This book teaches beginning golfers and high handicappers how to lower scores 20 strokes a round with simple swing tips and playing strategies.
The first definitive biography of Chicago Bears superstar Walter Payton.
At five feet ten inches tall, running back Walter Payton was not the largest player in the NFL, but he developed a larger-than-life reputation for his strength, speed, and grit. Nicknamed "Sweetness" during his college football days, he became the NFL's all-time leader in rushing and all-purpose yards, capturing the hearts of fans in his adopted Chicago.
Crafted from interviews with more than 700 sources, acclaimed sportswriter Jeff Pearlman has produced the first definitive biography of Payton. Sweetness at last brings fans a detailed, scrupulously researched, all-encompassing account of the legend's rise to greatness. From Payton's childhood in segregated Mississippi, where he ended a racial war by becoming the star of his integrated high school's football team, to his college years and his thirteen-year NFL career, Sweetness brims with stories of all-American heroism, and covers Payton's life off the field as well. Set against the backdrop of the tragic illness that cut his life short at just forty-five years of age, this is a stirring tribute to a singular icon and the lasting legacy he made.
Rodeos have been around in what is now North Dakota since the early cattle drives brought cattle and ranching to the Northern Plains and Badlands. The horse culture was there much earlier, as Native American tribes used horses for transportation and hunting. Simpler than modern events, early-day rodeos offered a Sunday recreational activity after six days of hard work. Today's rodeo is much different than in the late 1800s and brings out a diverse audience--not just cowboys, cowgirls, and ranchers but also city slickers, families, white- and blue-color workers, and first-time visitors to the state and country.
Photos of Derek Jeter from The Captain
(Click on Images to Enlarge)
 Derek Jeter and teammates wave their caps to the crowd after Jeter delivered his postgame speech on Yankee Stadium’s final night. |  The captain salutes the fans after breaking Lou Gehrig’s franchise record for hits. |  The shortstop’s signature play – the jump throw from the hole – from start to finish. |
Q: Why did you feel compelled to write a biography of Derek Jeter?
A: As I say in the introduction to The Captain, the answer is found in my son’s closet, a mini-warehouse of youth baseball jerseys graced by the frayed number 2. With Derek Jeter nearing the end of his iconic career, not to mention a milestone (3,000 hits) no New York Yankee has reached, I thought it was the right time to do a head-to-toe examination of Jeter’s mass appeal. He is the DiMaggio of his time, a beloved but distant figure. My goal was to humanize Jeter. I wanted to paint a public portrait of a private man while celebrating his dignified approach and explaining why his number 2 is number 1 in the closets of kids everywhere.
A: I’ve covered Jeter’s entire career as a newspaper and Internet columnist in the New York market, so I had a strong base of firsthand observations and knowledge and one-on-one and group interviews with Jeter to work with. I also conducted more than 200 interviews exclusively for this book, including conversations with Jeter and past and present teammates, coaches, friends, opponents, teachers, scouts, executives, admirers, and detractors. (I define his detractors as admirers willing to discuss the shortstop’s human flaws.)
Q: What is your favorite anecdote in the book from Jeter’s early years as a Yankee?
A: One of my favorites involves the period before Derek was drafted. As a child he started telling his parents and others he would someday play shortstop for the New York Yankees, and as a teenager he predicted to some that he would marry Mariah Carey (well, he almost went 2 for 2). But the surreal twists and turns of the draft of ’92, when Jeter dropped into the Yankees’ lap as the sixth overall pick, lends credence to the notion he was meant to be a Yank. Houston rejected the advice of its lead Jeter scout, a former Hall of Fame pitcher for Detroit named Hal Newhouser, who resigned because the Astros didn’t pick Derek at number 1 (they took college star Phil Nevin instead). Cincinnati scouting director Julian Mock rejected the advice of his own people and decided in the middle of a draft-day jog to select a college outfielder from central Florida (Chad Mottola) instead of the high school shortstop from Kalamazoo (Jeter) at number 5. To this day, Derek swears he was so convinced he was going in the top five of the draft, he didn’t even know that his dream team, the Yankees, were picking sixth. He knows now... I also enjoyed discovering how Cal Ripken Jr.’s decision to shake a young boy’s hand in 1993 ultimately put twelve-year-old Jeffrey Maier in the Yankee Stadium stands in 1996, when Maier deflected Derek Jeter’s home-run ball into American League Championship Series lore and helped end Baltimore’s season and Ripken’s indelible reign at short.
