Covering a 45-year period, "The Nebraska Way" chronicles both the historic rise and gradual fall of the Nebraska football dynasty, from the hiring of Bob Devaney and succession of Tom Osborne to the firing of Frank Solich and rapid separation from tradition. Along with the highs and lows of the Cornhuskers' achievements, "The Nebraska Way" also attempts to define Tom Osborne's philosophy as a coach and mentor as well as the relationship between the football program and the state it represents. Also discussed is the transition from a unique and special program to one assuming the characteristics of any other major college football program, and what it means for the future of the University of Nebraska football program.

Combining off-the-wall trivia questions with hardcore stats and nickname puzzlers, The All-Time, All-Team Pro Football Quiz contains stumpers for even the most well-versed football fan. Whether you're a Cheesehead or a Broncomaniac, you'll find quizzes for every team in the league-from the teams you love to the teams you love to hate. Which former NFL player had a role in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles? True or False: Gerald Ford was the only U.S. president to play in the NFL? Who was the first black coach in NFL history? How many teams that won NFL championships are now defunct?

As one of the most recognizable and highest paid athletes in the world, Shaquille O'Neal, better known as "Shaq," is undeniably one of the greatest players in basketball history. Murry Nelson presents a fascinating look at the career of a man who has dominated basketball for over 10 years and invites readers to take a close look at the person behind the phenomenon. This insightful biography brings the achievements of Shaquille O'Neal to life, providing information on his early life and the influence of his parents, coaches, and fellow players. Chapters take the reader from Shaq's childhood in Newark and Germany through his college years at Louisiana State University, tracing his path to NBA superstardom with the Orlando Magic, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Miami Heat. Basketball fans will appreciate the play-by-play account of the many championship runs in Shaq's legendary career. This biography also spotlights Shaq's celebrity life off the court as a rap recording artist, film star, and commercial pitchman for numerous multi-million dollar brands. A timeline highlighting key events in Shaq's life and career, a bibliography, and a statistical appendix enhance this biography.

The rivalry between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox involves not just the teams, but the cities, owners, ballparks, fans, and the media. Its roots reach back to before even Babe Ruth and Harry Frazee, yet it is as contemporary as the next Red Sox-Yankees game. This book tells the story of the rivalry from the first game these epic teams played against each other in 1901 through the 2013 season in what former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani called 'the best rivalry in any sport.'

In late 1913, the newly formed Federal League declared itself a major league in competition with the established National and American Leagues. Backed by some of America's wealthiest merchants and industrialists, the new organization posed a real challenge to baseball's prevailing structure. For the next two years the well-established leagues fought back furiously in the press, in the courts, and on the field. The story of this fascinating and complex historical battle centers on the machinations of both the owners and the players, as the Federals struggled for profits and status, and players organized baseball's first real union. Award-winning author Daniel R. Levitt gives the most authoritative account yet published of the short-lived Federal League, the last professional baseball league to challenge the National and American League monopoly. This paperback edition was first printed in hardcover as The Battle That Forged Modern Baseball. An eBook edition is also available under the original title.

