by James W. Pipkin (2008)
"Examines autobiographies by athletes such as Wilt Chamberlain, Babe Ruth, Martina Navratilova, and Dennis Rodman, and analyzes common themes and recurring patterns in the accounts of their lives and sporting experiences"--Provided by publisher.
Eamon Dunphy
For more than 30 years, no commentator on Irish sport, politics and culture has been the object of so much love, hatred and fascination as Eamon Dunphy. Now, in 'The Rocky Road', Dunphy takes us behind the scenes of a passionate life - from childhood poverty in Dublin to the Football League to the forefront of journalism and debate in Ireland.
Chris Willis
"In 1922, dog kennel owner Walter Lingo joined forces with star athlete Jim Thorpe to create a professional football team named the Oorang Indians. This book tells the remarkable story of how the Oorang Indians, comprised entirely of Native Americans, spent two seasons in the NFL traveling throughout the country, playing professional football, and advertising Lingo's Airedale dogs. The Indians and the Airedales were an instant hit everywhere, captivating fans and newspaper writers alike. Full of wonderful quotes, colorful anecdotes, and original research, this book reveals the true and forgotten story of one of the NFL's pioneering teams."--
David Kopay and Perry Deane Young
"Coach Vince Lombardi always told us backs to 'run to daylight.' That's exactly what I was doing that day when I reached for the phone to call Lynn Rosellini (Washington Star reporter). By that time I knew that there was nothing else I could do. My hands were shaking. It was game time. The National Anthem was playing." The time was December, 1975. David Kopay, ten-year veteran running back for the San Francisco Forty-Niners (where teammate John Brodie dubbed him "Psyche" for his aggressive play), the Detroit Lions, the Washington Redskins, the New Orleans Saints and the Green Bay Packers, had decided it was time to begin to end his long personal nightmare and publicly reveal his sexual preference for men-the first professional athlete ever to do so. To explain why he chose to do so meant revealing the conflicting emotional touchstones of an entire life, including his early education at a Catholic seminary, his co-captaincy of the 1964 University of Washington Rose Bowl team, his sexual experience with a male college classmate and later an all-pro player, his psychotherapy that, while under hypnosis, helped induce him to marry a former airline stewardess, his heartbreaking confrontations with his parents and older brother, and the unpredictable support from certain former teammates as well as others-homosexual and heterosexual-whom he'd never met... Together they comprise a story that is far more than self-exposé. With the skilled collaboration of a gifted writer, Perry Deane Young, they make up an unsparing, moving account from adolescence to maturity of one man's search for sexual identity in America today.
Marshall Burchard
A biography of basketball forward Larry Bird, who, in addition to his personal awards, led the Celtics to the NBA championship in 1981.