Sports Biographies Football

In Slow Getting Up - hailed by Rolling Stone as "the best football memoir of all time" - Nate Jackson told his story facedown on the field. Now, in Fantasy Man, he's flat on his back. Six years have passed since the former Denver Broncos tight end wore a helmet, and every day he drifts further from the NFL guy, the sanctioned-violence guy, the psychopath who ran headfirst into other psychos for money. But Nate hasn't quite left the game.

Thou Shall Not Pass (the title comes from a command England captain Terry Butcher would shout before every match) celebrates the football position where brutal characters are loved for their hard-hitting tackles and bruising mentality and yet laughed at for their apparent lack of skill. As well as covering the long and illustrious history of the centre-half, the book will take the listener into the muddy penalty area frequented by our protagonists, into their domain.

In Against Football Steve Almond details why, after 40 years as a fan, he can no longer watch the game he still loves. Using a synthesis of memoir, reportage, and cultural critique, Almond asks a series of provocative questions: Does our addiction to football foster a tolerance for violence, greed, racism, and homophobia? What does it mean that our society has transmuted the intuitive physical joys of childhood--run, leap, throw, tackle--into a billion-dollar industry?

Hometown Sports Heroes, Vol. 3 is a football book on old teams containing stories, traditions, and legacies that will take you on a trip down memory lane!

The Wizards FC was a team of former school friends who - with the help of a few star ringers - slogged their way through mud, skinheads, and Staffordshire bull terriers to win the Edmonton Sunday League. Team captain Ewan Flynn brings alive a world of young men giving it their all on sloping pitches a million miles from the glamour of the Premier League, and officials who volunteer to maintain some sort of order. Along the way, he charts the bittersweet stories of mates who brought success to the Wizards.

The revealing and insightful autobiography of an AFL superstar. From number one pick in the 2000 AFL draft, to six-time winner of St Kilda's best and fairest award, to five-time All Australian, to captaining his club for a record 220 games, to more than 330 games as a star of the AFL, Nick Riewoldt is an out-and-out champion. The Things That Make Us is Nick's autobiography, written with a deep intelligence and insight, and giving a fascinating perspective on his extraordinary life and career.

Every four years, Americans turn their attention to the world’s game - soccer. As recently as 1998, the USMNT merely made up the numbers at the biggest sporting tournament of all, but once Bruce Arena took over the team, American soccer started to find its footing. In the 2002 World Cup, a highly-fancied Portugal team, featuring the great Ronaldo, lost to Arena’s US team in a shocking 3-2 victory, and but for a handball that wasn’t given, they could well have knocked off eventual winners Germany.

NFL Brawler is a raucous first-person account of an NFL under siege by the game's first player turned agent, Ralph Cindrich, the original "Blind Side" agent. This entertaining pro football memoir takes listeners behind the scenes of the game's most important and outrageous drafts, deals, and trades; takes on NFL scandals by telling it like it is; and takes listeners closer to the real action of the sport - from locker rooms to boardrooms and into the worlds of agents and players - than any book to date.

Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry could not have had two more divergent personalities. Yet, while working for the New York Giants of the mid-to-late ’50s under head coach Jim Lee Howell, the pair formed what stands, to this day, as the greatest set of coordinators on one team. Given their personalities, one might have likened Howell’s job to that of Dwight Eisenhower as the general struggled to control the egos and politics of his allied subordinates during WWII. But for some reason, Lombardi and Landry worked almost seamlessly, and as a result, the Giants rose to the top of the NFL.

In All Heart, adapted from When Nobody Was Watching specifically for younger listeners, Carli tells the full inspiring story of her journey to the top of the soccer world - an honest, action-packed account that takes listeners inside the mind of a hardworking athlete.

Bachar Houli is as accomplished an AFL footballer as they come. He's been part of two Richmond Premiership sides, he was an All-Australian in 2019, and with more than 200 games to his name he remains a key part of a champion team. Picked at number 42 in the 2006 National Draft by Essendon, Houli played 26 games for the Bombers before moving in 2011 to Tigerland, where rookie Coach Damien Hardwick was assembling the team that six years later would achieve the seemingly impossible and claim Richmond's 11th Premiership.

