Teen Sports

The final match of the 2001 US Open featuring tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams was groundbreaking. It was first time siblings had squared off in the final match for more than 100 years. And it was the first time both players were Black. The photo of the smiling Williams sisters holding their trophies after the tennis match appeared in newspapers around the globe. It captured two athletes who fought, and would continue to fight, for a place for women and African-Americans in tennis and the world beyond.

Minamoto Yoshitsune should not have been a samurai. But his story is legend in this real-life saga. This epic warrior tale may sound like a novel, but this is the true story of the greatest samurai in Japanese history. When Yoshitsune was just a baby, his father went to war with a rival samurai family - and lost. His father was killed, his mother captured, and his surviving half-brother banished. Yoshitsune was sent away to live in a monastery. Skinny, small, and unskilled in the warrior arts, he nevertheless escaped and learned the ways of the samurai.

Five running backs were selected in the first round of the 2008 NFL Draft. Jamaal Charles was not among them. Despite piling up the fourth-most rushing yards at the University of Texas in just three seasons, he waited for eight other running backs to get selected ahead of him. The Middle School Rules of Jamaal Charles features the stories and lessons of Jamaal’s childhood, defined by people overlooking him.

Troy White is a star quarterback who can predict a football play before it happens. Ty Lewis is the football hero - a wide receiver with exceptional speed, living in the shadow of his NFL superstar brother. Both boys are striving to win the 7-on-7 tournament that's being held at the Super Bowl in Miami, sure that they can claim victory for their team. From the moment the two football champs cross paths, Troy and Ty begin to size each other up.

There was a time when running the mile in four minutes was believed to be beyond the limits of human foot speed. In 1952, after suffering defeat at the Helsinki Olympics, three world-class runners each set out to break this barrier: Roger Bannister was a young English medical student who epitomized the ideal of the amateur; John Landy the privileged son of a genteel Australian family; and Wes Santee the swaggering American, a Kansas farm boy and natural athlete.

The acclaimed author of Flipped delivers a powerful and healing story that’s perfect for anyone who’s ever thought that something was impossible. Listeners will revel in the story of a girl who puts herself back together - and learns to dream bigger than ever before - after she’s told she’ll never run again. Jessica thinks her life is over when she loses a leg in a car accident. She's not comforted by the news that she'll be able to walk with the help of a prosthetic leg. Who cares about walking when you live to run?

Nathaniel Conti doesn’t feel real when he’s alone. Maybe that’s why he has a reputation as a troublemaker—he’ll do just about anything to have everyone’s eyes on him. But things are about to change. Nathaniel is in his first year of college, flung into new circumstances with new people to meet. There are public speaking classmates, lacrosse players—and then there’s the aspiring photographer who asks Nathaniel to be their model, who’s interested in more than what’s on the surface.

Why is it that sports seem to bring out the best and the worst in us? asks author C. J. Mahaney. Sports are a gift from God. But as soon as you introduce the human heart, things get complicated. For the Christian athlete, sports are one of the key battlegrounds in which pride and self-glory are regular temptations. If sports are indeed a gift from God, why are playing fields and courts so often arenas for our egos? How are we to enjoy sports in a godly way?

The Ballers may have the upper hand at RHS. I underestimated them, their cruelty, their ability to look the other way when something hits them over the head, but camp is a whole other story. Their asses are mine.

After having her heart broken, seventeen-year-old Nora Nichols decides to escape her hometown and take a summer job as an arts and crafts counsellor at an all-girls' camp in the mountains of West Virginia.

The mighty Soviets were the favorites to win hockey gold at the 1980 Winter Olympics. But a team of US college players had other ideas. The stunning upset of the Soviet hockey team by the young Americans has been called the greatest moment in international hockey. And to many people the victory was about much more than sports.

It’s one of the most famous sports images of all time. Former heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston is sprawled on his back in the boxing rim. Muhammad Ali stands over Liston, holding his right hand as if ready to throw another punch.

Jesse Owens’ gold-medal winning feats at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin struck a mighty propaganda blow against Adolf Hitler. The Nazi leader had planned to use the German games as a showcase of supposed Aryan superiority. Instead, there was American, Black athlete Owens on the podium being photographed by Hitler’s personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann.

Tennis means life and death for the residents of the magical kingdom of Nova, and for 12-year-old Legacy, it’s the only thing getting her through the long days taking care of the other kids at the orphanage. That’s all about to change when she hears about Silla’s tournament. Silla, the ruler of Nova, hosts an annual tournament for the less fortunate of her citizens to prove themselves and win entrance to the Academy, where they can train to compete at nationals. The prize is Silla’s favor and enough cash to keep open the orphanage, and Legacy has her heart set on both.

In May 1996 the media scrambled to document the gripping story of 16-year-old Mark Pfetzer's expedition to Mount Everest. Not only was he the youngest climber ever to attempt the summit, he also witnessed the tragedy documented in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, in which eight climbers perished in a sudden storm. Within Reach is Mark's extraordinary account of this experience and of his triumphs over several other challenging peaks. At once triumphant and tragic, this story will be an inspiration to climbers, athletes, and armchair enthusiasts alike.

Jake Cullen is a freshman quarterback playing high school football in the high-pressure land of Friday Night Lights (Texas). He is also the brother of Wyatt Cullen, who quarterbacked his team to the Texas State Championship last season - not to mention the son of former NFL quarterback and local legend, Troy Cullen. To be a Cullen in Texas is to be royalty…and a quarterback. All of which leaves 14-year-old Jake in a Texas-sized shadow, a tall order for any boy, especially one who's merely a freshman.

Baseball IQ is your ultimate guide to mastering the mental side of the game and gaining an edge every time you step on the field.

In 1967, a 13-year-old girl named Maureen Wilton set the women's world marathon record, running 26.2 miles in 3:15:23. Nicknamed “Little Mo” by her track teammates, Wilton was already a headline-making athlete. But her accomplishment was greeted with controversy and misogynistic accusations of cheating. Wilton receded into the background, left the sport, and kept her achievement secret. This is the story of what happened and how Maureen found her way back to the sport decades later as the mother of a young runner herself.

Death on the River of Doubt takes listeners inside the thrilling journey that unfolded as Theodore Roosevelt and his companions navigated the Amazonian River of Doubt through an unforgiving and unpredictable jungle. With new threats at every turn, from bloodthirsty piranhas and raging rapids to starvation, disease, and a traitor in their own ranks, it seemed that not everyone would make it out alive.

The uptight valedictorian lost a bet, and now the whole school’s talking about her kiss with the cocky quarterback... It's just one kiss. That's what everybody at the end-of-summer party says when the bane of my existence wins a challenge and demands a kiss. But it's not just a kiss because everyone knows we've been enemies since kindergarten. So when school starts up, that kiss is all anyone's talking about. Even my crush has taken notice, and I think...maybe he's jealous? And suddenly my enemy's plan to use this rumor to our mutual advantage doesn't seem so crazy, after all.