Biographies Memoirs Sports

Jürgen Klopp is the charismatic German manager who single-handedly overthrew the accepted order in German football, taking Borussia Dortmund from nowhere to back-to-back Bundesliga titles and the Champions League final. He had long been admired in the Premiership and was finally wooed by Liverpool in the belief he could bring back the glory days to the Kop. Klopp is revered as a master tactician with his own unique playing philosophies.

Several years after his playing career was cut short by injury before it had a chance to really begin, John Madden was hired as an assistant coach by the Oakland Raiders, one of professional football's most iconoclastic franchises. Two years later he was named the team's head coach and proceeded to lead the Raiders to five championship games in his first seven seasons. Following years of heartbreaking losses in some of history's most memorable games.

When Tommy Fury realised as a young boy that he wanted to become a boxer, the odds were stacked against him. His father was sent to prison when Tommy was only nine, casting his family life into chaos. He couldn't afford a bus ticket to the gym to train, so he'd have to walk three hours instead. When he got there, everyone wanted to fight him - guys much older than him and twice his size - to say they could beat a Fury.

Dave Hahn, a local of Taos, New Mexico, is a legendary figure in mountaineering. Elite members of the climbing community have likened him to the Michael Jordan, Cal Ripkin, or Michael Phelps of the climbing world. The 2015 expedition he would lead came just one short year after the notorious Khumbu Icefall avalanche claimed the lives of 16 Sherpas. Dave and his team spent weeks honing the techniques that would help keep them alive through the Icefall and the Death Zone. None of this could have prepared them for the earthquake that shook Everest and all of their lives on April 25, 2015.

Hall of Fame football coach Jimmy Johnson’s house isn’t on the way to anything. Yet, his private sanctuary on the Florida Keys’ Islamorada islands is a popular destination to which college and professional coaches, general managers, and team owners regularly trek to seek advice—how to build a positive team culture, draft elite players, balance work and family life, and lead a team to win. Why? Because Jimmy Johnson has done it all. Now, written with sports journalist Dave Hyde, Johnson shares a candid account of his life experiences that have turned him into a legend in the coaching world.

Runners' vocabulary is full of acronyms like DNS for "Did Not Start" and DNF for "Did Not Finish," but when Mirna Valerio stepped up to the starting line, she needed a new one: DNQ for "Did Not Quit."

From the New York Times best-selling author of Return of the King comes the story of LeBron James' incredible transformation from basketball star to sports and business mogul.

Before he was a national disc golf champion, Scott Stokely was a latch-key kid, a troubled teen, an arrogant punk. Before his entry in the Guinness Book of World Records, he was a black-market dealer, an addict, a fugitive from justice. Scott would become a devoted teacher, a dedicated advocate, a team leader, and one of the toughest competitors in the history of disc golf. But first, he would have to grow up.

The National Football League's current dominance has obscured how professional football got its start. In The League, John Eisenberg reveals that Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell took an immense risk by investing in the professional game. At that time, the sport barely registered on the national scene. The five owners succeeded only because at critical junctures in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, each sacrificed the short-term success of his team for the longer-term good of the League.

Enzo uncovers a wealth of new facts about the origins, ambitions, and private life of Enzo Ferrari. Drawing on years of original research conducted in Italy and abroad, this book lays bare the hidden aspects of Ferrari's career. From his earliest failed business ventures, to his political dealings with Italy's fascist government, Allied occupiers, and even Communist leaders. Revisit all the highlights of Ferrari's rise to greatness. Including his driving career in the 1920s, his management of racing teams for Alfa Romeo in the 1930s and the launch of his own company and team in the late 1940s.

Journey with Olympian Ryan Hall as he reflects on the joys and trials of the running life and, along the way, shows you how his faith has helped him win in his workouts, races, and overall mindset. Ryan Hall is an Olympic athlete and American record holder in the half marathon (59:43). But as a kid, Ryan hated running. He wanted nothing to do with the sport until one day, he felt compelled to run the 15 miles around his neighborhood lake. He was hooked.