Hoy que se aproxima su retiro, en conversación íntima y sin reservas con Diego Borinsky, Andrés D'Alessandro—máximo ídolo del club brasileño Inter, y desde siempre muy querido por todos los hinchas de River—cuenta por primera vez su vida, de La Paternal y Racing a Brasil pasando por Europa y, por supuesto, por el Monumental, con testimonios de quienes mejor lo conocen y más lo aprecian, de su esposa y sus padres a Marcelo Bielsa.

¿Quién es la jugadora con más Balones de Oro? ¿Sabías que en La Coruña hubo una chica que creó su propio equipo y que encima le puso su nombre? ¿A qué futbolista descubrieron en la playa? ¿Qué jugadoras han puesto de moda el pelo morado y las trenzas? ¿Qué estudian en la universidad las futbolistas? ¿Quiénes son Las Matildas? Todo eso y mucho más es lo que vas a descubrir en las páginas de este libro. Cada capítulo cuenta la historia de una jugadora o árbitra (porque ellas también están en el partido).

Mike Flynt was swapping stories with some old football buddies when he brought up the biggest regret of his life: getting kicked off the college team before his senior year. So, one of his pals said, "Why not do something about it?" Most 59-year-olds would have laughed. Flynt's only concern was his eligibility. He not only returned to college football, but actually made the team at his alma mater—Sul Ross State, an NCAA division III school.

Against the backdrop of the call to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, the National Women’s Football League was founded as something of a gimmick. However, their star team, the Toledo Troopers, emerged to challenge traditional gender roles and amass a win-loss record never before or since achieved in American football. The players were housewives, factory workers, hairdressers, former nuns, high school teachers, bartenders, mail carriers, pilots, and would-be drill sergeants. Most of all, they were athletes who had been denied the opportunity to play a game they were born to play.

From the New York Times best-selling author of Brady vs. Manning and dean of football writers - an audiobook that explores the many interesting facets to NFL quarterbacks and their relationships with their fathers. My First Coach goes behind the scenes to explore the unique relationship between these and other quarterbacks and their fathers, as well as investigate various approaches to parenting through their stories. Can young athletes overcome helicopter parents? How did the kids with NFL aspirations deal with their fathers who'd already made it?

Had anyone told Ben Malcolmson that he'd someday be a wide receiver on the national champion USC football team - after not playing football since an unfortunate fifth-grade Pop Warner experience - he would have called them crazy. As a reporter for The Daily Trojan, in the spirit of George Plimpton, he participated in walk-on tryouts for the team and was dumbfounded to find himself listed on the roster. His position on the team never amounted to much in a game-time contribution, but Ben felt strongly that his faith was inextricably linked to his purpose.

Known as the "beautiful game," soccer is the world's most popular sport, crossing borders and language barriers to entertain billions. But underneath it all - the raucous fans in the stadiums; the beloved players; and FIFA, the international governing body with a membership of 209 national associations - is a scandal that threatens to make soccer the ugliest sport in the world. Filled with headline-making revelations, The Big Fix is a must-hear for soccer fans and true crime aficionados.

Leon Searcy was an All-American at Miami who won three national championship titles with the Hurricanes. He was a first round draft pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers, and played in Super Bowl XXX. He was also selected as one of the Top 25 Jacksonville Jaguars players of all time. Hear Leon's stories about a life of luxury and glory as the NFL's highest paid offensive lineman, and the series of choices and circumstances which ended with Leon's retirement from the game of football broke and alone. In the fourth down of his life, how did Leon find redemption?

In Drew Brees: The Inspiring Story of One of Football's Most Resilient Quarterbacks, you will learn the inspirational story of one of football's greatest quarterbacks, Drew Brees. After a storied career at Purdue as the record holder of virtually every Big Ten passing category, Drew Brees found himself in the NFL, selected by the San Diego Chargers. While he started his career with the Chargers, he cemented his legacy with the Saints after coming off of a severe dislocation of his shoulder joint and tear of his labrum and rotator cuff.