Books about Football from Amazon.com

In 1958 Frank Gifford was the golden boy on the glamour team in the most celebrated city in the NFL. When his New York Giants played the Baltimore Colts for the league championship that year, it became the single most memorable contest in the history of professional football. Broadcast to an audience of millions, it was the first title game ever to go into sudden-death overtime. Its drama, excitement, and controversy riveted the nation and helped propel football to the forefront of the American sports landscape.

Now, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of "The Greatest Game Ever Played," New York Giants Hall of Famer and longtime television analyst Frank Gifford provides an inside-the-helmet account that will take its place in the annals of sports literature. Drawing on the poignant and humorous memories of every living player from the game—including fellow Hall of Famers Sam Huff, Andy Robustelli, Art Donovan, Lenny Moore, and Raymond Berry—as well as the author's own experiences and reflections, The Glory Game captures a magnificent moment in American sports history. It is the story of two very different cities and teams, filled with the joy, the disappointment, and the eternal pride of a day that will forever symbolize all that is great about sports.

Told with gripping immediacy, The Glory Game is an indelible portrait of the NFL's most transcendent hours—a winter version of The Boys of Summer, told by one of football's true legends.

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2008 Retailer's Choice Award winner!
Tony Dungy's words and example have intrigued millions of people, particularly following his victory in Super Bowl XLI, the first for an African American coach. How is it possible for a coach--especially a football coach--to win the respect of his players and lead them to the Super Bowl without the screaming histrionics, the profanities, and the demand that the sport come before anything else? How is it possible for anyone to be successful without compromising faith and family? In this inspiring and reflective memoir, now updated with a new chapter, Coach Dungy tells the story of a life lived for God and family--and challenges us all to redefine our ideas of what it means to succeed.

The softcover edition of this #1 New York Times best-seller includes a new chapter! In it, Coach reflects on the 2007 football season and last year's successful hardcover release of Quiet Strength. Also features a foreword by Denzel Washington and a 16-page color-photo insert. Over 1 million in print!.
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NFL running back Warrick Dunn is truly one of the good guys in the world of sports. And in this revealing autobiography, written with New York Times bestselling author Don Yaeger, Dunn tells his incredibly moving, inspirational story of courage and determination in the face of devastating loss, a story that makes his achievements on the football field that much more amazing.

Warrick Dunn and his five brothers and sisters all idolized their mother, Baton Rouge police officer Betty Smothers. As the oldest, Dunn was the closest to her, and the man of the house. On January 7, 1993, while the single mother worked a second job as a supermarket security guard, Betty Smothers was ambushed, shot, and killed while making a bank deposit. Dunn—then a high school senior just weeks away from choosing among his college football scholarship offers—was devastated.

Dunn was only eighteen when circumstances changed and he had to look after his five siblings, but somehow he managed to enroll at Florida State and, in only his freshman year, help their team quarterback, Heisman Trophy winner and roommate Charlie Ward, win the National Championship for the 1993–94 season. And this was just the beginning of Dunn's successful career as a student athlete, which resulted in his selection to the FSU Hall of Fame.

Despite his modest size, Dunn's athleticism, incomparable drive, and personality convinced Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Tony Dungy to select Dunn in the first round of the 1997 draft with the twelth overall pick. During his career with the Bucs and, subsequently, the Atlanta Falcons, Dunn amassed five 1,000-yard rushing seasons, was selected to the NFL Pro Bowl three times, and became one of only twenty-three running backs to exceed the 10,000-yard career rushing mark. In 2008, he returned to the Bucs seeking to continue his success. But perhaps his greatest achievement during his time as an NFL player came off the field when he started a foundation called Homes for the Holidays, a charity that helps single parents become homeowners. To date, he has placed 74 single parents and their 192 dependents in fully furnished and outfitted homes in Tampa, Tallahassee, Baton Rouge, and Atlanta.

But there was one person Dunn neglected in his drive to help others—himself. He spent all of his emotional energy on his siblings and their pain, and never focused on his own. His only solace was the football field, where he truly was running for his life. It wasn't until a Falcons teammate suggested psychological counseling that Dunn began to battle the demons still haunting him from his mother's death.

Uplifting and thought-provoking, Running for My Life is the story of an athlete's drive to help his family and ensure that his mother's legacy and values continue—the story of what it really takes to be a man.

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The Winners Manual: For the Game of Life shares Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel's "Big Ten" fundamentals for success: Attitude, Discipline, Faith, Handling Adversity & Success, Excellence, Love, Toughness, Responsibility, Team, and Hope. Peppered with personal stories from Tressel's storied coaching career, the book shares the fundamental lessons that he has been imparting to his players for the past 20 years. A perfect blend of football stories, spiritual insights, motivational reading, and practical application, The Winners Manual provides an inside look at the core philosophy that has served as the foundation for one of the most successful college football programs of all time. Includes 8 pages of color photos and a foreword from NYT best-selling author John Maxwell..
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For many, the late 1960s/early 1970s meant a country in turmoil Sit-ins Vietnam War protests Don't trust anyone over 30. Nixon was 'not a crook' - or so he claimed At the other end of the spectrum was the intense rivalry between Woody Hayes, the legendary Ohio State football coach, and his nemesis, Bo Schembechler from Michigan. To them, the American heartland was still 'pure and sacred', and they were totally in command of their troops. Hayes idolized General Patton, the great war hero. Schembechler idolized President Ford, a former All-American football player. Rosenberg sets the stage brilliantly for this coming clash of cultural differences, as Hayes and Schembechler try desperately to win a national football championship while coping with a shifting political landscape. It all leads to a climatic, and in part tragic, downfall of an important era gone by..
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Continuing its series of spectacular coffee-table books for the holiday season, Sports Illustrated presents The College Football Book, the ultimate gift for America's most passionate fans.

