Sports Athletes

Along the path to any goal - completing a marathon or a thesis paper, winning a medal or a contract - familiar mental hurdles arise: We may fixate on the odds of failure or find our interest flags two-thirds of the way through. That’s when elite endurance athletes - top performers in running, cycling, and swimming - turn to their rich arsenal of cognitive strategies to overcome self-doubt and unlock peak performance.

Wall Street Journal reporters Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg offer a deeply reported account of the intertwined sagas and legacies of two of the greatest soccer players of all time—Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo—examining how their rivalry has grown from a personal competition to a multi-billion-dollar industry, paralleling the stunning rise, overwhelming excesses, and uncertain future of modern international soccer.

Few names in the history of baseball evoke the excellence and dynamism that Rickey Henderson’s does. He holds the record for the most stolen bases in a single game, and he’s scored more runs than any player ever. “If you cut Rickey Henderson in half, you’d have two Hall of Famers,” the baseball historian Bill James once said. But perhaps even more than his prowess on the field, Rickey Henderson’s is a story of Oakland, California, the town that gave rise to so many legendary athletes like him.

Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind meets Christopher McDougall's Born to Run in this immersive, investigative look at the hidden culture of cannabis use among elite athletes (as well as weekend warriors) - and the surprising emerging science behind the elusive, exhilarating "runner's high" they all seek.

How do you pick baseball’s GOATs? Is Sandy Koufax the greatest pitcher to take the mound? Is Ted Williams the greatest pure hitter the game has seen? It comes down to stats, history, and hunches.

The Resilient Young Athlete is your ultimate guide to developing mental toughness, thriving under pressure, and mastering the mindset that sets champions apart! Whether you're a young athlete, a parent, or a coach, this audiobook offers invaluable insights into building the resilience needed to excel in the competitive world of youth sports. For young athletes struggling with confidence or anxiety, you’ll learn practical steps to cultivate a growth-oriented mindset, set and achieve SMART goals, and manage game-day stress like a pro!

Negative thoughts are like weeds that grow all the time without any nurturing since it’s in the human nature to think of negative consequences.

On the other hand, positive thinking about health, love, wealth, success are hard to come by, and like everything worth fighting in this life, they require a lot of nurture and care.

This audiobook plans to give you exactly what you need: the means to stay positive through constant affirmations designed to help improve oneself, change a bad behavior, or channel the universe to attract good things in your life.

Confident, Calm and Clutch is the ultimate mental strength and confidence book for boys and girls that will revolutionize your young athlete's mindset and transform their performance on and off the field. Are you ready for a winning edge? Ask yourself: What if you could equip your mental youth athlete with the tools to conquer nerves and perform under pressure like a pro?

How do you pick football’s GOATs? Is Tom Brady the greatest quarterback? Is Alan Page the greatest defensive tackle? Who’s the all-around champ? It comes down to stats, history, and hunches. Learn more about some of the legends of football and see if you agree that they’re the greatest of all time.

Now in his sixties, big-wave surfer Joe Sharkey has passed his prime and is losing his “stoke.” The younger surfers around the breaks on the north shore of Oahu still idolize the Shark, but his sponsors are looking elsewhere. One night, while driving home from a bar after one too many, Joe accidentally kills a stranger near Waimea, a tragedy that sends his life out of control. As the repercussions of the accident spiral ever wider, Joe's devoted girlfriend, Olive, throws herself into uncovering the dead man’s identity and helping Joe find vitality and refuge in the waves again.

More than a century ago, a woman ran in the very first modern Olympic marathon. She just did it without permission. Award-winning journalist Maggie Mertens uncovers the story of how women broke into competitive running and how they are getting faster and fiercer every day—and changing our understanding of what is possible as they go.

Like countless other kids, Phil Gaimon grew up dreaming of being a professional athlete. But unlike countless other kids, he actually pulled it off. After years of amateur races, hard training, living out of a suitcase, and never taking "no" for an answer, he finally achieved his goal and signed a contract to race professionally on one of the best teams in the world. Now, Gaimon pulls back the curtain on the WorldTour, cycling's highest level.

Men's hockey in Canada may hog the limelight, but interest in women's hockey has never been higher. The Role I Played is a memoir of Sami Jo Small's 10 years with Canada's National Women's Hockey Team. Beginning with her experience as a rookie at the first-ever women's Olympic hockey tournament in Nagano in 1998 and culminating with Canada's third straight Olympic gold medal in Vancouver in 2010, the veteran goaltender gives the listener behind-the-scenes insight into one of the most successful teams in sports history.

From the moment she burst onto the MMA scene, Ronda Rousey was unbeatable. She repeatedly strung together back-to-back flawless victories, racking up a collection of records and forever changing the face of sports as the UFC’s first female champion. A superstar in her sport, she transcended athletics, appearing in blockbuster films and becoming a role model for women everywhere. Then, on November 15, 2015, it all came crashing down. In OUR FIGHT, Rousey explores the greatest challenge of her life and, ultimately, how she rebuilt her life into something better in the aftermath.

The power to become better, greater, more refined versions of ourselves is something that each one of us possesses. It is a power with which we are born, like infinite gold inside the equally infinite mine shafts that are our minds. Now, to get at that gold - there is the rub. Since time immemorial people have struggled to manage the darkness within themselves. How do we reckon our possibilities with our capabilities? How do we overcome the difficulties within? How do we shake off the invisible sandbags that seem to drag us down and run faster, jump higher, push harder?

How do you pick Olympic GOATs? Is it gymnast Simone Biles or swimmer Michael Phelps? Or maybe it’s the entire 1992 basketball team. With so many sports, how do you choose? It comes down to stats, history, and hunches.

Are you struggling to balance encouragement and pressure? Do you want effective ways to help your child handle stress, perform better, and enjoy sports? This guide offers actionable techniques to enhance your child's mental resilience and emotional well-being.

The visiting clubhouse in San Diego was soggy, sweaty and sticky after the 1998 Yankees swept the Padres in four games and celebrated winning their 24th World Series title. The players raised bottles of Champagne, sprayed the bubbly on each other and reveled in a baseball season that might have been more memorable than any in history. Jack Curry was part of that unforgettable scene as a reporter, navigating around the clubhouse to ask the same, pertinent question.

Despite debuting on Canada’s senior national soccer team 20 years ago, scarce is known of Atiba Hutchinson. We’ve watched him win Canadian Men’s Player of the Year six times; celebrated his club team championships; and mourned his injuries. We’ve lamented the state of Canadian soccer and cursed the lost potential—and years. Yet, we know little about Atiba’s personal life, or how he rose from suburban Brampton to becoming Canada’s most-capped national men’s team player, often described as the country’s greatest athlete you haven’t heard about.

LeBron James is a standout forward in the NBA. Learn about his childhood and his rise to becoming a basketball superstar.