In 2000, Alonzo Mourning was on top of the world: He had a fat new NBA contract, an Olympic gold medal, and a second beautiful child-plus the fame and wealth he had earned playing the game he loved. But in September of that year he was diagnosed with a rare and fatal kidney disease. Over the next couple of years, as his health faltered, he retired, unretired, and retired again-and sought to make sense of what remained of his life. Finally in 2003, after a frantic search for a donor match, Mourning had a new kidney and a new outlook. He vowed to make this second chance count by dedicating his life to others.
By sharing his experiences of the chasms and peaks of illness and recovery, Mourning delivers a message of faith and fire, trust and triumph. Resilience is a story of both meaningful everyday lessons and the things, great and small, that truly matter in life.

Bill Russell was not the first African American to play professional basketball, but he was its first black superstar. From the moment he stepped onto the court of the Boston Garden in 1956, Russell began to transform the sport in a fundamental way, making him, more than any of his contemporaries, the Jackie Robinson of basketball. In "King of the Court", Aram Goudsouzian provides a vivid and engrossing chronicle of the life and career of this brilliant champion and courageous racial pioneer. Russell's leaping, wide-ranging defense altered the game's texture. His teams provided models of racial integration in the 1950s and 1960s, and, in 1966, he became the first black coach of any major professional team sport. Yet, like no athlete before him, Russell challenged the politics of sport. Instead of displaying appreciative deference, he decried racist institutions, embraced his African roots, and challenged the nonviolent tenets of the civil rights movement. This beautifully written book - sophisticated, nuanced, and insightful - reveals a singular individual who expressed the dreams of Martin Luther King Jr. while echoing the warnings of Malcolm X.

With the possible exceptions of boxer Muhammad Ali and baseball player Babe Ruth, no athlete has made a greater impact on American society-or in the world-than Michael Jordan. Follow the life of one of the most recognizable athletes and living brands inside this engaging and balanced biography. He is among the best-known and wealthiest athletes in the history of organized sports. With the possible exceptions of boxer Muhammad Ali and baseball player Babe Ruth, no athlete has made a greater impact on American society-or in the world-than Michael Jordan. Follow the life of one of the most recognizable athletes and living brands inside this engaging and balanced biography. When basketball stars Larry Bird and Magic Johnson retired in the early 1990s, Michael almost single-handedly propelled the NBA to stratospheric levels of success and international visibility. As a player for the Chicago Bulls, he generated instant crowd thrills with his record-setting drives and dunks, selling countless books, newspapers, videotapes, NBA game tickets, and hours of television time. The NBA promoted Michael, basing its popularity on his image as the greatest showman in sports history. Yet his sports hero status extends beyond NBA records. Michael changed the game by becoming the most effectively marketed athlete of his generation. Nike and many other companies rode-and continue to ride-on the coattails of Air Jordan's legend. Author David Porter highlights Jordan's on and off the court accomplishments and examines his relationship with Chicago Bulls' coaches, his commercial endorsements, and his current role as part-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats. A chronology, photos, career stats, and a bibliography of print and electronic resources round out this biography of one of the most influential athletes of the twentieth century.

Walter Davis is young, handsome, intelligent, dynamic and personable. The product of a bi-racial marriage but abandoned by his father as a young child, he prides himself on three things: his drive to succeed, his fine clothes and never having been late for anything in his life. Walter is also homeless. The medical expenses that came with his mother's brief and unsuccessful battle against cancer have left him destitute. Still, ever the optimist, Walter believes that if he lives in his car for a few months, he will have the time he needs to find a good job in the business world and turn his life around. His situation gets more complicated when he finds himself attracted to a girl he meets at the mailing center where he keeps a post box. But trying to impress a girl when you have no fixed address proves difficult, and when he's caught in a lie, she shuns his company. Walter's struggles grow when his car is impounded and he can't afford to pay the fine. Only resilience, ingenuity and his drive to succeed can bring Walter back from the brink of despair.

