Search Results for: life as sport

With a fresh new look, this reissue of Matt Christopher's this beloved sports classic tells the story of an ordinary boy who loves his friends and teammates—and suddenly becomes a hero after a single afternoon turns his life upside down. 

​Rob Lasher is just an ordinary soccer player, good at the game, but not great. Then one afternoon, he saves his coach's life in front of all his teammates. Suddenly, he's the team's hero. As some members of his team and the rest of the town continue to laud Rob's heroic act, Rob realizes he doesn't want the attention and any unearned accolades that come with it. Kids will learn that doing what is right should be the norm, not the exception.

 

Rob Lasher may just be an average soccer player, but there's nothing he loves more than working together with his teammates. Sure, his soccer skills aren't anything special, but that's all right with him—Rob has never minded flying under the radar. But when he saves his coach's life during one fateful afternoon practice, Rob finds himself suddenly thrust into the spotlight.

 

Now lauded as a hero and heralded as the savior of his team, Rob wants nothing more than for things to go back to normal. Because not everyone on the team is happy about Rob's newfound fame . . . 

 

This classic story from beloved author Matt Christopher is sure to win over any young sports fan, all while teaching them what it means to be a good teammate, and what it means to be a true hero.

Here’s a radical concept: Most girls are happy, and so are their mothers. Most girls are not destined for depression, eating disorders, low self-esteem, and raging fights with their parents-that’s just a very noisy minority.

In My Girl, Karen Stabiner tells the story of one girl’s journey into adolescence, and of her own efforts to find a way to guide her daughter through life’s real thickets-not the scary but rare ones we hear so much about. When Sarah reached sixth grade, horror stories about the coming teenage years began drifting her parents’ way. The media reinforced the idea of mothers and daughters as adversaries, and the fashion industry promoted styles that fairly guaranteed a battle. But as Stabiner approached that supposedly stormy time, she found something quite different. The world was full of daughters who were sick of being told how wretched they were and mothers who found that the passage to adolescence was both exciting and enjoyable-despite the inevitable conflicts.

Even the happiest adolescence is full of challenges, though, and Karen Stabiner has gathered a lifesaving breadth of expert instruction (“Even when it’s difficult, the onus is on the mother to be an adult”), enlightenment (“Ninety-seven percent of girls do not have a diagnosable eating disorder”), and support (conflict is “an incredible compliment to a mother,” the safe person in her daughter’s life). Sarah grows from a child who still likes to be carried to bed occasionally into a teen mastering a demanding sport and navigating friendships, and Karen Stabiner tells the story of that transition in scenes that will be both familiar and instructive to all mothers.

Along the way, she learns to let go a little and to adjust the balance of her own life. With warmth, humor, and sharp insight, My Girl charts those first years of adolescence — and engagingly debunks the prevailing assumption that they are inevitably miserable.

At age eighteen, Kobe was given the chance to prove his skills when he was drafted into the NBA. Fresh out of high school, Kobe showed that he had the talent and heart to make it in the pros — and the rest is history.

This "love story for the ages" from a # 1 New York Times bestselling author comes an unforgettable story about basketball and the enduring bonds between a father and daughter that "will heal relationships and hearts" (Glennon Doyle).
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Kate Fagan and her father forged their relationship on the basketball court, bonded by sweaty high fives and a dedication to the New York Knicks. But as Kate got older, her love of the sport and her closeness with her father grew complicated. The formerly inseparable pair drifted apart. The lessons that her father instilled in her about the game, and all her memories of sharing the court with him over the years, were a distant memory.

When Chris Fagan was diagnosed with ALS, Kate decided that something had to change. Leaving a high-profile job at ESPN to be closer to her mother and father and take part in his care, Kate Fagan spent the last year of her father’s life determined to return to him the kind of joy they once shared on the court. All the Colors Came Out is Kate Fagan’s completely original reflection on the very specific bond that one father and daughter shared, forged in the love of a sport which over time came to mean so much more.

Studded with unforgettable scenes of humor, pain and hope, Kate Fagan has written a book that plumbs the mysteries of the unique gifts fathers gives daughters, ones that resonate across time and circumstance.

Tiger Woods has called the U.S. Open “the most difficult national championship.” With Open, John Feinstein goes behind the scenes to tell for the first time the full story of how the 2002 U.S. Open Championship came into being-how a public course was transformed into one of the most difficult and surprising in the tournament’s history, and how the greatest golfers in the world rose to its almost insurmountable challenges.

The Black course at the public golf club in Bethpage, New York, has long had a mythic status among golfers. Designed by legendary course architect A. W. Tillinghast in 1936, it is known as a work of genius-with long fairways, gorgeous vistas, and roughs and bunkers that stymie all but the very best golfers. It is a course where any player can compete, but its cult reputation means that golfers often have to camp overnight in the parking lot to get a tee time the next day. The 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black was the first time in history that golf’s greatest championship had been held at a true public course. Open is the full drama of that championship, from the moment that officials first considered holding it there until the last putt rolled in at dusk on Sunday. Along the way, John Feinstein reveals the full glory of golf as it’s never been explored before. He digs deep to find out what it really takes to make golf’s most famous event worthy of the champions who compete in it. He tells the remarkable story of the artisans who transformed the Black from a downtrodden and rough-around-the-edges public course to one that top pros hailed as “unbelievable” and “the toughest par-70 I’ve ever played in my life.” He also tracks the drama of the masters who battled for supremacy at the Black-Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia, Nick Faldo, Phil Mickelson, Jeff Maggert-to show how true champions respond to the toughest conditions.

