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Books > Biography > Sport
The true story from which the inspirational movie Woodlawn starring
Jon Voight, Sean Astin, and C. Thomas Howell, is based on African
American running back Tony Nathan and his experiences on a mostly
white team in 1970s Birmingham, Alabama, and how his courage and
superb athletic ability helped heal a city, propelling him on to a
successful football career as both a player and a coach in the
NFL.When Tony Nathan got his hands on a football, it was like
Superman putting on his cape. He stepped onto the field and became
a different person--a hero destined to change the course of Alabama
history. Somehow, when he held a football, he knew exactly what to
do, and it was those instincts that helped him navigate life in one
of the most tumultuous cities in America. In this powerful memoir,
Tony reveals how he summoned the courage to "run with a purpose"
during the times when racial tensions were at their highest as he
grew from a boy trapped by the racial divide in Birmingham,
Alabama, into a successful man and football hero. Tony's courage,
character, passion, and strength contributed to his impressive
career on the field--including two Super Bowls with the Miami
Dolphins--and then as a coach who helped train other winning
players. Inspirational and uplifting, Touchdown Tony is not only a
behind-the-scenes look at a great football player's life and
career, it is also a story of redemption and one man's hope to
change the future.
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.
The fascinating and unknown story of the Tour de France's
ever-changing relationship with money and power - and the enigmatic
family behind it all. It started with a cash drop by an English spy
in occupied Paris in 1944. Reserved for Resistance groups during
the war, the money reached Emilien Amaury, an advertising
executive, who was tasked to help France return to a free press
once liberated. He soon launched a newspaper empire that -
unbeknown to him - would own the rights to run what would become
one of the greatest sporting events in history. Le Tour, once a
struggling commercial phenomenon, began to rise in popularity
across much of western Europe in the glum years after the Second
World War, lifting the mood of the hungry and despondent French.
But with the increased interest in the event, exacerbated by the
creation of television and the internet, came several cultural
threats to national heritage. Multiple attempts to wrest power and
profits from the latest generation of the Amaury family - who still
own the race and take tens of millions of euros home in dividends -
have followed, but not without a fight. Fast-paced and fastidiously
researched, Le Fric illustrates how moments off the bike at the
Tour de France are every bit as gripping as the battle for the
yellow jersey.
DescriptionA unique combination of history, biography,
bibliography, and statistics, the widely acclaimed first edition of
"Outstanding Women Athletes" has now been updated to reflect the
many significant changes that have taken place in women's sports in
America in recent years. Now added are the biographies of 26 sports
figures who have recently emerged as role models in traditional
women's sports such as tennis and figure skating as well as in
sports that historically excluded women such as mountain climbing,
bullfighting, and boxing. Also new is a chapter profiling 10
women's championship teams, including each organization's history,
brief biographies of 200 selected team members, and major team
achievements.
A cult football figure, Vince Hilaire's career spanned over 600
games and took in spells at Crystal Palace, Portsmouth, Leeds
United and Stoke City, playing in every professional division as
well as for England at Youth and Under 21 levels. Hilaire shared a
dressing room with some of the stars of the era including Kenny
Sansom, Mick Channon, Gordon Strachan and Vinnie Jones, and was
managed by some of the biggest figures in British football -
Malcolm Allison, Terry Venables, Alan Ball and Howard Wilkinson.
This book offers a fascinating insight into the methods of these
managers - Allison and Venables' desperation to produce a side that
rivalled the free-flowing football of the famous `Busby Babes',
contrasting with the dourness and rigidity of Wilkinson's Leeds.
One of the first black players to break into the professional game,
Vince made his professional debut at seventeen and was a member of
the famous `Team of the `80s at Palace that topped the First
Division table. He details exactly why that team fell apart so
quickly and the chaos that subsequently engulfed the club. Vince
also outlines the regular abuse that he faced as a young black
player making his way in football and the dread he felt playing at
certain grounds. This massively entertaining autobiography gives a
fascinating insight into the beautiful game as it used to be
played.
Looking back at the lives and sailing careers of some of our
lifetime's finest yachtsmen, this collection of eleven original,
moving accounts is just as much a celebration of the good - tales
of hope, achievement and courageous spirit - as it is an account of
their tragic final voyages. Included are world-renowned racers,
like Eric Tabarly and Rob James, highly experienced cruisers and
adventurers, like Peter Tangvald and Bill Tilman, and the
notoriously ill-prepared Donald Crowhurst, as well as other famous
and some less well-known sailors. Starting with the sad loss of
Frank Davison and Reliance in 1949, the book concludes with the
amazing last voyage of Philip Walwyn in 2015 - crossing the
Atlantic single-handed in his 12 Metre yacht Kate. All of the men
and women described were friends with or known to the author,
Nicholas Gray, who himself competed in several short-handed long
distance races, where he met and raced against many of these
fascinating characters. Peppered with photographs showcasing the
sailors and their yachts, this is a refreshing look at those who
have helped to shape this sport's history, honouring their lives
and accomplishments before detailing their tragic last voyages.
