Search Results for: life as sport

Why do sports captivate people? They allow us to watch human beings achieve peak performance, but, beyond physical strength and skill, what’s really impressive is an athlete’s mental prowess — their will to succeed, engagement with their environment, and self-confidence.

In Life as Sport, sport psychologist Dr. Jonathan Fader shares the skills that he teaches professional athletes–to enhance motivation, set productive goals, sharpen routines, manage stress, and clarify thought processes–and applies them to real-world situations. Dr. Fader’s book is the product of thousands of hours of conversations with athletes from various teams and sports: power forwards, tennis phenoms, power-hitting outfielders, and battle-scarred linebackers, as well as hedge-fund managers, entrepreneurs, A-list actors, and dozens of other elite achievers in sports, business, and performing arts. It offers a compendium of stories, theories, and techniques that have been helpful to players, coaches, and executives in professional sports. What emerges is more than just a set of techniques, but a life philosophy that anyone can live by: an internal code to help translate our talent and drive toward the highest plateaus of performance.

Dr. Fader designs his strategies to be studied, learned, practiced, and improved. He offers his readers the same exercises that he uses in every session with a professional athlete. These exercises help you to get truly engaged, whether you are designing a new business plan, working to inspire a team or individual, or even falling in love. This is what it means to truly live life as sport–to approach it with the same immediacy, wonder, and engagement that athletes feel at their peak during a game. Life as Sport helps you to pursue your own goals with an enriched intensity — not only because it creates new potential, but also because it helps you unlock what was always there to begin with.

Here, at last, is Charles Pierce’s best writing on sports, collected for the first time in one volume. All of these pieces, first published in GQ, the National, and Esquire, showcase Pierce’s trademark humor. Some are spot-on profiles of famous sports personalities such as Tiger Woods, Magic Johnson, and Peyton Manning, while others are portraits of lesser-known figures such as Nebraska basketball coach Danny Nee, a former Vietnam vet who openly opposed the Gulf War, Cool Papa Bell, a ballplayer from the Negro Leagues who is ripped off by memorabilia hounds, and Mike Donald, an obscure golfer on the PGA tour who played the best golf in his life only to lose a tournament by one stroke. Pierce also takes us on unforgettable journeys into the wide world of sports, from a snake-charming pole-vaulter to life on the Hooters Golf Tour, from the fashion accessories of the modern ballplayer to how a small community — Warroad, Minnesota — bonds over ice hockey. Sports Guy will delight Pierce’s devoted readers and is certain to win him many, many more.

Guys love movies. Especially sports movies, where every underdog has his day, every team achieves glory, and every hero gets his moment of redemption. Next to watching Monday Night Football, there’s nothing more enjoyable than plopping down on the couch with the remote and a bottle of beer and firing up the special-edition DVD of Rocky, Hoosiers, Caddyshack, or any other fan favorite.
Now, two nationally renowned sports media personalities take on the task of ranking the top 100 sports movies of all time, including entertaining and informative lists, special features, and contributions from over 75 top sports figures. From drama to comedy to tragedy to documentary, all the greatest sports films are here, brought to life through detailed summaries, fun facts and trivia, behind-the-scenes revelations, plus images from the greatest moments in sports film history.

Original comments from some of the top personalities in sports and entertainment — including Peyton and Eli Manning, Charles Barkley, Tony Romo, James Gandolfini, Bill Parcells, Dennis Quaid, Arnold Palmer, and many more — provide further insight and marketing punch.

With loyal fans supporting their major sports teams in the Seahawks (NFL), Mariners (MLB) — plus a rabid fan base for University of Washington jocks — Seattle is a great place for a sports debate. Local sports-radio talker Mike Gastineau teams up with longtime sportswriters Steve Rudman and Art Thiel to bring Seattle sports history to life with this provocative and enjoyable — not to mention debatable — book of lists. They also enlist list contributions by famous players, coaches, and Seattle celebrities including Mike Holmgren, Matt Hasselbeck, Ichiro Suzuki, George Karl, Pearl Jam, Kevin Calabro, Sir Mix-a-Lot, and more.

Matt Christopher, the #1 sports writer for kids, focuses on Andre Agassi, the controversial tennis phenomenon whose image is as hard-hitting as his playing. Real-life sports action plus the author’s easy-to-read style equals a sports biography not to be missed.

A captivating and entertaining look at sports in the 1970s, when sports moved from the margins to the mainstream of American culture.

Every decade brings change, but as Michael MacCambridge chronicles in THE BIG TIME, no decade in American sports history featured such convulsive cultural shifts and completely transformed the sports landscape as the 1970s.

More than politicians, musicians or actors, the decade in America was defined by its most exemplary athletes. The sweeping changes in American life and culture were seen in the collective experience of Billie Jean King and Muhammad Ali, Henry Aaron and Julius Erving, Jack Nicklaus and Chris Evert, among others, who spent the decade redefining the role of athletes and athletics. The Seventies witnessed the emergence of spectator sports as an ever-expanding mainstream phenomenon, as well as dramatic changes in the way athletes were paid, portrayed, and packaged. It also witnessed a hard-won revolution, as women were involved in sports in unprecedented numbers, both as athletes and spectators. In telling the sweeping story of how American sports changed over the decade, a larger story emerges: of how America itself changed, experiencing a cable-wired, modernity of perpetual leisure and entertainment, in which sports played a newly central role. 

