Many Indiana University fans have heard the name Branch McCracken, after whom the hallowed court at Assembly Hall is named, but how many of them know about the legendary coach himself? Before Tom Crean, before Bob Knight, IU basketball relied on this man to make the school famous for its hoops stars. And boy did he--with two national titles, four Big Ten titles, and numerous other accolades, McCracken defined Hoosier Hysteria for a generation. However, his greatest legacy remains the example of good character he set and the way he touched the lives of everyone around him. Fans remember him as the coach who helped IU break the color barrier in Big Ten basketball, and players remember him as a second father. If, as McCracken once wrote, "A coach is not paid in money or winning teams, but in the men his players become," he was a rich man, indeed. Branch McCracken made Indiana University basketball a force to be reckoned with, and this is his story.

""Dream Team" proves there really are saints and gentle souls capable of hitting home runs, pitching shutouts, and scoring touchdowns."-Brian Schneider, catcher, Washington Nationals

Former Marquette University basketball coach Al McGuire retired from coaching in 1977, just months after leading Marquette to the NCAA championship. When announcing his departure, McGuire explained, "There's more to life than coaching guys in short pants." Baseball great Roberto Clemente was even more to the point: "Anytime you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don't, then you are wasting your time on Earth."

With a voice that exudes his love of sportsmanship and his faith in God's plan, attorney Frederick J. Day presents the fascinating and uplifting true stories of athletes, coaches, and sportswriters who, like McGuire and Clemente, recognized that life matters well beyond what takes place on a court or field. Showcasing the goodwill of dozens of sports heroes from the last century, Day proves that athletes can serve as powerful inspiration for positive contributions to society. "Dream Team" pays tribute to athletic pillars who understood, as did tennis player Arthur Ashe, that "the purest joy in life comes with trying to help others."

Huddle with Rudy into the heart of college football in this true story of a young athlete achieving success against all odds. A story that will be familiar to athletes, coaches and everyone that listens and pursues that inner voice that tells you never to give up.

The Cameroon Indomitable Lions soccer team has much to be proud of. Touted as the best African soccer team of the twentieth century, ten of its players have won Player of the Year awards. In addition, the team has participated in: Sixty-one Africa Nations Cup games, four of them in the championship game Five World Cup Soccer Championships Seventeen World Cup games Eight Confederations Cup games Nine Olympic games matches Two Afro-Asian Cup games

Passionate soccer analyst Raphael Ebanga-Mballa recaps all of these accomplishments and more in this fascinating book. With an amazing attention to detail, he shares more than fifty years of success, including discussions on the team's victories and defeats, as well as anecdotes and testimonials

Reflecting meticulous research, "The Lion's Share" also contains an astonishing amount of data on teams and players. Soccer fans will find much to appreciate about Cameroon's leading team, including greats such as Roger Milla, Thomas Nkono, and Samuel Eto'o.

"The Lion's Share" is a moving tribute to Africa's most successful soccer team, a perfect companion for fans and players alike.

In a span of 81 days in 1978, Henry Rono broke four world records, committing the most ferocious assault on the track-and-field record books by a middle-distance runner in the history of the sport. This is what Henry Rono is known for. However, it is not who Henry Rono is. Henry Rono was born a poor Nandi in Kenya's Rift Valley. After an accident when he was two, doctors believed he would never again walk. This would be the first of countless obstacles Rono would have to overcome in order to pursue his two life goals: to first become the greatest runner in the world and then to become the best teacher he could be. Rono's first goal was accomplished in 1978, when he was considered not only the greatest track-and-field athlete in the world, but also by many to be the world's greatest athlete period. His second and greater goal, to become a teacher, was more difficult in coming. Once Rono became a star, coaches, agents, meet directors, and corrupt Kenyan athletic officials (whose boycotts of the 1976 and 1980 Olympics turned Rono's dreams of Olympic gold into Olympic smoke rings), wanted him to serve as their personal moneymaker, and so they did everything they could to discourage Rono's pursuit of an education and dream of teaching. The corruption and discouragement Rono encountered, as well as his alienation and exile from his homeland and family, pushed him to 20 years of alcoholism and even occasional homelessness. This is the life story of Henry Rono, whose descent from triumph to abyss, and whose subsequent ascent from abyss to triumph, are perhaps steeper than those of any track-and field athlete in history.

On a stormy night, as a hurricane raced up the Gulf Coast and created havoc in its path, Betty Gilliland was born on a corn shuck mattress in a barn at the foot of Sand Mountain. As soon as the midwife wrapped her in a blanket and gently laid her in a cow manger, Gilliland began a journey through life that would eventually test her spirit, courage, and, most of all, her power to forgive. Gilliland begins by chronicling her growing up years during a challenging time in America's history. Her father was drafted into the war and then abandoned his family, leaving Gilliland and her mother to eke out a life for themselves in their tiny cabin, surviving on a diet of wild greens, nuts, and roots. As she weaves through the threads of her life's tapestry, Gilliland recalls the challenges she confronted during her difficult coming-of-age journey as she suffered through hardships, physical abuse, emotional abandonment, and her own self-destructive behavior. Yet through it all, she never lost the faith. What's more, she used that faith to begin building a new life and to discover her roots. Destiny's Tapestry shares one woman's poignant memories of moving from the darkness of abuse into the light of healing.

