On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the New York Jets' historic achievement, a nostalgic, inside look from the men who composed the team behind Joe Namath's Super Bowl III win, filled with exclusive insights and stories from the surviving players, coaches, and management of that championship team whose victory changed the landscape of American football. On January 12, 1969, the New York Jets astonished the nation when they beat the favored Baltimore Colts to win Super Bowl III. The key to the Jets' success was quarterback Joe Namath, whose superstar talent, revolutionary personality, cockiness, and charm made him an instant celebrity. But Namath didn't do it alone. In Beyond Broadway Joe, the members of that legendary team share for the first time their often funny, sometimes poignant, and always perceptive personal stories and memorable anecdotes about the Super Bowl team, its players and coaches, and that legendary win. They reminisce about how they became Jets, their success on the gridiron--ten of them were AFC All Stars that magical year of 1968--and reveal for the first time the tactic Namath used to frustrate the Baltimore Colts' defense. They speak about their reactions to Namath's guarantee of a Jets' Super Bowl victory, and how the 39 Forgotten Jets behind him enabled Joe to fulfill that boast. Furthermore, Lederer has interviewed members of the Baltimore team, to provide a 360-degree account of the game that changed it all. Inside, you'll learn: How Joe Namath was able to manipulate the Baltimore Colts defense in Super Bowl III About the player who convinced Joe Namath he was a "hot date" and pranked the playboy quarterback How coach Weeb Ewbank used salaries of players on four other AFL teams to control Jets' player salaries How one Jet, whose play was limited to two games his rookie year, convinced Jets' Coach and General Manager Weeb Ewbank that he would become an all-star Why Jets' star offensive tackle Winston Hill, an eight-time All Pro tackle, was never considered, much less, elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame How Super Bowl III may have saved the existence of several AFL teams scheduled to be part of the AFL-NFL merger And much more! The Jets players reflect on their evolution from a team considered part of a Mickey Mouse league, through the sudden transformation caused by the signing and introduction of Joe Namath on America's sporting scene. The book explains from different angles--including Jets' game plans--why Jets' coaches and players were supremely confident going into Super Bowl III. Written by a lifelong Jets' fan, Beyond Broadway Joe captures memories--and through never-before-seen material--sheds light on what happened from the 1963 launch of the Jets to the Super Bowl season and in Super Bowl III itself. This first complete celebration of the Jets' Super Bowl team is a must for every Jets diehard, for fans of the old American Football League, those who follow the history of professional football, and for all who love the game.

This is a complete guide to the football stadiums of the 110 colleges and universities that are in the NCAA Division I-A. Information for each stadium includes the year it opened, its current seating capacity, its special features, the dates, descriptions, costs and financing of any renovation or addition, and its playing field surface. Related information includes the team mascot, nickname, colors, fight song, and year of the schools first intercollegiate football game. The names and tenure of all athletic directors and head coaches since the stadium opened are provided as well.

Pulling from Packers history since the team's inception in 1919, this guide to all things gold and green offers dedicated fans all of the stats, trivia, and miscellaneous, fun-filled information craved about this storied franchise. From the significance of 4th and 26 and the best place to eat before kickoff to all the uniform numbers Mike Michalske wore during his eight-year career, this ultimate resource contains every essential piece of Packers knowledge as well as must-do activities. This updated edition includes details on the Packers' Super Bowl XLV triumph over the Pittsburgh Steelers and key moments and personalities from the teams' most recent seasons. Whether a die-hard booster from the days of Ray Nitschke or a new supporter of head coach Mike McCarthy and quarterback Aaron Rodgers, these are the 100 things fans need to know and do in their lifetime.

According to the National Football League, the 1972 Miami Dolphins are the only undefeated, untied Super Bowl champions. But pro football's first undefeated championship team was crowned in 1948, when the Cleveland Browns won their third straight All-America Football Conference title with a record of 15 victories, no losses and no ties. They were led by Hall of Fame head coach Paul Brown, whose methods revolutionized the game and influenced every coach who followed. On the field, the '48 Browns' roster featured six future Hall of Famers, including Marion Motley and Bill Willis, who broke pro football's color barrier with the first snap of the 1946 season.