November 2019. Unai Emery’s final game as Arsenal manager sees the Gunners languishing eighth in the league. Appointed in the dying embers of the Wenger years, Emery’s 18 months as Arsenal boss has seen the team and the club go backwards – playing unimaginative, pragmatic football, and recently losing to London rivals Chelsea in the final of the Europa League. Something had to change; a fresh head with fresh ideas. A new leader.

Sports fans see Joe Buck everywhere: broadcasting one of the biggest games in the NFL every week, calling the World Series every year, announcing the Super Bowl every three years. They know his father, Jack Buck, is a broadcasting legend and that he was beloved in his adopted hometown of St. Louis. Yet they have no idea who Joe really is. Or how he got here. In Lucky Bastard, Joe takes the listener into the broadcast booth and into his childhood home. Hilarious and occasionally heartbreaking, this is a book that any sports fan will love.

"I can lick any son of a bitch in the world." So boasted John L. Sullivan, the first modern heavyweight boxing champion of the world, a man who was the gold standard of American sports for more than a decade and the first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. He had a big ego, a big mouth, and even bigger appetites. His womanizing, drunken escapades, and chronic police-blotter presence were godsends to a burgeoning newspaper industry.

For 36 years, Jerry Howarth ushered in eternal hope each spring and thrived in the drive of each fall as the voice of the Toronto Blue Jays. In 1982, the lifelong avid sports fan joined Tom Cheek as full-time play-by-play radio announcer for the Blue Jays, and for the next 23 years, “Tom and Jerry” were the voices of the franchise. Jerry became part of the fabric of a nation and a team, covering historic moments like the rise of the Blue Jays through the 1980s that culminated in back-to-back World Series Championships in 1992 and 1993.

In the late 1980s, a spectacular three-year-old female racehorse named Winning Colors was being groomed for success under her famous Hollywood trainer D. Wayne Lukas and the billionaire owner of the San Diego Chargers pro-football team Eugene Klein. Meanwhile, three fun-loving gamblers Miami Paul, Dino Mateo, and Big Bernie believed that Winning Colors could be the unlikely female winner of the 1988 Kentucky Derby.

In 2011, three years after leaving the NFL, Steve Gleason was diagnosed with ALS, a terminal disease that paralyzes the entire body. Doctors gave him three years to live. He was thirty-four years old. As Steve says, he is now ten years past his expiration date. His memoir is the chronicle of a remarkable life, one filled with optimism and joy, despite the trauma and pain and despair he has experienced.

Lawrence "Yogi" Berra was never supposed to become a major league ballplayer. That's what his immigrant father told him. That's what Branch Rickey told him, too—right to Berra's face, in fact. Even the lowly St. Louis Browns of his youth said he'd never make it in the big leagues. Yet baseball was his lifeblood. It was the only thing he ever cared about. Heck, it was the only thing he ever thought about.

Genius? Tyrant? Power broker? Enzo Ferrari is the impressively researched, fully detailed biography of one of the most powerful men of the twentieth century. Brock Yates penetrated Ferrari’s inner circle and reveals everything, from his early days in the town of Modena to his bizarre relationship with his illegitimate son; from his fanatic passion for speed to his brilliant marketing of the famous Ferrari image; from his manipulative but enormously effective management tactics to his own frustrated dreams. Fast, fun, and scandalous, Enzo Ferrari more than lives up to its remarkable subject.

He is one of basketball's towering figures: "Mr. Clutch," who mesmerized his opponents and fans. The coach who began the Lakers' resurgence in the 1970s. The general manager who helped bring "Showtime" to Los Angeles, creating a championship-winning force that continues to this day. Now, for the first time, the legendary Jerry West tells his story - from his tough childhood in West Virginia, to his unbelievable college success at West Virginia University, his 40-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, and his relationships with NBA legends.