Open is the story of people who devote their entire lives to golf, both behind the scenes and inside the ropes. Their struggles and exhilarations as they master the monster known as Bethpage Black make for a story every golf lover will want to read again and again.

Writer, activist, and actor Charles Grodin delivers a fascinating collection of more than eighty intimate and revealing stories from friends and colleagues in the worlds of entertainment, sports, journalism, politics, and business-inspiring, entertaining, and heartfelt accounts of mistakes they’ve made and the lessons they learned.


Carol Burnett writes about an ill-fated meeting with Cary Grant. Rosie O’Donnell remembers her inability to express her love for a close girlfriend. Senator Orrin Hatch regrets voting against Martin Luther King Day. Goldie Hawn considers her last day on Laugh-In…and that’s just the beginning!

Alan Alda overprepares for an interview. Ben Stiller wonders whether he should have stayed in school. Kenneth Cole gets mixed up during an important speech. Lily Tomlin reconsiders a wardrobe choice. And what do Shirley MacLaine and Paul Newman regret? You’ll have to read to find out.

If Only I Knew Then… is that rare book that could change your life. We aren’t always aware we’re making mistakes. These wonderful stories offer insights that could keep us from erring in the future. Don’t make the mistake of not reading this book!

All of Mr. Grodin’s proceeds from this book will be donated to HELP USA, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to empower the homeless and others in need to become and remain self-reliant.

Shey Darcy, a 39-year-old former top model for Vogue and Sports Illustrated led a charmed life in New York City with a handsome photographer husband until the day he announced he’d fallen in love with someone else. Left to pick up the pieces of her once happy world, Shey decides to move back home to Texas with her three teenage sons.

Life on the family ranch, however, brings with it a whole new host of dramas starting with differences of opinion with her staunch Southern Baptist mother, her rugged but overprotective brothers, and daily battles with her three sons who are also struggling to find themselves. Add to the mix Shey’s ex-crush, Dane Kelly, a national bullriding champ and she’s got her hands full. It doesn’t take long before Shey realizes that in order to reinvent herself, she must let go of an uncertain future and a broken past, to find happiness–and maybe love–in the present.

The Bowdens are the First Family of college football. Bobby, the father, built the winningest program of the decade at Florida State. Son Terry took over an Auburn team on probation and led it back into the top tier of the sport. Son Tommy is Auburn’s offensive coordinator and will likely get his own program in the next few seasons. Son Jeff, now coaching Florida State receivers, will earn his own head coaching opportunity one day. So will the boys’ brother-in-law Jack Hines – who played for Bobby, married his oldest daughter, Robyn, and now coaches with Terry at Auburn. Reading this book is like accepting an exclusive invitation to a Bowden family gathering, where discussions range from informal debates about the best winning strategy to disarmingly candid appraisals of the racial undercurrents of college athletics. Listen to inside stories of key moments in Games of the Century, of the recruiting and coaching of famous athletes such as Deion Sanders and Charlie Ward. Hear how it feels to be trapped inside a locker room with angry fans pounding on the door, to be the son of a coach hanged in effigy, to have to choose between the interests of a troubled young athlete and the image of a football program. Learn, with the Bowdens, the lessons of careers measured in clock ticks and place-kicks.

The Olympic gold medalist offers a poignant, loving account of her life with her long-time partner and beloved husband, Sergei Grinkov, from their first introduction and successive world pairs skating championships, to their storybook romance and marriage, to the fatal heart attack that took Sergei’s life.

“Well, son, I guess we have to go the to bank.” That’s what Leon Hess told me the day the Jets drafted me as the number-one player in the NFL draft. But that first day, the day of the draft, was one of the happiest days in my life, because I knew I was ready to make things happen in the league and help turn things around for the sorry-ass Jets. But what a nightmare! Week after week, loss after loss. The Jets went in with a loser reputation, and they were earning it all over again. We had no emotion, no energy, no hunger. The media tried to cover it all. Rich Kotite tried to explain the disasters away. But nobody outside the team knew the real truth of what really went on. This book is going to change all that.

In this heartfelt testament to the power of love and the strength of the human spirit, Travis Roy, who suffered a devastating injury eleven seconds into his first college hockey game, reveals how he has managed to cope after the accident and, with the help of family and friends, overcome tremendous barriers to begin a new life.

Teenagers are notorious for differences with their parents, but George Peper has been lucky to share a special friendship with his 18-year-old son, Scott. For the past decade, the two have bonded over a mutual passion for golf, spending hundreds of hours together they would never have enjoyed if not for their love of chasing around a little white ball. Now, Peper examines their relationship, analyzing how their roles have morphed from faultless father and worshipful son to teacher and pupil, dictator and insurgent, and ultimately, target and assassin, as son tries to outscore father over 18 holes. In an endearing portrait, George Peper hits on the universal lessons of life, love, and golf-as he’s learned them from his teenage son.