Q: Jeter is often portrayed as the perfect athlete. Is he perfect?
A: Jeter is about as close to perfect as a superstar athlete can get, but no, he is not an infallible player or person. As a product of parents who raised him on the strict terms of behavioral contracts he was compelled to sign, Jeter never put himself or his team in an embarrassing position. But he’s been overly sensitive to criticism, he’s terrible at forgiving and forgetting those he believes have slighted him, and at times he could have been a better captain to Alex Rodriguez, who craved Jeter’s approval in his early seasons as a Yankee. Jeter didn’t give it.
They have names like Barmy Bernie, Daft Donald, and Steamin' Sammy. They like lager (in huge quantities), the Queen, football clubs (especially Manchester United), and themselves. Their dislike encompasses the rest of the known universe, and England's soccer thugs express it in ways that range from mere vandalism to riots that terrorize entire cities. Now Bill Buford, editor of the prestigious journal Granta, enters this alternate society and records both its savageries and its sinister allure with the social imagination of a George Orwell and the raw personal engagement of a Hunter Thompson.
On April 18, 1981, a ball game sprang eternal. What began as a modestly attended minor-league game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings became not only the longest ever played in baseball history, but something else entirely. The first pitch was thrown after dusk on Holy Saturday, and for the next eight hours the night seemed to suspend its participants between their collective pasts and futures, between their collective sorrows and joys—the ballplayers; the umpires; Pawtucket's ejected manager, peering through a hole in the backstop; the sportswriters and broadcasters; a few stalwart fans shivering in the cold.
With Bottom of the 33rd, celebrated New York Times journalist Dan Barry has written a lyrical meditation on small-town lives, minor-league dreams, and the elements of time and community that conspired one fateful night to produce a baseball game seemingly without end. Bottom of the 33rd captures the sport's essence: the purity of purpose, the crazy adherence to rules, the commitment of both players and fans. This genre-bending book, a reportorial triumph, portrays the myriad lives held in the night's unrelenting grip. Consider, for instance, the team owner determined to revivify a decrepit stadium, built atop a swampy bog, or the batboy approaching manhood, nervous and earnest, or the umpire with a new family and a new home, or the wives watching or waiting up, listening to a radio broadcast slip into giddy exhaustion. Consider the small city of Pawtucket itself, its ghosts and relics, and the players, two destined for the Hall of Fame (Cal Ripken and Wade Boggs), a few to play only briefly or forgettably in the big leagues, and the many stuck in minor-league purgatory, duty bound and loyal to the game.
An unforgettable portrait of ambition and endurance, Bottom of the 33rd is the rare sports book that changes the way we perceive America's pastime, and America's past.
Today's NFL fans have more viewing options than ever before. Each and every week, football addicts plant themselves in front of big-screen, high-definition TVs and watch the game they love unfold via slow-motion replays and multiple camera angles, pausing and fast-forwarding the action on their DVRs as they please.
In life you never really know when you might meet someone who will change your life. And more importantly you never know when your influence might change another. This book is about influence. It is about a man who lived in a simple place but had extraordinary insight. He also had something else on his side. He had time; time to invest himself in the life of another who was lost on his journey. This story is based on the thousands of athletes I have counseled and the great mentors and teachers from whom I have learned. I have brought my twenty plus years of peak performance coaching together and compressed them into a story of two fictitious characters; a rancher with a passion for teaching truth and a young golf professional at the end of his rope. They represent each of us in the various stages of growth. For in life we must be willing to coach and be coached, either one alone will leave us empty.