"A visually striking, enlightening picture-book biography." --Booklist (starred review) "An absolutely indispensable illustrated biography." --School Library Journal (starred review) "A well-sourced, stirringly told account of an artist." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "For sports fans and budding artists alike...a well-told, artfully illustrated story." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) A 2019 Orbis Pictus Book Award Winner * An ALA-ALSC Notable Children's Book * A SCBWI Golden Kite Honor Book Award * A Booklist Top 10 Biographies for Youth * A Booklist Top 10 Art Books for Youth * A New York Public Library (NYPL) Best Book for Kids * A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Book Discover the remarkable true story of NFL star Ernie Barnes--a boy who followed his dreams and became one of the most influential artists of his generation--with this beautiful and fascinating nonfiction picture book illustrated by four-time Caldecott Honor recipient Bryan Collier. "An artist paints his own reality." --Ernie Barnes Ernie Barnes was an NFL football player who longed to make art. Finally his dream came true. When Ernie Barnes was growing up in North Carolina in the 1940s, he loved to draw. Even when he played as a boy with his friends he drew with a stick in the mud. And he never left home without a sketchbook. He would draw families walking home from church, or the old man on the sofa. He drew what he saw. But in the segregated south, Ernie didn't know how to make a living as an artist. Ernie grew tall and athletic and became a football star. Soon enough the colleges came calling. Still, in his heart Ernie longed to paint. Would that day ever come? Ernie Barnes was one of the most important artists of his time known for his style of elongation and movement. His work has influenced a generation of painters and illustrators and can be found in museums and collections, such as the African American Museum in Philadelphia and the California African American Museum. Between the Lines is a story of inspiration, spirit, and of an American original who pursued his dream. This enchanting picture book includes pieces of artwork created by this little known artist who captured the truth and beauty of the world he saw around him.

Bob Zuppke was head football coach at the University of Illinois from 1912 to 1941, a period that saw two world wars, a major economic depression, and significant changes in higher education and the role of sports, as major intercollegiate competitions became primary public relations events for the most competitive universities. Often credited with several significant football innovations including the huddle, Zuppke won two national championships and won or tied for seven Big Ten conference titles. This biography of Zuppke is a study of his passion for football, his advocacy for its educational value and his ability to promote and market the game to the academic community and the general public. It places him in the context of multiple themes, including the development of interscholastic, intercollegiate and professional football; presidential support and public relations; sports psychology; stadium building and commercial sports; academic criticism; the fraternity system; boosters; and sports in a state-supported public university.

This first-ever history of the Illinois State University football program chronicles Redbird legends and lore, from the 1880s team to today's Missouri Valley Football Conference powerhouse. Dan Verdun covers the early years (1887 to World War II) and the post-war era (late 1940s to 1950s) before delving into a decade-by-decade examination of the program. The 1950 Corn Bowl team, playoff appearances, NFL draft picks, and the 2014 team's second-place finish in the FCS National Championship are all included. Opening with a foreword by James "Boomer" Grigsby, an ISU all-American linebacker who was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in 2005, Illinois State Redbirds Football includes many names that will be familiar to Illinois State fans, including Frank Chiodi, Guy Homoly, Kevin Glenn, Laurent Robinson, Brock Spack, and Tre Roberson. Informed by extensive research and personal interviews, Verdun relays the inside stories of several players and explores the details of where they came from, how they arrived at ISU, what they accomplished on the playing field, and the paths their lives took after graduation. This engaging account retells the greatest moments in ISU Redbirds history with fresh new insight. It will appeal to ISU fans and alumni, and those fascinated by sports history and the history of the region will also find much of interest in this comprehensive volume.