'Modern Heroes' is a series of modern and colourful books about the
lives of eight remarkable people whose influence has shaped how we
live today. This book looks at the life of Anne Frank.
There is only one Arsène Wenger - and for the very first time, in his own words, this is his story.
In this definitive autobiography, the world-renowned, revolutionary football manager discusses his life and career, sharing his leadership principles for success on and off the field. At Arsenal, Wenger won multiple Premier League titles, a record number of FA Cups, and masterminded the historic 'Invincibles' season of 2003-2004. He changed the game in England forever, popularising an attacking approach and changing attitudes towards nutrition, fitness and coaching methods - and towards foreign managers. The book charts his extraordinary career, from his rise in France and Japan where he managed Nancy, Monaco and Nagoya Grampus Eight - clubs that also play in red-and-white - to his twenty-two years at the helm in north London.
A must-read not only for Arsenal supporters but football fans everywhere, MY LIFE IN RED AND WHITE illuminates the mystique surrounding one of the most respected managers in the world's most popular sport.
A Sunday Times Book of the Year 'Rahaman has, at last, written the
definitive biography on his late brother, which tells the real Ali
story' - Mike Tyson 'The real life of the Great One' - George
Foreman More words have been written about Muhammad Ali than almost
anyone else. He was, without doubt, the world's most-loved
sportsman. At the height of his celebrity he was the most famous
person in the world. And yet, until now, the one voice missing
belonged to the man who knew him best - his only sibling, and best
friend, Rahaman Ali. No one was closer to Ali than Rahaman. Born
Cassius and Rudolph Arnett Clay, the two brothers grew up together,
lived together, trained together, travelled together, and fought
together in the street and in the ring. A constant fixture in his
sibling's company, Rahaman saw Ali at both his best and his worst:
the relentless prankster and the jealous older brother, the
outspoken advocate, the husband and father. In My Brother, Muhammad
Ali, he is able to offer a surprising insider's perspective on the
well-known stories, as well as never-before-told tales, painting a
rich portrait of a proud, relentlessly polarizing, yet often
vulnerable man. In this extraordinary, poignant memoir, Rahaman
tells a much bigger and more personal story than in any other book
on the great man - that of two brothers, almost inseparable from
birth to death. It is the final and most important perspective on
one of the most iconic figures of the last century.
Riley Gaines has been called many things: Collegiate athlete.
All-American. Champion. But in 2022, everything changed. The narrative
shifted. Now, critics smeared her as: Transphobic. Narrow-minded. Evil.
What changed? Riley gave the truth a voice. She stood up, spoke out,
and dared to ask questions -- not just for herself, but for all female
athletes who refuse to accept an ideology where "inclusivity" for
trans-identifying male athletes now means treating women unfairly.
Riley Gaines is changing minds in the process, and this highly
anticipated, fearless, pro-woman book takes on controversial but
critical questions we must confront about women (and sports) in
America. Can't we embrace policies that give everyone the chance to
compete but still protect women and ensure they have a fair shot at
success?
In Swimming Against the Current: Fighting for Common Sense in a World
That's Lost It's Mind, Riley scrutinizes the perspectives of athletes
on the opposing side of this debate, deconstructing their arguments
with science, facts, and logic. She also asks what has happened to free
speech and dissent in this country, where it now seems nearly
impossible to have a well-reasoned debate. And in telling her story,
Riley reveals what’s at stake if the truth-seekers remain silent about
the injustices women face from radical agendas.
'It's a preposterous plan. Still, if you do get up it, it'll be the
hardest thing that's been done in the Himalayas.' So spoke Chris
Bonington when Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker presented him with
their plan to tackle the unclimbed West Wall of Changabang - the
Shining Mountain - in 1976. Bonington's was one of the more
positive responses; most felt the climb impossibly hard, especially
for a two-man, lightweight expedition. This was, after all, perhaps
the most fearsome and technically challenging granite wall in the
Garhwal Himalaya and an ascent - particularly one in a lightweight
style - would be more significant than anything done on Everest at
the time. The idea had been Joe Tasker's. He had photographed the
sheer, shining, white granite sweep of Changabang's West Wall on a
previous expedition and asked Pete to return with him the following
year. Tasker contributes a second voice throughout Boardman's
story, which starts with acclimatisation, sleeping in a Salford
frozen food store, and progresses through three nights of hell,
marooned in hammocks during a storm, to moments of exultation at
the variety and intricacy of the superb, if punishingly difficult,
climbing. It is a story of how climbing a mountain can become an
all-consuming goal, of the tensions inevitable in forty days of
isolation on a two-man expedition; as well as a record of the
moment of joy upon reaching the summit ridge against all odds.