'The greater the challenge, the sweeter the reward, but also the greater the risk of failure. And fear of failure is the greatest barrier to success.' Sabrina Verjee is an ultrarunning phenomenon. In June 2021, on her fourth attempt, she became the first person to climb the Lake District's 214 Wainwright hills in under six days, running 325 miles with a colossal 36,000 metres of ascent. Where There's a Hill tells the story of an outsider who was never picked for a school sports team yet went on to become an accomplished modern pentathlete and adventure racer. After switching her focus to ultrarunning in her thirties, Sabrina moved to the Lake District, where she could hone her mountain-running skills on the local fells. High-profile success in endurance events followed, as she completed the Dragon's Back Race three times and was the outright winner of the 2019 Summer Spine Race, beating her nearest competitor by more than eight hours. However, it was the Wainwrights Round which really captured Sabrina's imagination. Having learnt about the challenge from fell-running legend Steve Birkinshaw, Sabrina began to plan an attempt of her own. Despite multiple obstacles - including lockdown regulations, bad weather, injury and controversy - Sabrina's grit and determination shone through. Where There's a Hill is a frank and inspirational account of how one woman ran her way into the record books.

During the more than one hundred years that baseball has been our national pastime, all types of individuals have been managers of teams. They have run the gamut from political appointees to tyrants, schemers, incompetents and geniuses. Legendary baseball stars have been managers such as Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Walter Johnson, Mel Ott, George Sisler, and Honus Wagner. And Mediocre players, including Branch Rickey, Earl Weaver, Walter Alston have become managers. Antics galore have accentuated managerial behavior: the pratfalls of Charley Grimm in the third-base coaching box; the umbrella-carrying Frankie Frisch arguing with the umpires that a game should be called; the cap twisting, body-gyrating movements of Earl Weaver, puffing cigarettes in the dugout and attempting to use body language to will his players to perform better. Idiosyncrasies and special styles have characterized managers through the years. An entire collection of one-liners has developed over the years to characterize the managing profession. For trivia buffs, there's an entire world of statistical records about managers. This books attempts to capture the style and substance of some of the greatest managers of all time. An effort has been made to give representation to the different eras of baseball, the various managing styles, and all the nuances and nostalgia that shape this fascinating subject.

'Every time I speak to someone and hear about their experiences, it leaves me with a sense of running's incredible power to help people overcome pretty much anything.' Each day, millions of people around the world put on their trainers and try to deal with their personal demons and life challenges by going for a run. And, increasingly, they do it knowing that they are not alone: a growing and often virtual community is right there running alongside them. We are all, in some sense, running for our lives. Rachel Ann Cullen's first book, Running for My Life, described her own marathon journey through depression, bipolar disorder and body dysmorphia, and her revelatory discovery that running could transform her physical and mental wellbeing. After hearing from people who had read about her experiences, Rachel wanted to tell some stories of other runners from all around the world - ordinary people living with mental health struggles, grief, cancer and other unavoidable life events who have relied on running to get them through their worst days and to keep going. Running for Our Lives shares moving accounts of hope and resilience; it demonstrates the power of running to help us all overcome adversity, and is a lesson for us all in learning not only how to survive life's challenges, but to thrive.

Little did a young Alan Williams know when he received his first bike-a fat-tire, red and white Columbia with only a single gear-that he would one day ride a bicycle across the northern United States. In his narrative, Williams chronicles his two-month cycling trip from Oregon to New Hampshire, where he would celebrate the fulfillment a lifelong dream by dipping his bicycle wheels in the Atlantic Ocean.

Williams shares the emotions and moments that led up to his decision to ride across the country and chronicles his subsequent 3,700-mile journey that included laboring up switchbacks on mountain roads, speeding down from mountain passes, bucking headwinds across a seemingly endless prairie, fearing that a tender derriere might derail the mission, and experiencing the elation of reaching the Atlantic coast. While sharing descriptions of places of interest, photographs, and training tips, Williams also offers a glimpse into the physical and mental effort required to complete such a journey.

For anyone considering undertaking a bicycle expedition of any length, "From Sea to Shining Sea" provides guidance, advice, and inspiration from a man who sacrificed and persevered in order to achieve a successful cross-country bike ride he will never forget.

From twice Booker-shortlisted author Deborah Levy, a moving and revelatory collection exploring the muses that have shaped her life and work as a writer

In The Position of Spoons, Deborah Levy invites the reader into the interiors of her world, sharing her most intimate thoughts and experiences, as she traces and measures her life against the backdrop of the literary and artistic muses that have shaped her.

From Marguerite Duras to Colette and Ballard, and from Lee Miller to Francesca Woodman and Paula Rego, we can relish here the richness of their work and, in turn the richness of the author’s own.

Each page draws upon Levy’s life in exalting ways, encapsulating the wonderful precision and astonishing depth of her writing, as she seamlessly shifts between and meditates on questions of mortality, language, suburbia, gender, consumerism and the poetics of every day living. From the child born in South Africa, to her teenage years in Britain, to her travels across the world as a young woman, each page is a beautiful, tender composition of the questioning self: a portrait of Deborah Levy’s writing life and intellectual vitality in all of its dimensions.