American Football

Being a University of Michigan football fan should be joyful. Michigan is an elite academic institution whose football team boasts 43 Big Ten championships. But these days, college football is complicated. The NCAA is corrupt and exploitative, and Michigan keeps losing to Ohio State. It’s hard not to wonder, as Ben Mathis-Lilley does in this book: why are we doing this? The Hot Seat is a chronicle of one of the wildest years in Michigan football history, but also a search for the truth about fandom, from the pages of history books to the wilderness of online forums.

The New York Yankees. The Boston Red Sox. For a hundred years, no two teams have locked horns as fiercely or as frequently, and no two seasons frame the colossal battle more perfectly than 2003 and 2004. Now, with incredible energy and access, leading sports columnist Mike Vaccaro chronicles the history of the greatest rivalry in sports, and the two stunning American League Championship Series that define a century of baseball.

Colleges provide over $12 billion in financial aid and scholarships annually. Of this, $2.7 billion is awarded each year for athletic scholarships. Only six percent of high school athletes compete for that $2.7 billion. Score College Scholarships is produced from the perspective of a college applicant, who received multiple offers and earned six scholarships. With the help of this book, student-athletes, and their parents will learn the most effective strategies to get noticed by college coaches, balance academic and athletic considerations, and choose the "best fit" school.

There is no profession in sports like the NFL tight end. None. You must mash 320-pound defensive ends in the run game. You must twist your torso at impossible angles to make acrobatic catches downfield in the pass game. You must have a certain element of crazy to you, too. The tight end is a blend of brain and brawn and bruises…so many bruises. BLOOD AND GUTS tracks the fascinating rise of this position one tight end at a time, from Mike Ditka and John Mackey in the '60s to Rob Gronkowski today.

Often recruited before they've worn long trousers, today's footballers become superstars who earn huge amounts without ever learning much about the world beyond the training ground. But what do these Peter Pans, whose careers end just as most people's are getting going, do with the rest of their lives? Crouch speaks from his own experience and discusses with fellow former professionals too—just how do you safely release a near seven-foot striker back into the wild?

The first fifty years of America's most popular spectator sport have been strangely neglected by historians claiming to tell the "complete story" of pro football. Well, here are the early stories that "complete story" has left out. What about the awful secret carried around by Sid Luckman, the Bears' Hall of Fame quarterback whose father was a mobster and a murderer? Or Steve Hamas, who briefly played in the NFL then turned to boxing and beat Max Schmeling, conqueror of Joe Louis?

In J.J. Watt: The Inspiring Story of One of Football's Greatest Defensive Ends, you will learn the inspirational story of one of football's premier defensive ends, JJ Watt. Since joining the NFL, JJ Watt has quickly emerged as one of the league's best defensive players, causing opposing teams to double and sometimes even triple team him to try to contain him. His impact on the defensive end of the field is truly invaluable.

Forty-seven years of joyous celebrations after victories and crushing disappointments after defeats are encompassed in Marv Levy: Where Else Would You Rather Be?, but it is about more than just touchdowns and interceptions - it’s about how a person like Marv Levy, dedicated to his life’s work, can begin his career as the obscure assistant coach of a high school junior varsity team and decades later lead a team to the Super Bowl.

George Sephton's relationship with Liverpool Football Club began in 1971 when he wrote to the club secretary applying to be the stadium announcer. His first match also marked the debut of Kevin Keegan. For the past 50 years, Sephton has been at Anfield for all but a handful of home fixtures, as well as travelling with the team to major finals. From the highs of winning numerous league titles and European Cups, to the lows of Heysel and Hillsborough, Sephton has been with Liverpool through it all.

Surround Yourself with Greatness takes listeners around the world while looking through the eyes, mind, and heart of Chad Lewis - a once freckle-faced, four-eyed, skinny teenager who at an early age wrote in his journal, “My goal and quest is to surround myself with greatness...only greatness will penetrate the walls of my heart.”

In Bo's Lasting Lessons, the coach draws on his years of experience, using first-person anecdotes to deliver timeless lessons on leadership, motivation, and responsibility. With pithy language, Bo explains that true leadership requires the compassion to actively listen to your people, and then to have the courage to do what is right every time.

The Super Bowl champion wide receiver for the New England Patriots shares his inspiring story of an underdog kid who was always doubted to becoming one of the most reliable and inspiring players in the NFL. Relentless is the story of Julian Edelman's rise, and the continuing dominance of the Patriot dynasty, filled with memories of growing up with a father who was as demanding as any NFL coach, his near-constant fight to keep his intensity and competitiveness in check in high school and college, and his celebrated nine seasons with the Patriots.

This audiobook explores Belichick's thoughts on his players, the NFL, Tom Brady, and the skills needed to play each position. If you want to learn the insights that has guided the development of the Patriots then this audiobook will help you. Also, the chapter on Tom Brady will enable you to understand the dynamics behind one of the greatest player/coach relationships of all time.  

In this inspirational memoir, Derrick Coleman, Jr., the Seattle Seahawks fullback who won the 2014 Super Bowl with the Seahawks in his second year in the NFL, relates his inspirational story of hard work and determination in his own words. Showcasing his unlikely and challenging journey to become the first deaf athlete to play offense in the NFL, he talks about overcoming internal and external obstacles in the course of reaching your true potential.

Francis Benali is a Southampton Football Club legend and a celebrated charity endurance athlete, and he's ready to tell his story. Francis 'Franny' Benali played football for 20 years for Southampton FC in nearly 400 games, almost his entire career. His utter dedication to the club caused him to be a hero to Saints fans around the world.

12 is the propulsive story of this gritty comeback. It's a drama that unfolds in the locker room, the court room, and under the brightest lights in all of sports - the Super Bowl. Now for the first time, listeners will have an exclusive look into Tom Brady's experience and the NFL's shocking strangle-hold on their players. With unprecedented access to Brady himself, his teammates, and his lawyers, we will see just how a football legend went up against one of the largest corporations in the world to stage the greatest comeback in NFL history and emerge a god of the gridiron.

Today, sports arenas have been transformed into staging grounds for American patriotism and the hero worship of law enforcement. Teams wear camouflage jerseys to honor those who serve; police officers throw out first pitches; soldiers surprise their families with homecomings at halftime. Sports and politics are decidedly entwined. But as journalist Howard Bryant reveals, this has always been more complicated for black athletes, who from the start were committing a political act simply by being on the field.

Coaching a football team is no child’s play–you need to have a burning passion, strong knowledge of the game, and a solid work ethic. Above all, you need to have the ability to bring out the best in every member of the team to win on and off the field.

Long before their first Super Bowl victory in 2003, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers did something no NFL team had ever done before and that none will ever likely do again: They lost 26 games in a row. It started in 1976, in their first season as an expansion team, and it lasted until the penultimate game of the 1977 season, when they defeated Archie Manning and the New Orleans Saints on the road. It was the beginning of a new streak for a team that had come to be called "The Yucks".

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.