Professional Sports

Sal Paolantonio of ESPN takes listeners inside the improbable 2017 championship season of the Philadelphia Eagles - from training camp to the first Super Bowl title in franchise history. This is the inside story you will get nowhere else - from the team's storybook start to the nail-biting victory over the New England Patriots in Minneapolis, featuring the "Philly Special", perhaps the most memorable play in Super Bowl history.

The first of Plimpton's remarkable forays into participatory journalism, Out of My League chronicles with wit, charm, and grace what happens when a self-professed amateur has the chance to answer every fan's question: could he strike out a major league star? Plimpton's inspired idea - to get on the mound and pitch a few innings to the All-Stars of the American and National Leagues - begins as a fun-filled stunt and comes to a deeply hellish, nearly humiliating end.

The use of analytics in sport is now well embedded. Marginal gains, the bedrock upon which the cycling coach Dave Brailsford built his greatest successes, are cornerstones of most sports nowadays. But, until recently, that did not apply to the biggest sport in the world. Not in soccer. It was as though this simplest of sports is too complicated for statistics. Or that only one statistic counts, the number of times the ball hits the back of the net. "The only statistic that counts", there’s an often used and annoying stock term.

How to Start, Run, and Promote a Successful Independent Professional Wrestling Show provides guidance on setting a vision and goals, assembling a team, choosing a business structure, understanding the market, and conducting market research. It offers strategies for promoting and marketing shows, managing finances and budgets, and exploring revenue streams. The book covers various aspects of show production, including venue selection, talent acquisition, show format and storyline development, technical production, and ensuring crowd safety.

Professional distance runners Elvin Kibet and Shadrack Kipchirchir grew up in rural Kenyan villages. Though their lives began in poverty, both were driven to reach their full potential, to gain an education, and make a difference. And they would find their way to do just that through the high-pressure world of distance running.

In The Circuit: A Tennis Odyssey, the award-winning poet - and Paris Review sports columnist - Rowan Ricardo Phillips chronicles 2017 as seen through the unique prism of its pivotal, revelatory, and historic tennis season. The annual tennis schedule is a rarity in professional sports in that it encapsulates the calendar year. And like the year, it's divided into four seasons, each marked by a final tournament: the Grand Slams.

Jim Thorpe was one of the greatest athletes who ever lived. He played professional football, major league baseball, and won Olympic gold medals in track and field. But his life wasn't an easy one. Born on the Sac and Fox Reservation in 1887, he encountered much family tragedy, and was sent as a young boy to various Indian boarding schools: strict, cold institutions that didn't allow their students to hold on to their Native American languages and traditions.

Growing up and living in Kibera, Kenya, Abdul Kassim was well aware of the disproportionate number of challenges faced by women due to the extreme gender inequalities that persist in the slums. After being raised by his aunts, his mother, and his grandmother, and having a daughter himself, he felt that he needed to make a difference. In 2002, Abdul started a soccer team for girls called Girls Soccer in Kibera (GSK), with the hope of fostering a supportive community and providing emotional and mental support for the young women in the town.

The life story of Jeanie Buss could only have been written in Hollywood. Her father, Jerry Buss, emerged from a childhood of financial struggle to improbably become one of California’s most successful real estate developers. Though her life was not without turmoil - l her parents divorced when she was still a child - Jeanie’s world was forever changed for the better when her father bought the Los Angeles Lakers in 1979. By the time Jeanie was 19, she was already a high-ranking executive with World Team Tennis.

For many, playing professional sport is the Dream Job. Few manage it, very few make it to the top and for the rest, life is very different. This is their story. In Fringes, Ben Mercer invites you to witness life at the outer edges of professional rugby. This is a first hand account of what life is like as a journeyman professional athlete. You play, but to the wider public you don't exist. You earn but you don't drive a flash car. You sometimes pack out a stadium but sometimes, you play in a deserted park. This is the story for the majority of sports professionals.