Over two unbelievable decades, the New England Patriots were not only the NFL's most dominant team, but also-and by far-the most secretive. How did they achieve and sustain greatness-and what were the costs? In It's Better to Be Feared, Seth Wickersham, one of the country's finest long form and investigative sportswriters, tells the full, behind-the-scenes story of the Patriots, capturing the brilliance, ambition, and vanity that powered and ultimately unraveled them. Based on hundreds of interviews conducted since 2001, Wickersham's chronicle is packed with revelations, taking us deep into Bill Belichick's tactical ingenuity and Tom Brady's unique mentality while also reporting on their divergent paths in 2020, including Brady's run to the Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Raucous, unvarnished, and definitive, It's Better to Be Feared is an instant classic of American sportswriting in the tradition of Michael Lewis, David Maraniss, and David Halberstam.

When pro football players formed a union to stand up against the NFL for their own interests, they chose lawyer Ed Garvey as their Executive Director. The NFL Players Association (NFLPA), would take on the NFL over player contracts, collective bargaining agreements, and antitrust suits. It lobbied for players' free agency, contract rights, and impartial arbitration of disciplinary disputes. Garvey navigated strikes, lockouts, scabs, stooges, lies, as well as the sports media complex-to maintain players' dignity. According to the league, the players were to take what they were given and "never ask why." In Never Ask "Why," journalist Chuck Cascio presents the late Garvey's rich account of the early years of the NFLPA, taking readers among the players as they held the league accountable to play fair. Learning from their mistakes, the NFLPA would succeed in curbing commissioner Pete Rozelle's disciplinary power and striking down the Rozelle Rule's absolute control over free agency. Garvey tells the intimate stories of how pro football players, rivals on the field, rallied together to stand up for themselves. He worked tirelessly to change a system that exploited players and even controlled the media. In the end, Garvey shows how the NFLPA transformed the state of pro sports leagues today and how, even still, they work to keep down the players on whose backs they profit.

Charles "Gus" Dorais (1891-1954) is best known as the passing end of Notre Dame's "Dorais to Rockne" tandem that helped revolutionize football's forward pass in the early 1910s. A triple threat prep star from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, Dorais was a captain and four-year starter at Notre Dame, becoming the school's first consensus All-American in 1913. Over the next four decades, Dorais gained prominence as a professional player in the pre-NFL days and college football coach-most notably at the University of Detroit-before finishing as the head coach of the Detroit Lions. During his decades-long coaching career, he tallied more than 150 wins, becoming one of the football innovators in the first half of the 20th century. A pioneer of offensive strategies, Dorais played with and coached against all the prominent football legends of his time.

If at one time the Dallas Cowboys were America's Team, Roger Staubach was America's Quarterback. Roger the Dodger was a real-life embodiment of apple pie, world championships, and role models. Staubach was a Heisman Trophy winner at Annapolis who served four years as a naval officer before going on to a stellar eleven-year career with the Dallas Cowboys that included four NFC championships and two Super Bowl titles. Considered the master of the two-minute offense and late-game comeback, Staubach eventually earned a spot in the Cowboys' illustrious Ring of Honor and, ultimately in 1985, the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

If ever there was a perfect meshing of franchise, coach, and on-field leader, it was the silver-white-and-blue Cowboys of the seventies with Tom Landry strolling the sidelines in his trademark fedora and the unflappable Staubach barking signals. He led the NFL in passing five times, and when he retired at age thirty-seven he departed the game in possession of the highest quarterback rating of all time. After his retirement from football, he pretty much left the game behind, forsaking a shot at coaching or television commentary to focus his energies on the corporate world as chairman and CEO of the Staubach Company, a diversified commercial real estate company.

Roger Staubach: Captain America is an oral history of Staubach's life, times, and career. It is told in the words of dozens of former teammates and opponents, friends, business associates, civic leaders, acquaintances, and others who have known him over the years. Staubach turned sixty in 2002, and this book offers a touching and telling testimonial to a true American hero and role model.