Remembered in name but underappreciated in legacy, Forrest "Phog" Allen arguably influenced the game of basketball more than anyone else. In the first half of the twentieth century, Allen took basketball from a gentlemanly, indoor recreational pastime to the competitive game that would become a worldwide sport. Succeeding James Naismith as the University of Kansas's basketball coach in 1907, Allen led the Jayhawks for thirty-nine seasons and holds the record for most wins at that school, with 590. He also helped create the NCAA tournament and brought basketball to the Olympics. Allen changed the way the game is played, coached, marketed, and presented. Scott Morrow Johnson reveals Allen as a master recruiter, a transformative coach, and a visionary basketball mind. Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith, Wilt Chamberlain, and many others benefited from Allen's knowledge of and passion for the game. But Johnson also delves into Allen's occasionally tumultuous relationships with Naismith, the NCAA, and University of Kansas administrators. Phog: The Most Influential Man in Basketball chronicles this complex man's life, telling for the first time the full story of the man whose name is synonymous with Kansas basketball and with the game itself.

The New York Times bestseller Out of the greatest dynasty in American professional sports history, a Boston Celtics team led by Bill Russell and Bob Cousy, comes an intimate story of race, mortality, and regret About to turn ninety, Bob Cousy, the Hall of Fame Boston Celtics captain who led the team to its first six championships on an unparalleled run, has much to look back on in contentment. But he has one last piece of unfinished business. The last pass he hopes to throw is to close the circle with his great partner on those Celtic teams, fellow Hall of Famer Bill Russell. These teammates were basketball's Ruth and Gehrig, and Cooz, as everyone calls him, was famously ahead of his time as an NBA player in terms of race and civil rights. But as the decades passed, Cousy blamed himself for not having done enough, for not having understood the depth of prejudice Russell faced as an African-American star in a city with a fraught history regarding race. Cousy wishes he had defended Russell publicly, and that he had told him privately that he had his back. At this late hour, he confided to acclaimed historian Gary Pomerantz over the course of many interviews, he would like to make amends. At the heart of the story The Last Pass tells is the relationship between these two iconic athletes. The book is also in a way Bob Cousy's last testament on his complex and fascinating life. As a sports story alone it has few parallels: An poor kid whose immigrant French parents suffered a dysfunctional marriage, the young Cousy escaped to the New York City playgrounds, where he became an urban legend known as the Houdini of the Hardwood. The legend exploded nationally in 1950, his first year as a Celtic: he would be an all-star all 13 of his NBA seasons. But even as Cousy's on-court imagination and daring brought new attention to the pro game, the Celtics struggled until Coach Red Auerbach landed Russell in 1956. Cooz and Russ fit beautifully together on the court, and the Celtics dynasty was born. To Boston's white sportswriters it was Cousy's team, not Russell's, and as the civil rights movement took flight, and Russell became more publicly involved in it, there were some ugly repercussions in the community, more hurtful to Russell than Cousy feels he understood at the time. The Last Pass situates the Celtics dynasty against the full dramatic canvas of American life in the 50s and 60s. It is an enthralling portrait of the heart of this legendary team that throws open a window onto the wider world at a time of wrenching social change. Ultimately it is a book about the legacy of a life: what matters to us in the end, long after the arena lights have been turned off and we are alone with our memories. On August 22, 2019, Bob Cousy was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

When Victoria Cape moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in the early 1970s, she had no idea that her desire to play basketball would change the game for women and the sport in Tennessee. Encouraged to sign up for basketball by her athletic father, Victoria was in for a shock: the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association endorsed an entirely different form of the game for high school women than the version of basketball commonly played around the country. Women played six-on-six basketball, in which offensive players stayed on one half of the court, and defensive players on the other half-defenders could spend their entire careers without taking a shot. Victoria Cape sued the TSSAA, and her lawsuit paved the way for women to play basketball by the same rules as men and served as an early test case of groundbreaking Title IX legislation. Further adding to the case's history-making precis was the presence of a young Pat Summitt, recently elevated to head coach of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers, who bravely testified on behalf of Cape during the lawsuit. Full Court Press is a valuable addition to research on how individual initiative can bring about social change-in Tennessee, in the sporting world, and as a part of the broader struggle for women's equality. Written in a lighthearted and inspiring style, this book is a must-read for anyone fascinated by the many achievements of Pat Summitt, Tennessee women's basketball, or women's sports history in general.

