Be sure to check out IRON AMBITION: My Life with Cus D'Amato by Mike Tyson "Raw, powerful and disturbing-a head-spinning take on Mr. Tyson's life."-Wall Street Journal Philosopher, Broadway headliner, fighter, felon-Mike Tyson has defied stereotypes, expectations, and a lot of conventional wisdom during his three decades in the public eye. Bullied as a boy in the toughest, poorest neighborhood in Brooklyn, Tyson grew up to become one of the most ferocious boxers of all time-and the youngest heavyweight champion ever. But his brilliance in the ring was often compromised by reckless behavior. Yet-even after hitting rock bottom-the man who once admitted being addicted "to everything" fought his way back, achieving triumphant success as an actor and newfound happiness and stability as a father and husband. Brutal, honest, raw, and often hilarious, Undisputed Truth is the singular journey of an inspiring American original.

Leading cycling writer William Fotheringham presents the biography of the greatest cyclist in history, Eddy Merckx--the extraordinary man who is to cycling what Muhammad Ali is to boxing. This definitive history chronicles his life, examining both the ups and the downs. Throughout his professional career Merckx amassed an astonishing 445 victories and exhibited a remorseless sense of domination that created his legend. But his triumphs only tell half of a story that includes horrific injury, a doping controversy, and tragedy. To discover the background of the Belgian cyclist's former invincibility, the author spoke with those who were there at the time and those who knew Merckx best. This is the singular tale of a man whose fear of failure would drive him to reach the highest pinnacles before ultimately destroying himself.

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.

The One And Only, is the story of Chic Harley, a quiet, bashful, unassuming man whose heroics during the early years of the 20th century transformed both college and professional football and set the stage for Ohio State s propulsion into high stakes athletics and academics. The 314-page full length biography, authored by Chic Harley's great nephew Todd Wessell, walks the reader through a three-century journey describing how the Harley family emigrated from Ireland to Virginia, to Ohio and finally to Chicago. Woven within the book's pages are never-before-seen family photos, and personal accounts of Chic by his teammates, coaches, opponents, admirers and family members---all of whom knew him well and some of whom are still alive today. The story delves into his nearly lifelong struggle with mental illness, his close relationship with his youngest sister Ruth, his abbreviated career as owner and player with the Decatur Staleys (now named the Chicago Bears), and his triumphant return to the scene of his amazing college sports career, Columbus. The One And Only ends by suggesting the need for a fitting tribute to Chic Harley for the many contributions he made to Ohio State and professional football, for his courage, and for the many pleasures he provided those who knew and loved him. Editorial Review: Chic Harley - America's Great Athlete "On Thanksgiving Day, 1973, Charles William Harley, then seventy-nine years old, played his last football game... So begins Chapter 1 of The One and Only, the biography of Chic Harley written by his great nephew Todd Wessell. My copy recently arrived. I opened it to that sentence and four chapters later put it down. An engrossing read, it traces Chic's life beginning with the immigration of his ancestors to this country and ending the day he was laid to rest just northwest of the stadium he helped build. For Buckeyes, this story is obviously our heritage, our football roots. More than football though, this book is a work of history. It is an American Era, it is the coming of age of a national sport, and the role Chic Harley played in that. It is how schizophrenia changed everything in the life of this great athlete. Most importantly, it is the family that loved him and their tireless work to keep the memory alive. As I gaze up at my Ohio State bookshelf, I count more than 20 books. All are good in their own way, but several stand out as timeless and classics. Jack Park's Ohio State Football Encyclopedia, Alan Natali's Woody's Boys, John Lombardo's A Fire to Win (life and times of Woody Hayes), Triumph, Jeremy Schaap's story of Jesse Owens and the '36 Olympics, and of course Jesse Owens - An American Life, William Baker's biography of Jesse. I expect father time will judge this book worthy to stand with those works. Be a part of history...read something great. Steve Davis, author, Columbus, Ohio