Over the past century, the Wolverines have created heroes and legends that excite both the young and old. From the first football game in 1879 to the hundreds of thousands of faithful fans that cheer on the most triumphant program in college football history, University of Michigan football has an undeniable legacy. In Michigan Motivations: A Year of Inspiration with the University of Michigan Wolverines, authors Cyle Young and Del Duduit relive the most famous moments and show readers how they too can overcome adversity, find success, understand true teamwork, and much more. A year's worth of weekly stories will motivate and inspire, showcasing legendary players like Tom Harmon, Anthony Carter, Desmond Howard, Charles Woodson, and Tom Brady. Along the way, readers will also appreciate the Wolverine persistence that drove a 1934 team MVP to become the 38th President of the United States, and they will learn to apply that same Michigan character in their own life. Michigan Motivations is for every fan that bleeds Maize and Blue. Rejoice at the stories that reveal come-from-behind victories, sigh at surprise losses, and scratch your head at how Ohio State went to the Rose Bowl in 1974.

His style was iconic, and vintage '80s: aviator goggles, Jheri curls, neck roll, boxy pads. Eric Dickerson is the greatest player in Los Angeles Rams history and the NFL's single season record holder for most rushing yards. In 2019, Dickerson was named to the National Football League's 100th Anniversary All-Time Team. With an elegant upright running style that produced some of football's most-watched highlights, it was said he was so smooth you couldn't hear his pads clack as he glided past you. But during his Hall of Fame career, his greatness was often overshadowed by his contentious disputes with Rams management about his contract. In the pre-free agency era, tensions over his exploitative contract often overshadowed his accomplishments. What's his problem? went the familiar refrain from the media. Can't he just shut up and run? It's time to reexamine how Eric Dickerson was portrayed. For the first time, he's telling his story. And he's not holding anything back. Watch My Smoke includes sixteen photographs

This book details the life of Percy Haughton, college football's first modern coach. A true innovator of the game, his Harvard squads went 71-7-5 during his tenure and were deemed national champions three times. In many ways, college football in the 1910s resembled what we still see today. A half century old, there were already concerns about violence and corruption. There were skyrocketing coaches' salaries, stadium arms races, bragging rights, and meddling boosters. There were recruiting excesses and cheating. And from Harvard coach Percy Duncan Haughton, there was a sophistication of football that would surprise many fans today. In The Coach Who Strangled the Bulldog: How Harvard's Percy Haughton Beat Yale and Reinvented Football, Dick Friedman tells the fascinating story of a football genius. The sport's first modern coach, Haughton systematized the game and utilized passing, speed, and deception. In nine seasons at Harvard, Haughton's squads went 71-7-5 and three times during his tenure the Crimson were deemed national champions. Haughton's system perfected line blocking, employed tactics such as the delayed handoff, and eschewed huddles. His practices were scripted to the minute and he had revolutionary ideas on conditioning. The Coach Who Strangled the Bulldog is not only a captivating biography of an influential coach from the early days of college football; it is also a history of the sport itself. Featuring timeless photos and tirelessly researched, this book provides valuable insight into the game today-how it has evolved and how it has stayed surprisingly the same.

On any given workday, any little thing might send Steve Smith's thoughts spinning back to Saturday-last Saturday, Saturday two weeks ago, Saturday two years ago, back into the thrilling minutiae of game day-until reality reminds him: this is not how well-adjusted adults act. Steve Smith is not a well-adjusted adult. He's a Nebraska football fan, and this is his rollicking account of what it's like to be one of those legendary enthusiasts whose passion for the Cornhuskers is at once irresistible and hilarious. A journey into an obsessed Nebraska fan's soul, Forever Red immerses readers in the mad, mad world of Husker football fandom-where wearing the scarlet-and-cream Husker gear has its own peculiar rules; where displaced followers act as the program's ambassadors, finding Husker subculture beyond the pale; and where the team's performance can barely keep pace with its followers' expectations but sometimes exceeds their wildest dreams. Revised, updated, and expanded from the 2005 edition, Smith's story of thirty-plus years following the team takes readers back to memorable game moments from 1980 up through the roller-coaster ride of recent years. Blending wit and insight, Smith offers to the uninitiated and the fellow fanatic alike a window on the world where fantasy and football meet, where dreams of glory and gritty gridiron realities forever join. This edition features a new afterword bringing it up to the dawn of the Scott Frost era.