They had two future Hall of Famers, the last pitcher to win thirty games, and a supporting cast of some of the most peculiar individuals ever to play in the majors. But more than that, the 1968 Detroit Tigers symbolize a lost era in baseball. It was a time before runaway salaries and designated hitters. Before divisional playoffs and drug suspensions. Before teams measured their well-being by the number of corporate boxes in their ballpark and the cable contract in their pocket. It was the last season of baseball's most colorful and nostalgic period. It was surely not a more innocent time. The 1968 Tigers were a team of hell-raisers, the second coming of the Gas House Gang. They brawled on the field and partied hard afterward. They bickered with each other and ignored their manager. They won game after game with improbable rallies on their last at-bat and grabbed the World Championship by coming back from a three games to one deficit to beat the most dominant pitcher in the World Series history in the deciding seventh game. Their ultimate hero, Mickey Lolich, was a man who threw left-handed, thought "upside down," and rode motorcycles to the ballpark. Their thirty-game winner, Denny McLain, played the organ in various night spots, placed bets over the clubhouse phone, and incidentally, overpowered the American League. Their prize pinch-hitter, Gates Brown, had done hard time in the Ohio Penitentiary. Their top slugger, Willie Horton, would have rather been boxing. Their centerfielder, Mickey Stanley, a top defensive outfielder, would unselfishly volunteer to play the biggest games of his life at shortstop, so that their great outfielder, Al Kaline, could get into the World Series lineup. The story of this team, their triumph, and what happened in their lives afterward, is one of the great dramas of baseball history. The Tigers of '68 is the uproarious, stirring tale of this team, the last to win a pure pennant (before each league was divided into two divisions and playoffs were added) and World Series. Award-winning journalist George Cantor, who covered the Tigers that year for the Detroit Free Press, revisits the main performers on the team and then weaves their memories and stories (warts and all) into an absorbing narrative that revives all of the delicious-and infamous-moments that made the season unforgettable. Tommy Matchick's magical ninth-inning home run, Jim Northrup's record-setting grand slams, Jon Warden's torrid April, Dick McAuliffe's charge to the mound, Denny McLain's gift to Mickey Mantle, the nearly unprecedented comeback in the World Series, and dozens more. The '68 Tigers occupy a special place in the history of the city of Detroit. They've joined their predecessors of 1935 as an almost mythic unit-more than a baseball team. The belief has passed into Detroit folklore. Many people swear, as Willie Horton says, that they were "put here by God to save the city." The Tigers of '68 will help you understand why.

When most people think about the Netherlands, images of tulips and peaceful pot smoking residents spring to mind. Bring up soccer, and most will think of Johan Cruyuff, the Dutch player thought to rival Pele in preternatural skill, and Ajax, one of the most influential soccer clubs in the world whose academy system for young athletes has been replicated around the globe (and most notably by Barcelona and the 2010 world champions, Spain).
But as international bestselling author Simon Kuper writes in "Ajax, The Dutch, The War: Soccer in Europe During the Second World War," the story of soccer in Holland cannot be understood without investigating what really occurred in this country during WWII. For decades, the Dutch have enjoyed the reputation of having a "good war." The myth is even resonant in Israel where Ajax is celebrated. The fact is, the Jews suffered shocking persecution at the hands of Dutch collaborators. Holland had the second largest Nazi movement in Europe outside Germany, and in no other country except Poland was so high a percentage of Jews deported.
Kuper challenges Holland's historical amnesia and uses soccer--particularly the experience of Ajax, a club long supported by Amsterdam's Jews--as a window on wartime Holland and Europe. Through interviews with Resistance fighters, survivors, wartime soccer players and more, Kuper uncovers this history that has been ignored, and also finds out why the Holocaust had a profound effect on soccer in the country.
Ajax produced Cruyuff but was also built by members of the Dutch resistance and Holocaust survivors. It became a surrogate family for many who survived the war and its method for producing unparalleled talent became the envy of clubs around the world. In this passionate, haunting and moving work of forensic reporting, Kuper tells the breathtaking story of how Dutch Jews survived the unspeakable and came to play a strong role in the rise of the most exciting and revolutionary style of soccer -- "Total Football" -- the world had ever seen.

This book traces the entire story of black baseball, documenting the growth of the Negro Leagues at a time when segregation dictated that the major leagues were strictly white, and explaining how the drive to integrate the sport was a pivotal part of the American civil rights movement. Part of Greenwood's Landmarks of the American Mosaic series, this work is a one-stop introduction to the subject of Negro League baseball that spotlights the achievements and experiences of black ball players during the time of segregation-ones that must not be allowed to fade into obscurity. Telling far more than a story about sports that includes engaging tales of star athletes like "Satchel" Paige and "Cool Papa" Bell, Negro Leagues Baseball documents an essential chapter of American history rooted in the fight for civil rights and human dignity and the battle against racism and bigotry. The book comprises an introduction, chronology, and narrative chapters, as well as biographical profiles, primary documents, a glossary, a bibliography, and an index. The recounting of individual stories and historical events will fascinate general readers, while rarely used documentary material places the subject of Negro League baseball in relation to civil rights issues, making the book invaluable to students of American social history and culture. A historical timeline of events Biographical profiles of important figures in Negro Leagues baseball