Now in paperback: ?An impressive achievement...Not likely to be forgotten anytime soon.?(Washington Times) Here is the riveting true story of Jason McElwain? better known as ?J-Mac the autistic student who made headlines when he scored twenty points, including a school record six three-pointers, for his high school basketball team in 2006. Including the revealing perspectives of J-Mac's family and coach, this is McElwain's inspiring account of the challenges of growing up autistic?not only for himself, but for his family. It's also the tale of his unlikely star turn, the difference it made in his journey through life?and all the heartbreaking and heart-lifting stops along the way.

The often hilarious, occasionally heart wrenching story of a professional basketball player, Shirley details his years playing in America, Spain, and even Siberia. This is a sports memoir that details the highs and lows of trying to make it as a professional athlete.

With unerring insight into the deeper truths of professional sports, John Feinstein explores in riveting detail what happened one night in December 1977 when, as a fistfight broke out on the court between the Houston Rockets and the Los Angeles Lakers, Kermit Washington delivered a punch that nearly killed All-Star Rudy Tomjanovich. The punch - now legendary in the annals of American sports - radically changed the trajectory of both men's lives and reverberates throughout the National Basketball Association to this day. Feinstein's compelling investigation of this single cataclysmic incident and its aftermath casts a light on the NBA's darkest secrets, revealing the true price men pay when they choose a career in sports.

It ought to be just a game, but basketball on the playgrounds of Coney Island is much more than that -- for many young men it represents their only hope of escape from a life of crime, poverty, and despair. In The Last Shot, Darcy Frey chronicles the aspirations of four of the neighborhood's most promising players. What they have going for them is athletic talent, grace, and years of dedication. But working against them are woefully inadequate schooling, family circumstances that are often desperate, and the slick, brutal world of college athletic recruitment. Incisively and compassionately written, The Last Shot introduces us to unforgettable characters and takes us into their world with an intimacy seldom seen in contemporary journalism. The result is a startling and poignant expose of inner-city life and the big business of college basketball.

The ConverseR® All Sta^TM team scores with this jam-packed book on the basics of basketball. From jump ball to jump shot, layup to slam dunk, you'll learn the techniques, the terms, and the teamwork you need to master:

• Dribbling
• Passing
• Receiving
• Shooting
• Rebounding
• Freestyle Offense
• Zone Defense
• The Fast Break
• Game Strategies
• And much more

This fact-filled guide to full court fundamentals delivers dazzling action shots, step-by-step diagrams, drills, and games to play with others or on your own. Here's everything you need to be your best at this exciting sport.

On November 15, 1993, a white-haired, 72-year-old gentleman named Dr. Amberry stepped up to the free throw line and into the Guinness Book of World Records by sinking 2,750 shots in a row. He ended his 12-hour streak without a miss, stopping only because they had to close the gym for the night.

In Free Throw, he reveals his secrets. Beginning with the proper mechanics of the shot, he then explains the importance of the mental game and shares his techniques to help players stay on target even while under pressure. Combining these mental and physical elements, he presents a unique and straightforward 7-step method that teaches readers how to become a 90% free throw shooter.

The free throw is the Achilles heel of the basketball player -- many players are great from the floor but lousy at the line. Free Throw is the only book to address this important skill. Clearly written, with principles that are easy to put into practice, it is an indispensable manual for all basketball players and coaches.