American Football

When Scott Murphy scored the winning touchdown in the 1991 state championship game, it should have launched a golden future - the full scholarship to Ohio State, the million-dollar signing bonus, marriage to the beauty queen, and NFL glory. Instead, it all ended with a sickening pop as his leg shattered in four places. The next twenty years would be a study in Murphy's Law-whatever could go wrong did. Just when things seem at their worst-he's losing his farm, his relationship with his wife is crumbling - a miracle happens: Murphy gets a chance to reboot his life.

In this "powerful and inspiring" true story, follow Joe Moglia's legendary career transition from head football coach at Coastal Carolina University to the CEO of TD Ameritrade, one of the country's most successful financial firms. By the time Joe was in his early 30s, he had risen through the high school and college football ranks to become the defensive coordinator at Dartmouth. His dream was very much within reach. Problem was, Joe wasn't making enough money to support his growing family.

The first week of school becomes a “Week of Hell” when forced busing divides a small southern town during the integration of its school system. The actions of a third-string football player do more than all of the politicians and educators put together to ease the pain of coming together.

We live in a world that all too often operates under the overriding template of self-promotion, embracing a "hooray for me" attitude, and which measures success in increasingly small timeframes dotted with markers of temporal value. Millions of viewers know James Brown as a sports commentator and former athlete. With Role of a LifetimeJames reveals a different side of his character. Part memoir and part self-help, this book draws on James' lessons from his life experiences.

At the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics, track and field star Jesse Owens ran himself straight into international glory by winning four gold medals. But the life of Jesse Owens is much more than a sports story. Born in rural Alabama under the oppressive Jim Crow laws, Owens' family suffered many hardships. As a boy he worked several jobs, like delivering groceries and working in a shoe repair shop, to make ends meet. But Owens defied the odds to become a sensational student athlete, eventually running track for Ohio State.

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.

I had a hunch we'd be champions! The most unlikely story in the history of sport, told by our greatest football writer. On 25th March 2015, when King Richard III, recently rescued from a municipal car park, was reburied in Leicester Cathedral, his beloved football team had just lost 4-3 to Tottenham Hotspur and were bottom of the Premier League, relegation certainties. With King Richard finally at rest, everything changed for Leicester City.

Two days before Super Bowl XLI in 2007, the game's two opposing head coaches posed with the trophy one of them would hoist after the contest. It was a fairly unremarkable event, except that both coaches were African American - a fact that was as much of a story as the game itself. As Jeremi Duru reveals in Advancing the Ball, this unique milestone resulted from the work of a determined group of people whose struggles to expand head coaching opportunities for African Americans ultimately changed the National Football League.

In 2011, Mark Herzlich became a starting linebacker for a New York Giants team that would win the Super Bowl - just two years after he had been told that he would never play football again. Now Herzlich tells his triumphant story for the first time. Mark Herzlich fought a battle against cancer, against statistics, and some days against himself. Told with candor and raw emotion, this is a story for anyone who has ever fought to beat the odds, for anyone who has ever been told that what they are about to attempt is next to impossible.

Through one-on-one interviews, this evocative collection of life stories explores the bittersweet tales of some of the NFL's most famous men, including, Mike Ditka, Hollywood Henderson, Ron Jaworski, Ronnie Lott, Dan Reeves, Rocky Bleier, and Pat Summerall. Co-creator Cynthia Zordich, wife of former pro safety Michael Zordich, had the presence of mind to dive into a world yet traveled and ask questions of those who had already left the game.

To the select fraternity of men who have won the Heisman Trophy since its inception in 1935, the award is so much more than just a football trophy. The Heisman is a national symbol of collegiate football experience and competitiveness. Over time, it has become the single most celebrated individual award in all of American sports. Although the Heisman Trophy is old, it does not age. If anything, its impact gets stronger every year. No other individual award captures the country’s imagination like the Heisman does.

In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of America's most beloved sporting event - the Super Bowl - an authoritative collection of the most pivotal plays through the decades, compiled by the legendary Jerry Rice.

More than 30 years ago, acclaimed author and Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist Rick Telander was drafted out of Northwestern University by a Kansas City Chiefs team filled with future Pro Football Hall of Famers and coached by the legendary Hank Stram. In 2004, Telander found the tattered, spiral-bound journal he kept while in that training camp and, after rereading the entries he kept until being cut from the team, was amazed and moved by the life lessons he took away from that once-in-a-lifetime experience and how they can be applied to people’s lives today.

Luck's record-breaking rookie season has fans and critics alike wondering where his career will take him next. Inside, you will discover where it all started and learn why so many fans love Luck so much. From family to football to the future, all you need to know about Andrew Luck is right here, right now, in the most up to date coverage of Andrew Luck's life.

Here are the Paterno principles: the straight word from the curious quarterback and English major who went from Brooklyn to Brown to Penn State, who lost his way to law school and became instead America’s best-loved coach. With the help of a first-rate biographer and friend, Bernard Asbell, Joe Paterno tells his story, sharing his life’s principles and touching on a number of important subjects, including family, heroes, management, leadership, loyalty, teamwork, discipline, motivation, and football strategy.

''Tebow-mania'' has fans and critics alike questioning his motives and looking for where God and his career will take him next. Inside, you will discover where it all started and learn why so many fans are ''Tebowing'' alongside their new national hero. From family to football to the future, all you need to know about Tim Tebow is right here, right now, in the most up to date coverage of Tim Tebow's life.

Most people are aware of his amazing talents on the field and of his amazing controversies off the field, but in order to truly understand Michael Vick, you must first understand where he came from. Michael Vick: An Unauthorized Biography explores Vick's early life, his high school and college careers, details his dog-fighting conviction and other personal troubles, and explores his career in the NFL all the way through April 2013.

Growing up in a single parent home with a father that inspired perseverance and fairness, Marques Ogden learned how to define his values and set goals. Ogden attended Howard University from 1998-2002, where he played Division I football. He followed his dream and his brother Jonathan's footsteps, eventually getting drafted into the NFL in 2003. Overall, he played for five years as an offensive lineman with the Titans, Bills, Ravens and Jaguars. Even during the off season, Ogden helped train football players in Europe, both physically and mentally. At the age of 27, he founded a construction company called Kayden Premier Enterprises, a business that grew rapidly in its first few years, but Ogden and the business eventually went bankrupt, after Ogden loss almost two million dollars on one project in a time period just under 90 days. At his darkest point, the NFL came in and helped Ogden restructure his life. With hard work and determination, he became a motivational speaker and marketing leader, helping to build others up to succeed. Through it all, Ogden dealt with his own personal demons of drinking and gambling to make it regardless of obstacles that were in his path!

Life in the minor leagues of football, which NFL Europe has been aptly dubbed, can be funny, sad, profound and ludicrous all at the same time. At its heart, this six-team league is a short-stop away from either the glamour of the NFL or the bottom of the professional football scrap pile - a crossroads full of real-life drama where the joy of "making it" can be tempered by failure or injury with one misstep; where the difference between a multimillion dollar NFL contract and abject poverty may only be one play away.

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.