Capturing the rollercoaster ride of Fresno State’s unlikely victory in the 2008 NCAA College World Series, this account tells their story through more than 200 color photographs, radio play-by-play excerpts, and comments from the players themselves. The Bulldogs, originally ranked 89th in the country, triumphed over elimination through six weeks of unprecedented upsets to become the lowest seed ever to win the NCAA baseball championship. Told in the unique style of the team’s radio announcer, this is an exhilarating and inspirational tale of the metamorphosis from adversity into achievement.
Sport is one of the great institutions of civilization, and the rise of women s sport during the past half century has been one of the most dramatic and visible recent a personal reflection on the coaching career of Donna J. Newberry, coach, teacher, and administrator in the Athletics Department of Muskingum University, New Concord, Ohio, whose passionate commitment to both excellence and gender equality in sport helped to make possible and epitomizes the significant expansion of women s collegiate athletics in the United States since the 1970s. Fresh out of graduate school, twenty-two-year-old Donna Newberry accepted a teaching and coaching position at Muskingum in 1974. Once on board, her eyes opened quickly to the limitations she faced inadequate institutional funding, overwhelming teaching and coaching responsibilities, poor facilities for women s athletics, and a legendary men s sports program that controlled the entire athletics budget.
From the outset, Newberry set about to create an equitable environment within which to develop a quality women s athletics program. In 1978, she took the lead responsibility at her institution to effect the full implementation of Title IX provisions that guaranteed equal opportunity, in sport and elsewhere, for both men and women. Following a tragic traffic accident in 1989 that claimed the lives and ended the careers of several of her athletes, she led efforts to assure the safer transportation of teams attending off-campus matches. Throughout, she insisted that her athletes were, first and foremost, also students and that they were attending college to receive an education, to nurture their social and spiritual lives, and to prepare themselves for a lifetime of personal responsibility and citizenship. Applying her coaching and teaching responsibilities to herself, Newberry spent her summers in pursuit of what she termed experiential learning inserting herself into unfamiliar physical, cultural, or social environments, often pushing herself to the edge, as she explored new ways of learning about and understanding the world as well as to remind herself of the commitment and sacrifices she was expecting from her athletes.
As the years passed, the long-term consequences of Newberry s passion, commitment, perseverance, and high standards unfolded. She remained at Muskingum, the women s athletics program and facilities expanded dramatically, women s teams were admitted to the Ohio Athletic Conference and the NCAA, and the sports programs at Muskingum which Donna coached for decades women s basketball and softball assumed legendary stature of state, regional, and national significance. Newberry s teams made numerous post-season appearances in NCAA tournaments, including eleven at national Division III collegiate finals, and won the National Championship in softball in 2001. She was named the WNBC/Converse Coach of the Year in women s basketball in 1991 and the Muskingum softball coaching staff was named the NFCA Coaching Staff of the Year in 2001. Nineteen of Newberry s players were named All-Americans, and in 2008, Newberry was inducted into the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
Another facet of Newberry s life is that, by early in 2009, she was a two-time survivor of breast cancer, but a recurrence of the disease later that year led to her death in November, 2010. She dedicated the last few months of her life to writing this book in the hopes that her own perspectives on coaching might be made available, and be of value, to younger coaches, to those who might want to go into coaching, and to those interested in the transformation of women s athletics since the early 1970s. Those perspectives are presented here, in her own words, the way she wanted them to be passed on.
Lore of Running gives you incomparable detail on physiology, training, racing, injuries, world-class athletes, and races.
Author Tim Noakes blends the expertise of a physician and research scientist with the passion of a dedicated runner to answer the most pressing questions for those who are serious about the sport:
-How your body systems respond to training, the effects of different training methods, how to detect and avoid overtraining, and genetic versus trainable potential
-How to train for the 10K up through ultramarathon with detailed programs from Noakes and several leading running experts
-How to prevent and treat injuries, increase your strength and flexibility, and use proper nutrition for weight control and maximum performance
You'll also find a candid analysis of supplements and ergogenic effects and training aids. The book includes new interviews with 10 world-class runners who share their secrets to success and longevity in the sport. Features on legendary figures and events in running history provide fascinating insights.
And that's just scratching the surface. Lore of Running is not only the biggest and best running publication on the planet. It's the one book every runner should own.
