|
|
Books > Biography > Sport
So, who’s the best of 'em all? Tiger Woods? Jack Nicklaus? Bobby Jones?
Ben Hogan? Golf fans will disagree until the end of time, but one thing
is certain: For well over 100 years, the sport has provided its share
of spectacular careers and indelible moments. And what about fan
favorites such as Phil Mickelson, Nancy Lopez, and Lee Trevino? Where
do they rank on the list? Or modern players like Scottie Scheffler,
Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Jordan Spieth, Nelly Korda, and Justin
Thomas. Did they make the final cut―and if so, where?
In a joyride through golf history itself, New York Times bestselling
author Michael Arkush establishes a ranking system that places a heavy
emphasis on the game’s major championships and profiles the most
accomplished and impactful golfers ever―men and women, known and
unknown. Arkush captures the flair, as well as the flaws, of athletes
who are intensely competitive, funny, peculiar, or larger-than-life.
Crafted from hundreds of interviews and longtime relationships
developed over a quarter century, The Golf 100 is an immensely
entertaining read.
Walter Smith was one of the most respected managers in British
football. This insightful biography casts a reflective and
analytical eye over his life and career, examining this shrewd
professional through the many highs and lows that he has
experienced as a player and manager. He enjoyed an illustrious
career in management at Rangers, joining the Souness revolution in
1987, winning nine successive league titles, a domestic treble in
the 1992-93 season and winning both the Scottish Cup and League Cup
three times. In 1998, Smith accepted a position in England with
Everton, where he was the manager until 2002, before being reunited
with Ferguson at Old Trafford in 2004. In December of that year,
Smith was appointed as Scotland manager and his effort subsequently
earned him the title of 'Scot of the Year' at the prestigious
Glenfiddich 'Spirit of Scotland' awards in 2006. Midway through the
qualifying rounds for Euro 2008, however, and with the Scots
leading their group, he controversially accepted an offer to return
to Ibrox in January 2007. Upon returning to Glasgow, Smith led
Rangers to the UEFA Cup Final and triumph in the Scottish Cup in
2008, a domestic League and Cup double in 2009 and another double -
this time in the domestic League and League Cup - in 2010. He
retired from management in 2011 and died in October 2021.
On the 50th anniversary of American Track and Field icon Steve Prefontaine’s tragic death comes an essential reappraisal of his life and legacy, a powerful work of narrative history exploring the forces and psychology that made Prefontaine great and separating the man from the myths.
In the fifty years since his tragic death in a car crash, Steve Prefontaine has towered over American distance running. One of the most recognizable and charismatic figures to ever run competitively in the United States, Prefontaine has endured as a source of inspiration and fascination—a talent who presaged the American running boom of the late 1970s and helped put Nike on the map as the brand’s first celebrity-athlete face.
Now on the anniversary of his untimely death, author Brendan O’Meara, host of the Creative Nonfiction podcast, offers a fresh, definitive retelling of Prefontaine’s life, revisiting one of the most enigmatic figures in American sports with a twenty-first-century lens. Through over a hundred and fifty original interviews with family, friends, teammates, and competitors, this long-overdue reappraisal of Prefontaine—the first such exhaustive treatment in almost thirty years—provides never-before-told stories about the unique talent, innovative mental strength, and personal struggles that shaped Prefontaine on and off the track. Bringing new depth to an athlete long eclipsed by his brash, aggressive running style and the heartbreak of his death at twenty-four, O’Meara finds the man inside the myth, scrutinizing a legacy that has shaped American sports culture for decades.
What emerges is a singular portrait of a distinctly American talent, a story written in the pines and firs of the Pacific Northwest back when running was more blue-collar love than corporate pursuit—the story of a runner whose short life casts a long, fast shadow.
The story of the Springboks 2019 Rugby World Cup victory is one of the most inspiring in South African sporting history.
It is about how two men – coach Rassie Erasmus and captain Siya Kolisi – led a team of warriors into battle and conquered the world when inequality and division are still undeniable realities in South African society. When the Boks won the 2007 World Cup final, they did so with 20 white players in their match-day squad of 22.
In 2019, there were five black Africans in their starting line-up for the Yokohama final and the images of Kolisi lifting the Webb Ellis Cup will be replayed forever.
None of this seemed possible in 2017 when the Boks had reached an all-time low. They had slipped to No 7 in the world and had lost the faith of the rugby-loving public. Erasmus came in with just 18 months to prepare for the competition.
Sports writer Lloyd Burnard takes the reader on a thrilling journey from the time when no-one gave the Boks a chance of winning, to the delirious victory tour. He covers the key roles played by Erasmus and Kolisi, and their special relationship. There are ups and downs en route to victory: the first signs of self-belief when they beat the All Blacks in Wellington, Kolisi’s injury, the fall of Aphiwe Dyantyi when he was caught with banned substances in his system, and the Langebaan incident involving Eben Etzebeth that threatened to derail the team.
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.
For twenty years, Miki "Da Cat" Dora was the king of Malibu
surfers--a dashing, enigmatic rebel who dominated the waves, ruled
his peers' imaginations, and who still inspires the fantasies of
wannabes to this day. And yet, Dora railed against surfing's sudden
post-Gidget popularity and the overcrowding of his once empty
waves, even after this avid sportsman, iconoclast, and scammer of
wide repute ran afoul of the law and led the FBI on a remarkable
seven-year chase around the globe in 1974. The New York Times named
him "the most renegade spirit the sport has yet to produce" and
Vanity Fair called him "a dark prince of the beach." To fully
capture Dora's never-before-told story, David Rensin spent four
years interviewing hundreds of Dora's friends, enemies, family
members, lovers, and fellow surfers to uncover the untold truth
about surfing's most outrageous practitioner, charismatic antihero,
committed loner, and enduring mystery.
America held little promise during the 1930's, when the Great
Depression vice gripped the country and a boy named Thomas Errol
Wasdin was born into the hardscrabble farmland of Waldo, Florida.
Wasdin was only months old when his mother died of blood poisoning.
Soon afterward, he and his sister were sent to live with their
Uncle and Aunt, who raised them with old-fashioned values rooted in
discipline and hard work. These became character traits that served
Wasdin well - later at the University of Florida and eventually
throughout his life. And what a life it has been; rich and varied,
and not without heartache and an ongoing, debilitating battle with
Trigeminal Neuralgia, which the medical profession chillingly
refers to as the Suicide Disease. It is a life that saw Wasdin
shape the lives of poor children from literally and proverbially
the wrong side of the tracks in Jacksonville, Florida; children who
later became attorneys, administrators, sports stars, politicians,
educators, husbands, wives, parents and productive citizens. It is
a life that saw Wasdin forge friendships with two men he achieved
enormous success with - Joe Williams and Rick Stottler. With
Williams, Wasdin reached the pinnacle of coaching in college
basketball, taking Jacksonville University to the 1970 NCAA
Championship Game against the most powerful program in college
sports history - John Wooden's UCLA Bruins. The account of that
season, and especially that game, captures the controversy and
excitement that surrounded it. Wasdin then moved from an assistant
coach to a successful tenure as JU's head coach. It is a life that
saw Wasdin leave coaching to join Stottler in business and
development, shaping both lives and a stretch of area along the
East Coast of Florida that with his help came to be known as the
Space Coast. It is a life lived in full, and a life story worth
reading.
|
|