For readers of Cabin Porn and Your Cabin in the Woods, this illustrated collection of odes to the outdoors is the perfect escape into nature.
Forest Life collects George Washington Sears’ timeless writing about the joys of exploring the wilderness, edited for a modern audience. In text both practical and inspirational, Sears’ provides enduring wisdom about trips into the woods and lakes, including equipment, campfires, fishing, camp cooking, traveling light, and canoes.

The original “forest bather,” Sears wanted others to enjoy the woods as he did. He published Woodcraft in 1884 to help prepare skillful, self-reliant woodsman and to extol the restorative power of nature. In addition to Woodcraft, Forest Life contains many of his articles from Forest and Stream, as well as his nature poetry.

Sears is especially eloquent about canoeing, which he helped popularize with published tales of his adventures. In 1883, when he was 61 years old and suffering from tuberculosis, he used a 9-foot, 10-1/2 pound canoe to travel 266 miles through the Adirondacks, writing, “The easy, gentle rocking of the canoe was the best incentive to drowsiness I ever found, and by night or day was nearly certain to send me into dreamland.”

This edition features period etchings of scenes, people, flora, and fauna of the Adirondacks, and is the ideal gift book for the outdoor enthusiast.

The dazzling smile, the signature haircut, the staple spin. “America’s Sweetheart” Dorothy Hamill grew up on the ice, working toward the dream she was to accomplish by age nineteen: winning Olympic gold in figure skating. But life was not the picture of perfection it appeared to be. Dorothy faced a painful inner struggle from the time she was a young girl that followed her into adulthood–though she would not know about the depression that ran in her family until much later in life. Weeks and months away from home to train and compete took a difficult toll, yet little reprieve could be found in the tumultuous and fragile relationship she had with her parents. Dorothy went on to marry the man of her dreams, only to have the partnership end in heartache and a tragedy that almost pushed her to her breaking point. Then, just when a light at the end of the tunnel finally began to appear, a second failed marriage tried and tested Dorothy’s trust and strength yet again–a travesty that could have led her to give up. But, she found a remarkable strength in what she did have–her greatest love, her daughter Alexandra.“Thank goodness, I had my skating. There was certainly a pattern to my life. When times were tough, I went skating. It was only while I was out on the ice, enjoying the freedom of movement and my love of music, that I was able to escape from my bottomless heartache.” In her deeply moving and honest memoir, Dorothy opens up for the first time about love, family, courage, and what it means to truly win both on and off the ice.

Run Like A Girl is about the impact that participating in sports has on women, how the confidence and strength that it helps to build makes us stronger and better prepared for life's many challenges. 

In this inspiring book, Mina Samuels uses the personal stories of women and girls of all ages and backgrounds, as well as her own, to take a broad look at the power sports have to help us overcome obstacles in all arenas of life. Run Like A Girl includes the stories of a US-ranked amateur triathlete who's raising an autistic son, a thirteen-year-old girl who falls in love with cross-country running, a woman who runs her first marathon at age sixty, an investment banker who quit her job to become a yoga teacher and adopt a daughter on her own, a young mother with scoliosis who cycled her way back to health and became a jewelry designer along the way, and countless other women, including Kathrine Switzer, Rebecca Rusch, and Molly Barker, who have been changed by their experiences with sports. 

Run Like A Girl argues that physical strength lends itself to psychological strength, and that for many women, participating in sports translates into leading a happier, more fulfilling life.

The star running back of the NFL. The All-Star center leading his team to the championship. Matt Christopher delves into the life of both of these sports stars, exploring the paths they have traveled, the hardships they have overcome, and the highs and lows of their careers. Each book contains exciting black-and-white action photos, the player’s stats, and a list of his career highlights. Real-life sports action plus Matt Christopher’s easy-to-read style equals a series not be missed.

The star running back of the NFL. The All-Star center leading his team to the championship. Matt Christopher delves into the life of both of these sports stars, exploring the paths they have traveled, the hardships they have overcome, and the highs and lows of their careers. Each book contains exciting black-and-white action photos, the player’s stats, and a list of his career highlights. Real-life sports action plus Matt Christopher’s easy-to-read style equals a series not be missed.

A contemporary young adult romance about moving on, finding your place, and recovering after life falls apart.

Gymnast Caroline Kepler has three state balance beam titles, a new trick even most elites can’t do, and chronic, undeniable back pain. While she might never be an Olympian, she has dreams of leveling up to elite, making Nationals, and competing in college. But when one epic face-plant changes all that and Caroline’s back pain goes from chronic to career-ending, her dreams are shattered and her life is flipped upside down.