Athlete. Runner. Marathoner. Are these words you wouldn't exactly use to describe yourself? Do you consider yourself too old or too out of shape to run a marathon? But somewhere deep inside have you always admired the people who could reach down and come up with the mental and physical strength to complete such a daunting and rewarding accomplishment? It doesn't have to be somebody else crossing the finish line. You can be a marathoner. The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer is based on the highly successful marathon class offered by the University of Northern Iowa, which was featured in a Runner's World article titled "Marathoning 101." The class has been offered five times over 10 years, and all but one student finished the marathon. That is approximately 200 students -- all first time marathoners and many with absolutely no running background. This book follows the same 16-week, four-day-a-week workout plan. What makes the success rate of this program so much higher than any other? The special emphasis on the psychological aspects of endurance activities. You don't have to love to run -- you don't even have to like it -- but you have to realize that you are capable of more than you have ever thought possible. One participant in the program explained it like this: "I'm doing this for me -- not for others or the time clock. I just feel better when I run, plus it helps me to cope with things in general. The skills we've learned in this class don't apply just to marathoning -- they apply to life! Just like you never know what the next step in a marathon will bring, so too, you never know what will happen next in life. But if you don't keep going, you're never going to find out. By staying relaxed, centered, and positive you handle just about anything that comes your way." This is marathon running for real people, people with jobs and families and obligations outside of running. The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer has proven successful for men and women of all ages. Now let it work for you.Athlete. Runner. Marathoner. Are these words you wouldn't exactly use to describe yourself? Do you consider yourself too old or too out of shape to run a marathon? But somewhere deep inside have you always admired the people who could reach down and come up with the mental and physical strength to complete such a daunting and rewarding accomplishment? It doesn't have to be somebody else crossing the finish line. You can be a marathoner. The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer is based on the highly successful marathon class offered by the University of Northern Iowa, which was featured in a Runner's World article titled "Marathoning 101." The class has been offered five times over 10 years, and all but one student finished the marathon. That is approximately 200 students -- all first time marathoners and many with absolutely no running background. This book follows the same 16-week, four-day-a-week workout plan. What makes the success rate of this program so much higher than any other? The special emphasis on the psychological aspects of endurance activities. You don't have to love to run -- you don't even have to like it -- but you have to realize that you are capable of more than you have ever thought possible. One participant in the program explained it like this: "I'm doing this for me -- not for others or the time clock. I just feel better when I run, plus it helps me to cope with things in general. The skills we've learned in this class don't apply just to marathoning -- they apply to life! Just like you never know what the next step in a marathon will bring, so too, you never know what will happen next in life. But if you don't keep going, you're never going to find out. By staying relaxed, centered, and positive you handle just about anything that comes your way." This is marathon running for real people, people with jobs and families and obligations outside of running. The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer has proven successful for men and women of all ages. Now let it work for you.
Along with the many benefits of leisure-class living comes obesity and its attendant ailments. In The Warrior Diet, Ori Hofmekler looks not forward but backward for a solution–to the primal habits of early cultures such as nomads and hunter-gatherers, the Greeks, and the Romans. Based on survival science, this book proposes not ordinary dietary changes but rather a radical yet surprisingly simple lifestyle overhaul.
The fun and easy way to tackle football basics and enjoy America's most popular sportSince the last edition of Football For Dummies, new stadiums have been built, new stars have ascended, and records have been broken. This new edition has been revised to reflect today's game, giving football fans up-to-the-minute information on all the rules and regulations, positions, plays, and penalties.
Featuring coverage of the newest stadium technologies, revised greatest players and legends, and pro-football must-do experiences, it also includes expert advice on training and gearing up for those who play the game.