It would be impossible to talk about the great college football teams and not include the mind-boggling exploits of Bud Wilkinson and his great Oklahoma Sooners teams. In his seventeen years as the Sooners' head coach, Wilkinson amassed a 145-29-4 record. Included in that span were separate winning streaks of 31 and 47 games, three national titles, four undefeated seasons, and thirteen consecutive conference championships. His career .826 winning percentage surpassed that of other coaching legends whose careers overlapped his, such as Woody Hayes and Paul "Bear" Bryant.

It wasn't just the steady stream of victories and titles, however, that distinguished Wilkinson in a profession dominated by Type-A personalities and Xs-and-Os savants. Tall, blond, handsome, charming, and soft-spoken, Wilkinson was well-liked and would have fit well into today's media-driven model of the "successful coach." A star quarterback at the University. of Minnesota, Wilkinson emerged as a sports star who wasn't just an athlete. He earned a master's degree in English from Syracuse University and later pioneered the role of football-coach-turned-expert-television-analyst, beginning in the early fifties with his own coach's show at Oklahoma. He later achieved a different kind of notoriety in the sixties and seventies as a network-television commentator. Along the way, he also took a foray into politics and a brief return to coaching in the late seventies with the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals.

The beginning of a new era in Indiana University football starts with the arrival of head coach Tom Allen. After revolutionizing IU's defense, Allen has the opportunity to stage a Hoosier comeback. But can Allen make the most of this opportunity? And who are the compelling figures poised to make it happen? In The Quest for Indiana University Football Glory, veteran sports writer Pete DiPrimio showcases exclusive coverage of the meetings, practices, games, players, coaches, and gatherings that the public rarely sees. He also reveals the surprising story of how Allen, the son of a successful Indiana high school coach, became the head coach after delivering a quality defense—something no Hoosier defensive coordinator has done in a generation. He also shows Allen's connection to IU glory past, from Bill Mallory's record-setting run, to Lee Corso's Holiday Bowl surprise to the Rose Bowl opportunity no one expected. Focused on an in-depth look at the rookie season under Allen, The Quest for Indiana University Football Glory brings readers into the locker room during the rebirth of Hoosier football and highlights the struggles and successes as the coaches and players fight to rebuild the program and reinvent IU football.

College football is one of the most popular sports in the United States. Fans follow their favorite team with unfailing loyalty, and nowhere do the colors come out more fervently than when rivals face off. These games bring out the passion, the rituals, and even the rage of football fans across the country. Whether based on history and tradition, or proximity and local pride, college rivalry games have an intensity unmatched by any other sporting event. The Greatest College Football Rivalries of All Time: The Civil War, the Iron Bowl, and Other Memorable Matchups showcases the best of these competitions. Martin Gitlin details game highlights, the history behind the rivalries, and how the fans, players, and coaches have impacted the matchups. The fourteen top rivalries are covered, including the always-intense battles between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Michigan Wolverines, the great in-state rivalry between the Auburn Tigers and the Alabama Crimson Tide, and the historic contests between the Army Black Knights and the Navy Midshipmen. In addition to capturing the action of the games, this book also covers the personal stories that heighten the passion and intensity of the rivalries including pranks pulled over the years by opposing fans. With stats and series highlights detailed in each entry, and featuring historical and contemporary photographs throughout its pages, The Greatest College Football Rivalries of All Time is a must-read for every fan of college football."

The 1972 Green Bay Packers were not expected to challenge for a playoff spot, or even to top their four victories from the season before. The team lacked bona fide superstars. But the players were an eclectic group of over-achievers, 20 of whom were brand new to the team. Despite disheartening decisions by a questionable head coach, they gelled almost immediately and by season's end became the only Packers team throughout the 1970s to earn a division title. How they succeeded beyond all expectations is one of the great stories in football history.