Several years after his playing career was cut short by injury before it had a chance to really begin, John Madden was hired as an assistant coach by the Oakland Raiders, one of professional football's most iconoclastic franchises. Two years later he was named the team's head coach and proceeded to lead the Raiders to five championship games in his first seven seasons. Following years of heartbreaking losses in some of history's most memorable games.

Drawn from a series of deeply revealing conversations with coauthor Steve Jamison, The Score Takes Care of Itself offers Walsh's best leadership principles illustrated by anecdotes from his entire career. Additional insights and perspective are provided by his son Craig Walsh. The book will delight football fans and guide the vast business audience eager to learn how Bill Walsh motivated individuals and crafted winning teams.

Football hero Jerry Rice grew up in Crawford, Mississippi, the son of a brick mason. He developed his hands by catching the bricks that his brothers threw at him. From these humble beginnings, Rice blazed a path to greatness, becoming the leading wide receiver in the NFL and winning three super bowl rings for the San Francisco 49ers.

From Monday Night Football to Super Bowl Sunday, the NFL is a dominating force in the lives of millions of fans who tune in and passionately cheer for their favorite teams. And when the games are over, the conversation is just getting started. Who's the greatest player of all time? Which coaches truly shaped the game we known and love today? Why is professional football such an undeniable part of our culture? Three-time Super Bowl winner Michael Lombardi has done it all—from scout to executive to coach—and now he sets the record straight on these questions and more.

The number one New York Times best-selling story about American Olympic triumph in Nazi Germany, the inspiration for the PBS documentary The Boys of '36, broadcast to coincide with the 2016 Summer Olympics and the 80th anniversary of the boys' gold medal race. Out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times - the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant.

In this revealing, in-depth look at the NFL's greatest quarterback controversy, Adam Lazarus takes listeners into the locker room and inside the huddle to deliver the real story behind the rivalry - when Joe Montana and Steve Young battled on and off the field and forged one of the finest football dynasties of all time. From 1987 to 1994, the two future Hall of Famers spurred each other on to remarkable heights, including three Super Bowl wins and four MVP awards, setting new standards for quarterback excellence.

He's one of the most interesting American athletes in the past fifty years. Passionate, candid, iconoclastic, and gifted both on and off the court, Charles Barkley has made a lasting impact on not only the world of basketball but pop culture at large. Yet few people know the real Charles. Informed by over 370 original interviews and painstaking research, Timothy Bella's Barkley is the most comprehensive biography to date of one of the most talked about icons in the world of sports.

From Bill Cowher, the Super Bowl-winning, Hall-of-Fame Pittsburgh Steelers coach, and cohost of CBS’ The NFL Today, comes a poignant, inspirational story about football, family, and love.

In this highly entertaining and insightful memoir, one of television’s most respected broadcasters interweaves the story of his life and career with lively firsthand tales of some of the most thrilling events and fascinating figures in modern sports.

In Stoops's journey from player to struggling graduate assistant to legendary head coach, it becomes clear that his dedication to football is about far more than the sport itself. Big Game Bob, as he is known by adorning Sooners, made a name for himself not only by rebuilding the OU football program and leading the team to multiple conference championships but also by adhering to a strong set of principles at a time when corruption was rampant across the NCAA.

Hall of Fame football coach Jimmy Johnson’s house isn’t on the way to anything. Yet, his private sanctuary on the Florida Keys’ Islamorada islands is a popular destination to which college and professional coaches, general managers, and team owners regularly trek to seek advice—how to build a positive team culture, draft elite players, balance work and family life, and lead a team to win. Why? Because Jimmy Johnson has done it all. Now, written with sports journalist Dave Hyde, Johnson shares a candid account of his life experiences that have turned him into a legend in the coaching world.

From Andre Agassi, one of the most beloved athletes in history and one of the most gifted men ever to step onto a tennis court, a beautiful, haunting autobiography. Agassi brings a near-photographic memory to every pivotal match and every relationship. Never before has the inner game of tennis and the outer game of fame been so precisely limned. In clear, taut prose, Agassi evokes his loyal brother, his wise coach, his gentle trainer, all the people who help him regain his balance and find love at last with Stefanie Graf.

Former NFL general manager and three-time Super Bowl-winner Michael Lombardi reveals what makes football organizations tick at the championship level. From personnel to practice to game-day decisions that win titles, Lombardi shares what he learned working with coaching legends Bill Walsh of the 49ers, Al Davis of the Raiders, and Bill Belichick of the Patriots, among others, during his three decades in football.

How was the Patriots dynasty built? And how did it last for two decades? In The Dynasty, acclaimed journalist Jeff Benedict provides richly reported answers in a sweeping account based on exclusive interviews with more than 200 insiders - including team executives, coaches, players, players’ wives, team doctors, lawyers, and more - as well as never-before-seen recordings, documents, and electronic communications.

Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. But behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul.