From peewees to the pros, this hands-on, friendly guide covers the nuts and bolts of football for fans of all ages and experience levels.At last, the Dummies series is tackling football. Former Raider all-pro defensive end and current Fox TV analyst Howie Long calls the signals, and if he doesn't always go deep--he's got a lot of ground to cover--at least he connects. With all its X's and O's, football is a complicated sport, and Long works hard to smooth the way: "Once you break through that initial fear of being overwhelmed by football and what you don't understand," he counsels, "I know everything else about the game, like dominoes, will fall into place." In his role as guide, Long plays those dominoes, from peewees to the pros to the fantasy leagues, explaining positions, analyzing offenses and defenses, and detailing strategies. As with all Dummies guides, the fun part is the "Part of Tens," the series of top-10 lists that dig in for the final chapter. He scores big with his inclusions of John Hannah and Hugh McElhenny among the greatest offensive players ever, but should be penalized for overemphasizing tight ends and forgetting the electricity that wide receivers bring to the game. This, of course, reflects a defensive end's natural bias; since they muck it up more with the hulkier tight ends, they simply let the speedballs fly by. --Jeff Silverman
Whether you’re a major league couch potato, life-long season ticket-holder, or teaching game to a beginner, Watching Baseball Smarter leaves no territory uncovered. In this smart and funny fan’s guide Hample explains the ins and outs of pitching, hitting, running, and fielding, while offering insider trivia and anecdotes that will surprise even the most informed viewers of our national pastime.
Pete Sampras is arguably the greatest tennis player ever, a man whose hard-nosed work ethic led to an unprecedented number one world ranking for 286 weeks, and whose prodigious talent made possible a record-setting fourteen Grand Slam titles. While his more vocal rivals sometimes grabbed the headlines, Pete always preferred to let his racket do the talking.
The definitive instructional book on the fastest-growing women's sport in the country.
Since 1944, Gun Digest has been regarded as the shooter's No. 1 resource. The 2012 edition continues the tradition of bringing you more of everything that firearms fanatics crave!
Features in-depth articles about the world's most fascinating guns, testfire reports on the latest models, insights about fine collectibles, and roundups of what's new from leading manufacturers... you simply won't find a more comprehensive collection of firearms information.
Whether you're interested in the latest tactical firearms or want to learn more about firearms history – or anything else related to guns and shooting – you'll find it in Gun Digest 2012.
It's All Here:
About the Editor The late Dan Shideler (1960-2011) was a senior editor for Gun Digest Books and best-known as editor of the 2010-2012 editions of Gun Digest. During his seven years with F+W Media, Shideler also edited the Standard Catalog of Firearms, Modern Gun Values, The Official Gun Digest Book of Guns & Prices, and numerous other titles.
The golden age of tennis came crashing down suddenly at the 1981 U.S. Open. Bjorn Borg, the stoical Swede who had become the richest and most famous player in the sport's history, had just lost to his brash young rival, John McEnroe, in the final at Flushing Meadows. After his last shot floated out, Borg walked to the net, shook McEnroe's hand in silence, and disappeared from the game he had dominated for the last decade.
No one realized it at the time, but the era that Borg and the three other semifinalists at that year's Open—McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, and Vitas Gerulaitis—had helped define had also ended. For nearly a century, the lawns of tennis had been reserved for wealthy amateurs—gentlemen, in the original British parlance—but in 1968, the game was opened to professionals and was forever changed. The 1970s were boom years for tennis. Thanks to charismatic young players and dramatic matches, participation skyrocketed in the United States and brought the game to a new peak of global popularity. In the ensuing decade, the sport would be taken further from its genteel roots than anyone thought possible.
Through the lens of that era's final tournament, the 1981 U.S. Open, High Strung chronicles the lives and careers of the men who made those Wild West days of tennis so memorable. The Swede known as "Ice Borg," who secretly harbored an inner madman. McEnroe, the tortured, bratty genius who was destined to slay his idol. Connors, the blue-collar kid who tore the cover off the ball—and the game itself—becoming a beloved antihero. Ilie Nastase, the Romanian clown who tested the outer limits of acceptable behavior and taste. Gerulaitis, the New York charmer and Studio 54 regular who was friend to them all. And Ivan Lendl, the robotic Czech who became a harbinger of tennis's high-powered future.
The struggles these men shared were as compelling off the court as they were on. Some thrived, some survived, some were destroyed, but none has ever been forgotten.