First published in 1978, The Shining Mountain is Peter Boardman's
first book. It is a very personal and honest story that is also
amusing, lucidly descriptive, very exciting, and never anything but
immensely readable. It was awarded the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
for literature in 1979, winning wide acclaim. His second book,
Sacred Summits, was published shortly after his death in 1982.
Invercargill, at the far southern end of New Zealand. It's the late
1960s and two blokes sit in a modest shed drinking tea. The old
bloke is telling stories about his life; the young bloke, a junior
reporter, is typing earnestly on his Olympia portable typewriter.
Dramatic tales abound - of youthful scrapes, motorcycle races and
ingenious repairs, of international travel and friendships and road
trips, of high speeds and accidents and meetings with dutiful
policemen. Burt Munro became known around the world through the
2005 movie The World's Fastest Indian, but had long been known to
motorcycle fans as a colourful character and speed record-holder.
Our young journalist, Neill Birss, moved away from Invercargill and
the interviews he had typed out were never published. In fact, they
were lost during the move and only resurfaced under strange
circumstances many decades later. Here they are in this book - the
lost interviews with Burt Munro, legendary Kiwi motorcycle rider -
his voice as fresh and his stories as vivid as the day he told them
to the young reporter. Also available as an eBook.
Hannah Dines and Jess Leyden are two perfectly normal, brilliant
women. One, a world record-holding athlete and a Paralympian on the
trike. The other, a multiple age-group world champion and one of
the most promising rowers Great Britain has to offer. In the five
years (yes, that's right) between Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, they
will face cancer scares, crushing defeats, and the biggest global
health crisis in a century. They will get dropped, they will get
injured, and they will win medals. They will spend the best years
of their lives knowing that at any moment, it could all come
crashing down. That all the training, all the sacrifice could be in
vain, wasted effort as a pandemic raged. That maybe these could be
the years that will shape their finest hour - or that maybe, after
everything that they've been through, it could all still be
snatched away at the last...
For better or for worse, the Giro d'Italia remains the sporting
metaphor for Italians. To celebrate its centenary, Herbie Sykes
produced a unique - and uniquely personal - evocation. In realising
it he undertook a Giro of his own. Travelling the length of the
peninsular, he met with 100 of its constituents, and simply
listened to their stories. They were the champions and gregari, the
superstars and nearly-men, their wives, families and tifosi. There
were kingmakers and journalists, sponsors and officials, those who
have loved it and a few who abhorred it. Collectively their
testimonies represent a journey to the heart of the race, and to
Italian cycling identity. This, however, is a cycling journey with
a difference. In a departure from recent cycling convention, they
were invited to open not only their hearts, but also their
scrapbooks, photo albums and old cupboard drawers. There's no
anodyne photographic agency fodder here, no cliched Dolomite vistas
and no hackneyed portraits of Coppi, Merckx or Pantani. Rather the
images conjure the spirit, pathos and beauty of the greatest race
on earth and, more poignantly still, of 100 lives conditioned by
it.
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Rafa: My Story
(Paperback)
Rafael Nadal, John Carlin
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The Sunday Times bestselling autobiography from the greatest tennis player of his generation.
No tennis player since Andre Agassi has captivated the world like Rafael Nadal. He's a rarity in today's
sporting arena - a true sportsman who chooses to let his raw talent, dedication and humility define him. Rapidly closing in on his friend and rival Roger Federer's record haul of 16 grand slam victories, Nadal is an extraordinary competitor whose ferocity on court is made even more remarkable by his grace off it. This book takes us to the heart of Nadal's childhood, his growth as a player, and his incredible career.
It includes memorable highs and lows, from victory in the 2008 Wimbledon final - a match that John McEnroe called the 'greatest game of tennis ever played' - to the injury problems that have frequently threatened his dominance of
the sport, to becoming the youngest player of the open era to complete a career Grand Slam in 2010. It transports us from Nadal's lifelong home on the island of Majorca to the locker room of Centre Court as he describes in detail the pressures of competing in the greatest tournament in the world.
It offers a glimpse behind the racquet to learn what really makes this intensely private person - who has never before talked about his home life - tick. And it provides us with a story that is personal, revealing and every bit
as exciting as Nadal himself.
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