Melanie Curtis is a life coach, speaker, author, professional skydiver, and ball of light. This book is chronological anthology of every single Blue Skies Magazine column she wrote for every single issue for over a decade. Also every single feature article and in-depth interview. As you listen, you will hear Melanie grow and evolve as a professional skydiver and person.

In 1971, a small-town high school baseball team from rural Illinois playing with hand-me-down uniforms and peace signs on their hats defied convention and the odds. Led by an English teacher with no coaching experience, the Macon Ironmen emerged from a field of 370 teams to become the smallest school in Illinois history to make the state final, a distinction that still stands. There, sporting long hair, and warming up to "Jesus Christ Superstar", the Ironmen would play a dramatic game that would change their lives forever.

Suffering from severe neck and back injuries, Kerry was unemployed and housebound, struggling with depression and even thoughts of suicide. He went from cycling over 600 miles a month to becoming a prisoner in his own home. In the face of unbearable pain and overwhelming panic, he persevered, and along the way, met an adorable yard dog named Max. This is their remarkable, inspiring story.

Sadio Mané is one of Liverpool FC's 'Fab Four'. Along with Mo Salah, Roberto Firmino and Xherdan Shakiri, Sadio's goals have helped make Liverpool the deadliest attacking team in the Premier League. Since he moved to the Premier League, Sadio has been setting the bar to new heights - from scoring the fastest hat-trick in history to becoming the most expensive African footballer ever. There is no stopping the Fab Four, and the sky is the limit for Sadio Mané.

Discover the winning secrets of top professional tennis players...and finally do some winning yourself! Have you just started learning how to play tennis? Worried about looking like a fool on the court, barely able to win a single point? If you’re serious about improving your game and being able to play toe-to-toe against seasoned players, here’s the perfect solution for you. This audiobook for new tennis players will provide you with all the knowledge you need to not just play the game...but excel in it.

If you want to learn how to become an independent professional wrestler, then check out Independent Pro Wrestling Guide. This guide is written by a former indie pro wrestler who will show you step by step to get started in the independent wrestling world. Learn how to get your start in as a professional wrestler on the independent circuit. Hear tales and get advice from someone who knows what it's like to wrestle as an independent wrestler. Find out how to find the perfect wrestling school as well as how to pay for your wrestling education. Having trouble getting booked in your first match? This book lets you know what tools you need to get yourself between the ropes!

The millions of fans who watch World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) programs each year are well aware of their role in building the narrative of the sport. #WWE: Professional Wrestling in the Digital Age explores the intersections between media, technology, and fandom in WWE's contemporary programming and business practices. In the Reality Era of WWE (2011 to the present), wrestling narratives have increasingly drawn on real-life personalities and events that stretch beyond the story-world created and maintained by WWE.

Being a personal trainer is a full-time job, and it is because of this; a personal trainer should be, among other things, well-grounded in his work. The person should know his onions, and a professional body should attest to that. In this case, it is the national association of sports medicine where the NASM comes in. The National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer Exam prepares would-be personal trainers to get the required certification to do their work effectively.

Fanny Bullock Workman was a complicated and restless woman who defied the rigid Victorian morals she found as restrictive as a corset. With her frizzy, brown hair tucked under a topee, Workman was a force on the mountain and off. Instrumental in breaking the British stranglehold on Himalayan mountain climbing, this American woman climbed more peaks than any of her peers, became the first woman to map the far reaches of the Himalayas, the first woman to lecture at the Sorbonne, and the second to address the Royal Geographic Society of London.

Nature took on a new importance for thousands of people when the coronavirus pandemic arrived in Britain, providing solace in a time of great anxiety - not least because the crisis struck at the beginning of spring, the season of hope and renewal, and furthermore, in an extraordinary conjunction, the spring of 2020 turned out to be the loveliest spring ever recorded in Britain. Three nature writers, living like everyone else under lockdown, but walking out each day to exercise, resolved to record their experiences of the coronavirus spring, in widely contrasting parts of the country.