Enter Alex Zavala, a three-sport athlete who’s both incredibly cute and incredibly off-limits. He offers to give Caroline a crash course in all the sports she’s missed, and she has an offer for him in return: For every sport Alex teaches her, she’ll play matchmaker for him. Deal done, Caroline “dates” new sports with Alex for the rest of the summer, which is loads more fun than wallowing in despair. Just as Caroline starts to see herself as more than her past athletic successes, she picks up something she didn’t bargain for: a big fat crush on Alex.

Turns out life was way easier when it was just layout-fulls and beam burns….

The legendary sports journalist writes about the team that changed his life: the Morton High School Lady Potters basketball team.

Dave Kindred is among the greatest living chroniclers of sports. He has covered dozens of Super Bowls, developed a personal relationship with Muhammad Ali, and traveled the country following some of the greatest stars and teams in all of sports. But as he looks back on his life, it's a girls' high school basketball team, the Lady Potters of Morton, Illinois, that stands apart from the rest.

In this moving and intimate story, Kindred writes about his rise to professional success and the changes that brought him back to his hometown late in life. As he dealt with personal hardship, his urge to write sustained him. For years, he has recapped the games of the Lady Potters, including their many runs to state basketball championships. It has been this community that was there for him as he lost a grandson to addiction, and then his wife to long-term illness. He goes to game after game, sitting the stands and making notes, being paid nothing but Milk Duds.

Tender and honest, Kindred's story reminds readers what sports are really about. Kindred trades in the exhausting spectacle of Super Bowl Sunday for the joy of togetherness, the fire of competition, and the inexhaustible hope for victory tomorrow.

“The Show” is the second most widely-read column in Sports Illustrated, after Rick Reilly, who will write one of the book’s introductions. Sports Illustrated has over three million subscribers, the third highest magazine circulation in the United States, and is read by 23 million adults each week.

The Best Of “The Show” will appeal to fans of Rick Reilly’s Life of Reilly and Bill Geist’s Fore! Play, both of which were bestsellers. Scheft was the Emmy Award-nominated head monologue writer for David Letterman for 13 years and routinely appears on the air with him. He is a frequent guest on the talk show circuit and on sports radio programs all over the country.

Greatness is a motivational book whose target audience is found in business and self-help. It is a life book, aimed at inspiring others to achieve their personal and professional best. Opening with an in-depth discussion of the nature of Greatness-what it is, what it is not, and why it is worth pursing-each subsequent chapter of the book consists of a detailed story illustrating one aspect of Greatness with examples from the sports greats that Don has interviewed over the years. This will be followed by a discussion and other related examples. There are also practical tips and plans for assisting the reader in implementing new habits, routines, practices, and philosophies of Greatness into his or her daily life. As each characteristic is outlined, the reader is challenged to look for areas in his or her professional and personal lives that can be improved by embracing these lessons.

As Don often says during his speeches, “Though these characteristics are culled from some of the greatest winners in sports, not a single one requires you to be able to touch your toes! These iconic figures in sports have provided a classroom for us to learn about their pursuit of Greatness. You don’t have to be good at sports – heck, you don’t even have to like sports – to benefit from their lessons.”

It is the strong belief of those who Don has talked to over the years that greatness is available to all of us. Not in the same way or on the same field, mind you. But we all have the capacity to achieve greatness if we’ll give the same dedication to these characteristics as do the winners presented and interviewed in Greatness.

Packed with expert information and inspiring photography, The Camping Life is the perfect invitation to leave the noise and screens behind—if only for a single night—and reconnect with nature. From backpacking to bikepacking, camping while white-water rafting to big wall climbing, outdoor adventurers Brendan Leonard and Forest Woodward cover it all: how to pack a backpack, how to set up a tent in the snow, how to camp with your dog, how to build a campfire, how to judge a river’s difficulty. And, critically, how to leave no trace, while returning refreshed, recharged, and alive with new experience.

A moving, funny, inventive parenting memoir, written in a surprising form: an encyclopedia of failure in sports

What can a new father learn about parenthood from reading sports almanacs? For most dads, the answer to this question is: nothing. But to Josh Wilker, whose life and writing have been defined by sports fandom, all of the joy, helplessness, and absurdity of parenthood are present between the lines.

After all, what better way to think about losing control than Eugenio Velez’s forty-five consecutive at-bats without a hit? How better to understand ridiculous joy than the NFL career of Walter Achiu, whose nickname was “Sneeze”? In the stories of sports figures large and small, Wilker finds the pathos in success and the humor in losing.

As the terrified father of a one-day-old, Wilker recalls the 1986 World Series, when the moment was too big for the Red Sox. When he finds himself stealing away for an hour of alone time, Wilker thinks of boxer Roberto Duran, so beaten by Sugar Ray Leonard that he finally gave up. And yet, even as the frustrations and anxieties build, Wilker remembers Mets pitcher Anthony Young, who broke the baseball record for most consecutive losses — and never stopped showing up.

Finding the richness of life in obscure wrestling maneuvers and pop-ups lost in the sun, Benchwarmer is a book of unique humanity and surprising wisdom.

The 24th title in this bestselling sports series reviews the life, history and stats of baseball superstar Alexander Rodriguez. 10 photos.