Showing titles in Sports History

From her first strokes as a novice, Ginny Gilder found herself in a new world, training with Olympic rowers and participating in the famous Title IX naked protest, which helped define the movement for equality in college sports. Short, asthmatic, and stubborn, Gilder made the team against all odds and for the next 10 years devoted herself to answering a seemingly simple question: how badly do you want to go fast?

Penn State fans will finally get the chance to walk onto the field with their favorite Nittany Lions in Game of My Life Penn State Nittany Lions. In this newly updated edition, Penn State alum Jordan Hyman asks over 20 of the school’s greatest football legends to share their favorite memories and most poignant moments while wearing the white and blue. A must-listen for any Nittany Lions fan.

Canadian hockey is rife with tales of the odd, the strange, the funny and, occasionally, the disturbing side of the game: in 1976, Maple Leafs coach Red Kelly installed pyramids in the players’ dressing room and under the bench in an attempt to harness “pyramid power”; the Cusimano brothers started the tradition of “octopus hurling” during the 1952 playoff games; in 1930, Toronto Maple Leafs’ general manager Conn Smythe placed a winning bet on a longshot horse to pay the cash-strapped Ottawa Senators for star player Frank “King” Clancy; and more!

As Don Shula and Johnny Unitas elevated the brutal game of football, the world around them clashed about Vietnam, civil rights, and sex. Collision of Wills looks at the complicated relationship between Don Shula, the league's winningest coach of all time, and his star player Johnny Unitas, and how their secret animosity fueled the Colts in an era when their losses were as memorable as their victories.

In Boston Celtics: Where Have You Gone? fans can catch up with their favorite players from past and present.

No recuerdo cuándo dejé el fútbol. Solo sé que un tiempo después aprendí a controlar el balón con las figuras metálicas de un futbolín. A pocos metros del colegio, en un bar de La Maruca, había uno extraordinario, de madera maciza y mangos que se movían como pistones, mangos pegajosos. Las bolas tenían muescas. La última vale doble en caso de empate. Pasar por debajo al dejar al otro a cero. Cervezas en botellín. Vestidos. Los primeros móviles. Mejillones en salsa para doce. Cigarros.

Legendary tennis player Billie Jean King details the remarkable history of women’s tennis in this stunning edition of Trailblazers: The Unmatched Story of Women's Tennis. In celebration of the Women’s Tennis Association’s 50th anniversary, this updated and expanded edition—based on the...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER History was made at the 2015 Belmont Stakes when American Pharoah won the Triple Crown, the first since Affirmed in 1978. As magnificent as the champion is, the team behind him has been all too human while on the road to immortality. Written by an award-winning New York...

Even in their worst of seasons, the Philadelphia Eagles maintained their tradition of toughness, thanks to great players - from legends like Chuck Bednarik and Steve Van Buren to modern-day heroes. In Tales from the Philadelphia Eagles Sideline, veteran football writer Gordon Forbes profiles the individuals who have thrilled Philadelphia fans since the team’s inception in 1933 through Andy Reid’s last championship contenders during his 14 years as head coach.

The glory years for the Toronto Maple Leafs—four Stanley Cups in the 1960s—may be distant memories, but what the team lacks in recent accomplishments is made up for by their history, which is rich in drama, pathos, and, most of all, humor. Figures connected to the Maple Leafs from the 1950s to the present offer their best stories, including some new takes on the team’s legends

Win one for The Gipper. Has there ever been a better-known and widely-used exhortative phrase in sports? Not likely. But who was the "Gipper", this mythical-like sports figure whose nickname has aroused, in turn, awe, wonderment, curiosity, and amusement since the second decade of the 20th century, and why is his story important? Answering those questions is the formidable task taken on here by veteran sportswriter Jack Cavanaugh.

Fanny Bullock Workman was a complicated and restless woman who defied the rigid Victorian morals she found as restrictive as a corset. With her frizzy, brown hair tucked under a topee, Workman was a force on the mountain and off. Instrumental in breaking the British stranglehold on Himalayan mountain climbing, this American woman climbed more peaks than any of her peers, became the first woman to map the far reaches of the Himalayas, the first woman to lecture at the Sorbonne, and the second to address the Royal Geographic Society of London.

In Sport, the term 'good bloke' doesn't mean what it says. Like 'fun run', it in fact often means the exact opposite. Titus O'Reily, the sports historian Australia neither needs nor deserves, examines why our nation's sportspeople can do terrible things yet be so readily forgiven. In this Great...

This book provides a 101 Facts of the Olympic Games, starting with the origins from ancient Greece to their revival in the modern era. It explores the rich history and evolution of the Games, highlighting significant events, symbols, and traditions. The book delves into the expansion of Olympic sports, notable host cities, and the emergence of the Winter Olympics. It also addresses controversies and challenges faced over the years, profiles legendary Olympians who have left an indelible mark on the Games, and ranks top medalists and countries by their Olympic achievements.

This book chronicles the long and tortured history of the NCAA's attempt to maintain the myth of amateurism and the student-athlete, along with the attendant fiction that the players academic achievement is the top priority of Division-I athletic programs. It is an indictment of the current system, making the case that big-time college sports cannot continue its connection to universities without undermining the mission of higher education. It concludes with bold proposals to separate big-time college sports from the university, transforming them into on-campus business operations.

Collectively, Rick Pitino, Jim Calhoun, and Gary Williams have won more than 2,300 games and six national championships and reached thirteen Final Fours. Before Pitino became the face of the Providence, Kentucky, and Louisville programs, before Calhoun turned UConn into a national power, and before Williams brought Maryland to its first national championship, these coaches cut their teeth in front of modest-sized crowds in college gymnasiums of Boston during the '70s and '80s. Boston Ball charts how this trio of coaches, seemingly out of nowhere, started a basketball revolution

Winner of the 2016 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing: The true story of the game that never should have happened -- and of a nation on the brink of monumental change. In the fall of 1943, at the little-known North Carolina College for Negroes, Coach John McLendon was on the verge of...

Val James became the first African-American player in the NHL when he took to the ice with the Buffalo Sabres in 1982, and in 1987 he became the first Black player of any nationality to skate for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Born in central Florida, James grew up on Long Island and received his first pair of skates for his 13th birthday. At 16 James left home to play in Canada, where he was the only Black person in junior and, often, in the whole town.

For the first time ever, legends of the Longhorns share their greatest football moments. How did Earl Campbell prove that he was worthy of the Heisman? How did a Snickers bar help convince Ricky Williams to return to Texas for his senior year? What was Vince Young really thinking just before the 2006 Rose Bowl? In Game of My Life: Texas Longhorns, fans will find the answers to these questions and many more as 20 of the greatest players relive the moment that shaped their college football career.

Hockey Card Stories reveals what was really going on in your favorite old hockey cards through the eyes of the players depicted on them. Some of the cards are definitely worth a few bucks, some a few cents - but every story told here is priceless. Sportsnet’s Ken Reid presents the cards you loved and the airbrushed monstrosities that made you howl, the cards that have been packed away in boxes forever, and others you can’t believe ever existed.