Wild Ride
In I'M HERE TO WIN, Chris "Macca" McCormack opens his playbook and reveals everything it takes-mind, body, and spirit-to become a champion. Now he shares the story of his triumphs and the never-say-die dedication that has made him the world's most successful triathlete.
What happens when three financial industry whiz kids and certified baseball nuts take over an ailing major league franchise and implement the same strategies that fueled their success on Wall Street? In the case of the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays, an American League championship happens—the culmination of one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history.
This huge international bestseller, fully revised for non-American readers, is now in paperback. "Last Child in the Woods" shows how our children have become increasingly alienated and distant from nature, why this matters, and what we can do to make a difference. It is unsentimental, rigorous and utterly original. Camping in the garden, riding bikes through the woods, climbing trees, collecting bugs, picking wildflowers, running through piles of autumn leaves...These are the things childhood memories are made of. But for a whole generation of today's children the pleasures of a free-range childhood are missing, and their indoor habits contribute to epidemic obesity, attention-deficit disorder, isolation and childhood depression. "Last Child in the Woods" is a clarion call, brilliantly written, compelling and irresistibly persuasive - a book that will change minds and lives.
This Townsend Library classic has been carefully edited to be more accessible to today's students. It includes a background note about the book, an author's biography, and a lively afterword. Acclaimed by educators nationwide, the Townsend Library is helping millions of young adults discover the pleasure and power of reading.Nineteenth-century African American businessman, activist, and educator Booker Taliaferro Washington's Up from Slavery is one of the greatest American autobiographies ever written. Its mantras of black economic empowerment, land ownership, and self-help inspired generations of black leaders, including Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan. In rags-to-riches fashion, Washington recounts his ascendance from early life as a mulatto slave in Virginia to a 34-year term as president of the influential, agriculturally based Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. From that position, Washington reigned as the most important leader of his people, with slogans like "cast down your buckets," which emphasized vocational merit rather than the academic and political excellence championed by his contemporary rival W.E.B. Du Bois. Though many considered him too accommodating to segregationists, Washington, as he said in his historic "Atlanta Compromise" speech of 1895, believed that "political agitation alone would not save [the Negro]," and that "property, industry, skill, intelligence, and character" would prove necessary to black Americans' success. The potency of his philosophies are alive today in the nationalist and conservative camps that compose the complex quilt of black American society. 
Part travelogue, part inspirational treatise, The Next Port by Heyward H. Coleman is the adventure aficionados' brass ring. This engaging memoir shares one couple's five-year seafaring journey from Charleston South Carolina sailing 40,000 miles to visit 43 countries. Readers will enjoy a vicarious voyage that includes high-energy adventures, philosophical insights, and the spiritual journey the author and his wife made while sailing the high seas.
No player has been more synonymous with the glory years of Manchester United Football Club over the past two decades than right–back Gary Neville. An Old Trafford regular since he attended his first match at the age of six, captain of the brilliant 1992 FA Youth Cup–winning team, outspoken representative of MUFC, Neville is the ultimate one–club man. He has been at the heart of it all and, at the end of an amazing career, is now ready to tell all. Neville reveals the behind–the–scenes secrets of his early days with the likes of Giggs, Scholes, and his best mate, David Beckham.
This is Pilates as you’ve never seen it before.
With detailed descriptions, step-by-step instruction, and stunning full-color anatomical illustrations, Pilates Anatomy takes you inside the exercises and programs that will tone the body, stabilize the core, improve balance, and increase flexibility. Using the original mat work of Joseph Pilates, you’ll see how key muscles are used, how variations and minor adjustments can influence effectiveness, and how breathing, alignment, posture, and movement are all fundamentally linked.
Choosing from over 45 exercises, you can target a particular body region and delve deeper to stretch, strengthen, and finely coordinate specific muscles. You’ll also find techniques for breathing, concentration, and self-awareness for a unique exercise experience that enhances your mind and your body.
Whether you are just beginning to explore the beauty and benefits of Pilates or have been practicing for years, Pilates Anatomy is a one-of-a-kind resource that you’ll refer to again and again.