SI launched this series in 2005 with The Football Book, devoted to the professional game. A New York Times best-seller that year, the book has taken root as a perennial, selling more than 200,000 copies to date. Now the editors of Sports Illustrated return to the gridiron, this time to serve the most avid football fans of all.

With the best words and pictures SI has to offer, The College Football Book, brings to life the game's unparalleled excitement and pageantry, its legendary players, historic teams and epic rivalries.

In 288 pages of the greatest photography and writing available anywhere, The College Football Book spans the sport's history, from its infancy in the 1800s right up to the postseason showdowns of 2008. The book is packed with stunning pictures, award-winning stories, original stats, decade-by-decade all-star teams and iconic artifacts photographed exclusively for this book at the College Football Hall of Fame--the same exciting mix of elements that makes each book in the SI series a must-have for sports fan..
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From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, when basketball’s Boston Celtics were piecing together a run for the ages, when Montreal’s Canadiens were in the midst of notching a record-setting five straight Stanley Cups, and when the New York Yankees were the once-and-future kings of the diamond, one team boosted the NFL to national prominence as none other: the New York Giants.

In Giants Among Men, Jack Cavanaugh, the acclaimed author of Tunney, transports us to the NFL’s golden age to introduce the close-knit and diverse group that won the heart of a city, helped spread the gospel of pro football across the nation, and recast the NFL as a media colossus.

Central to Cavanaugh’s narrative, and emblematic of the Giants’ bond with their followers, was a hard-nosed future Hall of Fame defensive end named Andy Robustelli. A World War II combat vet, a graduate of Arnold College, undersized and nearing age thirty, Robustelli nevertheless anchored a Giants defensive unit so ferocious that they were the first team to inspire crowds to chant “Dee-fense!” But Robustelli and the Giants were a hit on the gridiron, playing in six NFL Championship Games in eight seasons between 1956 and 1963, the most remarkable aspect of this team was perhaps its relationship to the fans. These Giants were largely composed of ordinary joes who were equally at ease hobnobbing with Gleason and Sinatra at Toots Shor’s as they were rubbing elbows with working-class rooters on the IRT en route to Sunday games in the Bronx–like many of their fans, nearly all Giants players worked second jobs off-season to make ends meet. But the Giants of this era didn’t merely affect the fans’ relationship to the game; they changed the game itself. The team launched the careers of future head-coaching geniuses Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi, as well as those of a galaxy of stars and future Hall-of-Famers including Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, Emlen Tunnell, Roosevelt Brown, Y. A. Tittle, Charlie Conerly, Rosie Grier, and Pat Summerall. The Giants teams of this remarkable era were tagged with the soubriquet “Mara Tech” (for the Mara family, who had owned the franchise since its inception)–due to the number of players and coaches who later found success in the boardroom, the broadcast booth, and behind the bench.

Filled with historical and cultural insight and vivid portraits of larger-than-life characters and indispensable everymen, Giants Among Men transcends nostalgia and sports trivia to faithfully depict a watershed era for both football and the American nation.


Praise for Jack Cavanaugh’s Tunney

“Impressively researched and richly detailed . . . a long-overdue portrait of a fascinating fighter.”
–Sports Illustrated

“A winning tale . . . Jack Cavanaugh brings Tunney, Dempsey and the fight scene of the Roaring Twenties back to life.”
–Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“[A] sprawling new biography . . . The boxing scenes are spun gold.”
–The New York Times

“Filled with vivid characters from one of boxing’s most glamorous eras, this tale goes fifteen rounds and delivers plenty of punch.”
–Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“One of the primary elements to the greatness of this biography is Cavanaugh’s ability to plumb the confusing depths of celebrity in America.”
–The Denver Post.
Price: $16.10 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Lewis has such a gift for storytelling...he writes as lucidly for sports fans as for those who read him for other reasons."—Janet Maslin, New York Times

One day Michael Oher will be among the most highly paid athletes in the National Football League. When we first meet him, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or how to read or write. He takes up football, and school, after a rich, white, evangelical family plucks him from the streets. Then two great forces alter Oher: the family's love and the evolution of professional football itself into a game in which the quarterback must be protected at any cost. Our protagonist becomes the priceless package of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback's greatest vulnerability: his blind side. This paperback edition contains a brand-new 2007 afterword..
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This fascinating volume takes readers on a journey through the cultural history of American football - from its earliest post-Civil War roots to the high-flying acrobatics of the modern game - and explains why the game evolved, and how its evolution was often a mirror on American society and culture.Drawing on meticulous research, and interviews with some of the game's most prominent voices, "How Football Explains America" looks at everything from why the sport hasn't caught on around the world, to why it is one of the most violent, and from why it is the only sport to feature a 'huddle', to the impact of Old World immigrants on the shape of the game..
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