Jan Ullrich: The Best There Never Was is the first biography of Jan Ullrich, arguably the most naturally talented cyclist of his generation, and also one of the most controversial champions of the Tour de France. In 1997, Jan Ullrich announced himself to the world by obliterating his rivals in the first mountain stage of the Tour de France. So awesome was his display that it sent shockwaves throughout the world of cycling and invited headlines such as L'Equipe's 'The New Giant'. He went on to become Germany's first ever Tour winner, storming to victory in that edition by almost ten minutes, a result that was greeted as an era-defining changing of the guard. Everyone agreed: Jan Ullrich was the future of cycling. He was soon also voted Germany's most popular sportsperson of all time, and his rivalry with Lance Armstrong defined the most controversial years of the Tour de France. Now, Daniel Friebe - who has covered twenty-one editions of the Tour de France - has gone in search of the man who was said in 1997 would go on to dominate his sport for a generation, but never quite managed it. Just what did happen to the best who never was? This is a gripping account of how unbearable expectation, mental and physical fragility, the effects of a complicated childhood, a morally corrupt sport and one individual - Lance Armstrong - can conspire to reroute destiny. Daniel Friebe takes us from the legacy of East Germany's drugs programme to the pinnacle of pro cycling and asks: what price can you give sporting immortality?

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.

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.

They all excited and inspired me by how they fought their corners [...] So I want to place them all round a fantasy dinner-table, not just to dine, but to relive how I saw them in action and how much they had in common. Who would be on your dream dinner party guest list? Over his 50 years in broadcasting, Archie Macpherson has seen many sports personalities come and go; in Touching the Heights he collects the 13 who have inspired him most around his fantasy dinner table. Some are well-known, others less so, but all shaped both their sport and those, like Macpherson, who watched their careers unfold. Tommy Docherty * Jackie Paterson * Jim Baxter Eric Brown * Jimmy Johnstone * Sandra Whittaker Dr Richard Budgett * Ally MacLeod * Jock Stein * Sir Alex Ferguson * Bill McLaren * Jim MacLean * Graeme Souness From football to golf, boxing to athletics, Touching the Heights celebrates the breadth of Scottish sporting achievement. Whether telling the tale of a boy who acquired new shoes by stealing them from the local baths, or that of a distinguished medical scientist at the centre of sporting transgender debates, one thing unites them all: Without them life would have been much poorer.

Arthur Wharton was the world's first black professional footballer and 100 yards world record holder, and was probably the first African to play professional cricket in the Yorkshire and Lancashire leagues. His achievements were accomplished against the backdrop of Africa's forced colonization by European regimes. But while Arthur was beating the best on the tracks and fields of Britain, the peoples of the continent of his birth were being recast as lesser human beings. The tall Ghanaian was an extreme irritation to many white supremacists because his education and sporting triumphs refuted their theories. In the late Victorian era, when Britain's economic and political power reached its zenith and when the dominant ideas of the age labelled all blacks as inferior, it was simply not expedient to proclaim the exploits of an African sportsman. This shaped the way Wharton was forgotten.

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.

During the 1940s and 50s, the author, a country boy, simply wanted to go fishing. This is how he succeeded, despite opposition, and experienced a glorious boyhood.

In this remarkably candid autobiography, superstar Mike Piazza takes readers inside his life and career to show what it takes to make it to the major leagues and to stay on top.
Piazza was drafted in the sixty-second round of the 1988 MLB draft, a courtesy pick because of a family connection to Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda. No one expected Mike Piazza to play in the major leagues except Mike and his dad--not even the Dodgers. But with talent, determination, and a formidable work ethic, long shot Piazza learned the demanding position of catcher and not only made it to the majors, he became one of the great players in the history of the game.
With resolute honesty Piazza addresses the issues that swirled about him during his career: the rumor that he was gay, the infamous bat-throwing incident with Roger Clemens, and the accusations of steroid use that plagued nearly every power hitter of his era. But above all, "Long Shot" is the story of a superstar who rose to the top through his talent and his deep drive to succeed.

Sports have long been used as a vehicle for change, as a way to break down barriers and foster greater understanding. But while we know the stories of trailblazers like Jackie Robinson and Billie Jean King, just as important are the journeys of lesser-known athletes who used sports as a platform to fight injustice, racism, and discrimination. In Remember Their Sacrifice: Stories of Unheralded Athletes of Color, Arif Khatib and Pete Elman share the extraordinary stories of a special group of athletes, of their struggles, achievements, and incredible impact on the world of sports and beyond. It includes Pumpsie Green, the first Black player for the Red Sox; Alice Coachman, the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal; Sammy Lee, the great Asian American diver who won Olympic gold; Toni Stone and Mamie "Peanut" Johnson, two of three women who played in baseball's Negro Leagues; Billy Mills, a Native American icon who won Olympic gold in the 10,000 meters; and many more. Featuring an array of sports such as boxing, track and field, golf, auto racing, basketball, football, soccer, and baseball, Remember Their Sacrifice elevates these pioneering athletes to their deserved position in the pantheon of sports.

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.