"Shoeless" Joe Jackson's rise from the cotton mills of the American South to the big cities of the North is a classic American tale of rags to riches. Born of sharecropping parents in South Carolina, Jackson's perfect swing and legendary fielding ability would make him a star in the Major Leagues. Unfortunately, Jackson's legend was interrupted by his alleged involvement in baseball's darkest chapter, the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, which ultimately banished him to participation in "outlaw" baseball leagues. Kelly Boyer Sagert recounts all phases in this legendary hitter's life--from mill worker to major league outfielder, to a central figure in a national scandal, and later, to his ventures as an entrepreneur and sometime ballplayer. In analyzing the life and surrounding cultural contexts of Jackson's time, the author examines how "Shoeless Joe" became the controversial but enduring legend that he is today. A timeline, bibliography, statistical appendix, and narrative chapter on the making of Jackson legend enhance this biography. It has been said that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in professional sports. "Baseball's All-Time Greatest Hitters" presents biographies on Greenwood's selection for the twelve best hitters in Major League history, written by some of today's best baseball authors. These books present straightforward stories in accessible language for the high school researcher and the general reader alike.

Twenty-five years after it spent sixteen weeks at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, John Feinstein's A Season on the Brink remains the classic of the genre and an unforgettable chronicle of his year spent following the Indiana Hoosiers and their fiery coach Bob Knight. This anniversary edition features an updated package and a new Introduction by Feinstein.

Granted unprecedented access to the Indiana Hoosiers' basketball program during the 1985-1986 season, John Feinstein saw and heard it all--practices, team meetings, strategy sessions, and mid-game huddles--as the team strove to return to championship form. A Season on the Brink, recently named #6 on Sports Illustrated's "Top 100 Sports Books of All Time" list, not only captures the drama and pressure of big-time college basketball, but paints a vivid portrait of a complex, brilliant coach as he walks the fine line between genius and madness.

No one likes us, we don't care' is the anthem of the most notorious fans in British football. But little is known about the actual people who generated and continue to maintain this most infamous of working-class subcultures. In addition to the voices of the fans themselves, this book provides a rich and original account of the historical background, social sources, expressive culture and ritual practices of Millwallism, a far more complex, meaningful and anthropologically compelling phenomenon than the media stereotypes suggest. The author argues that Millwall functions in the popular consciousness as a powerful symbol: specific understandings of 'football hooliganism', working-class masculinity, and violent 'neo-fascism' are triggered by its use in the media and in everyday social interaction. There are, it follows, few social groups as heavily mythologized as Millwall fans. Further, the generation and maintenance of this myth has significance far beyond the club itself, and is rooted in the meanings attached to working-class identities and modernity, masculinity and the body. This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in Millwall, the issues of 'football hooliganism' or working-class masculinity, sociology, anthropology, or sports studies.Shortlisted for the Philip Abrams Memorial Book Prize 2001

"A thrilling, cinematic story. I loved every minute I spent with these bold, daring women whose remarkable journey is the stuff of American legend." --Karen Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy The Boys in the Boat meets A League of Their Own in this true story of a Depression-era championship women's team. In the early 1930s, during the worst drought and financial depression in American history, Sam Babb began to dream. Like so many others, this charismatic Midwestern basketball coach wanted a reason to have hope. Traveling from farm to farm near the tiny Oklahoma college where he coached, Babb recruited talented, hardworking young women and offered them a chance at a better life: a free college education in exchange for playing on his basketball team, the Cardinals. Despite their fears of leaving home and the sacrifices that their families would face, the women joined the team. And as Babb coached the Cardinals, something extraordinary happened. These remarkable athletes found a passion for the game and a heartfelt loyalty to one another and their coach--and they began to win. Combining exhilarating sports writing and exceptional storytelling, Dust Bowl Girls takes readers on the Cardinals' intense, improbable journey all the way to an epic showdown with the prevailing national champions, helmed by the legendary Babe Didrikson. Lydia Reeder captures a moment in history when female athletes faced intense scrutiny from influential figures in politics, education, and medicine who denounced women's sports as unhealthy and unladylike. At a time when a struggling nation was hungry for inspiration, this unlikely group of trailblazers achieved much more than a championship season.