during a game. It is a protest against a referee's bad calls. But the slogan, which originated in pickup games, brings the reality of a racialized urban playground into mainstream American popular culture.

How Football Explains America is a fascinating, first-of-its-kind journey through the making of America's most complex, intriguing, and popular game. ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio explores just how crucial football is to understanding the American psyche. Paolantonio tackles varying American themes from Manifest Destiny to “fourth and one” as he goes deep in order to answer the age-old question: Why does America love football so much?

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.

In an increasingly secular, fragmented, and distracted culture, nothing brings Americans together quite like sports. On Sundays in September, more families worship at the altar of the NFL than at any church. This appeal, which cuts across all demographic and ideological lines, makes sports perhaps the last unifying mass ritual of our era, with huge numbers of people all focused on the same thing at the same moment. That timeless, live quality makes sports very powerful, and very lucrative. And the media spectacle around them is only getting bigger, brighter, and noisier.

More than a century after they first entered the mainstream, bicycles and the culture around them are as accessible as ever - but for women, that progress has always been a struggle to achieve, and even now the culture remains overwhelmingly male. In Revolutions, author Hannah Ross highlights the stories of extraordinary women cyclists and all-female cycling groups over time and around the world, and demonstrates both the feminist power of cycling and its present-day issues.

Jurgen Grobler’s Olympic coaching career is one of legend, yet the man himself has remained resolutely out of the spotlight. Over the last 20 years he has masterminded British Rowing’s incomparable success. And when the difference between gold and silver can mean mere fractions of a second, Jurgen Grobler has consistently delivered Olympic gold through various boat classes and with an ever-changing group of athletes.

From her first strokes as a novice, Ginny Gilder found herself in a new world, training with Olympic rowers and participating in the famous Title IX naked protest, which helped define the movement for equality in college sports. Short, asthmatic, and stubborn, Gilder made the team against all odds and for the next 10 years devoted herself to answering a seemingly simple question: how badly do you want to go fast?

Pete Axthelm follows the 1969 - 70 season of the New York Knicks and provides a parallel focus on basketball as it was then played in the black neighborhoods of New York City. Throughout, he writes clearly, intelligently, and passionately about the game, bringing alive the players’ efforts, accomplishments, and failures.