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Books > Sport & Leisure > Sports & outdoor recreation > Ball games > American football
Two national championships in the last decade, seven SEC
championships in the last 16 years, two Heisman Trophy winners, the
fourth winningest team in the 1990s?this is the story of the
University of Florida Gators. Entering its 101st season, the
Gators?the reigning national champions?have rolled out the greats
for almost eighty years, beginning with its first All-American,
Dale Van Sickel, in 1928. Since then it's been the likes of Charlie
LaPradd, Haywood Sullivan, Rick Casares, Larry Dupree, Steve
Spurrier, Carlos Alvarez, John Reaves, Jack Youngblood, Wes
Chandler, Cris Collinsworth, Lomas Brown, Emmitt Smith, John L.
Williams, Errict Rhett, Danny Wuerffel, Ike Hilliard, Fred Taylor,
Jevon Kearse, Alex Brown, Rex Grossman, Chris Leak?Gator legends
all. "Gators Glory" is the story of University of Florida football
as told by the players, coaches, opponents, fans, and the media. It
salutes the great stars, teams, moments, rivalries, venues, fans,
and tradition of the Gators.
Drawing on the author's 30-year study of football statistic, this
book presents new methods for analyzing the game in different ways.
A comprehensive examination of known distances for missed field
goals offers an accurate method for evaluating placekickers.
Reassessments of punters and running backs are included, along with
an overhaul of the NFL's passer rating system. Topics previously
unexplored through statistics are covered, such as momentum,
defining "What is a dynasty?" and "What is a Cinderella team?
'Steelers Glory' is the story of Pittsburgh Steelers football as
told by the players, coaches, opponents, fans, and the media. It
salutes the great stars, teams, moments, rivalries, venues, fans,
and traditions of the Steel City, including a chapter on the
Steelers' all-time team. In addition, all five Super Bowl-winning
rosters are presented.
Fighting Irish Madness"" is the story of Notre Dame football?the
legendary players, the eleven championship teams, the explosive
rivalry with Southern Cal, the all-time Notre Dame team, and the
rosters from each national championship team. All of it is told by
the players themselves, the coaches, opponents, fans, and members
of the media.""
A new series for college football fans containing all the stats and
information on their favorite team.
Many have said Johnny Unitas was the best quarterback who ever
played the game. No less an authority than "Sports Illustrated
thinks so. In a 2002 statistical analysis of NFL Hall of Fame
quarterbacks and active quarterbacks with HOF credentials, Unitas
was ranked # I. Johnny U was also the hero of untold millions of
youths who spent countless hours in their backyards emulating the
stoop-shouldered, rifle-armed legend who wore the familiar 19 on
his jersey. Johnny Unitas's story is a classic rags-to-riches tale.
The skinny, blue-collar kid who played college ball at a
little-known school and failed in a tryout with his hometown pro
team was given a second chance by the Baltimore Colts. Two years
later he led the team to victory in the 1958 NFL Championship game,
a game dubbed the greatest ever played. Unitas played eighteen
seasons (and in ten Pro Bowls), retiring in 1973 as the league's
all-time leader in passing yards with more than 40,000. His
unsurpassed record of forty-seven consecutive games with at least
one touchdown pass continues to be mentioned in the same breath as
baseball icon Joe DiMaggio's fifty-six-game hitting streak. When
Unitas unexpectedly died in September 2002, the sports world
mourned the passing of a genuine sports hero. In "johnny Unitas:
Mr. Quarterback, dozens of his friends, neighbors, acquaintances,
relatives, fans, and teammates present compelling firsthand
memories, insights, and testimonials. Their stories begin with his
schoolboy days in Pittsburgh and carry on to his years of toiling
in near anonymity at the University of Louisville and his nearly
two decades in the NFL and beyond.
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.
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.
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