By 2002, The Streak - a historic 13-year run of consecutive wins by the Spartans, a high-school football team from Concord, California, that couldn't be beat - was still going strong. In this revised edition of When the Game Stands Tall, author Neil Hayes, who had unrestricted access to the De La Salle team, writes from the inside about the games, the players, and their visionary coach, Bob Ladouceur, who managed to amass the highest winning percentage in football history (.995) through standing for something greater than winning.

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.

Tiaina Baul "Junior" Seau is widely considered one of the best linebackers ever to play the game. A 10-time All-Pro and 12-time Pro Bowl selection, Seau was picked for the NFL's All-Decade Team in the 1990s. His incredible career spanned two decades, during which time he played for the Chargers, Dolphins, and Patriots. In 2012, at the age of 43, Seau committed suicide with a gunshot wound to the chest. News of his death sent shockwaves through the NFL.

From New York Times best-selling author Lars Anderson comes a revealing portrait of the first family of American sports. What the Kennedys are to politics, the Mannings are to football. Two generations have produced three NFL superstars: Archie Manning, the Ole Miss hero-turned-New Orleans Saint; his son Peyton, widely considered one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the game; and Peyton's younger brother, Eli, who won two Super Bowl rings of his own.

A book that explores the enduring legends of Snake, Foo, Dr. Death, and John Madden's Oakland Raiders, Badasses is the definitive biography of arguably the last team to play old-fashioned tough-guy football. Peter Richmond, co-author of the New York Times best seller The Glory Game, offers a fascinating look at the 1970s Oakland Raiders, led by colorful greats from another era.

They were America's Team - the high-priced, high-glamour, high-flying Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s, who won three Super Bowls and made as many headlines off the field as on it. Led by Emmitt Smith, the charismatic Deion "Prime Time" Sanders, and Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin, the Cowboys rank among the greatest of all NFL dynasties.

For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the 1985 Chicago Bears were more than a football team: they were the greatest football team ever - a gang of colorful nuts, dancing and pounding their way to victory. They won a Super Bowl and saved a city. It was not just that the Monsters of the Midway won but how they did it....

When a potentially career-ending shoulder injury left quarterback Drew Brees without a team - and facing the daunting task of having to learn to throw a football all over again - coaches around the NFL wondered, Will he ever come back? After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, leaving more than 80 percent of the city underwater, many wondered, Will the city ever come back?

In this inspirational memoir, Derrick Coleman, Jr., the Seattle Seahawks fullback who won the 2014 Super Bowl with the Seahawks in his second year in the NFL, relates his inspirational story of hard work and determination in his own words. Showcasing his unlikely and challenging journey to become the first deaf athlete to play offense in the NFL, he talks about overcoming internal and external obstacles in the course of reaching your true potential.

The Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s won an unprecedented and unmatched four Super Bowls in six years. A dozen of those Steelers players, coaches, and executives have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and three decades later their names echo in popular memory: "Mean" Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mike Webster, Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, and John Stallworth.

The NBA has returned to prominence on the backs of phenoms like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Garnett. The media promotes them, the shoe companies pay them, and America applauds. But how exactly do such players reach the pros? What do they give up to get there? And what happens to those who fall short?

In the summer of 2014, Tim Howard became an overnight sensation after more than 10 years as one of America's leading professional soccer players. His record-breaking 15 saves for the United States national team against Belgium in the World Cup electrified a nation that had only recently woken up to the Beautiful Game after decades of hibernation. In this inspiring and candid memoir, the beloved US and Everton goalkeeper finally allows himself to do something that he would never do on the field: He drops his guard.

Nate Jackson’s Slow Getting Up is an unvarnished and uncensored memoir of everyday life in the most popular sports league in America - and the most damaging to its players - the National Football League. After playing college ball at a tiny Division III school, Jackson, a receiver, signed as a free agent with the San Francisco 49ers, before moving to the Denver Broncos. For six seasons in the NFL as a Bronco, he alternated between the practice squad and the active roster, eventually winning a starting spot - a short, tenuous career emblematic of the average pro player.

With his flights of improvisation around the basket and his towering afro, Julius Erving became one of the most charismatic (and revolutionary) players basketball has ever known. But while the public has long revered this cultural icon, few have ever known of the double life of Julius Erving. Dr. J traces the inner lives of the nearly perfect player and the imperfect man - and how he has come to terms with both.

This classic sports book takes listeners inside the 1967 season of the Green Bay Packers, following that storied team from training camp to their dramatic victory in Super Bowl II. Candid and often amusing, Jerry Kramer describes from a player's perspective a bygone era of sports, filled with blood, grit, and tears. No game better exemplifies this period than the classic "Ice Bowl" conference championship game between the Packers and the Dallas Cowboys, which Kramer, who made the crucial block in the climactic play, describes in thrilling detail.

How was the Patriots dynasty built? And how did it last for two decades? In The Dynasty, acclaimed journalist Jeff Benedict provides richly reported answers in a sweeping account based on exclusive interviews with more than 200 insiders - including team executives, coaches, players, players’ wives, team doctors, lawyers, and more - as well as never-before-seen recordings, documents, and electronic communications.

In 2009, Tiger Woods was the most famous athlete on the planet, a transcendent star of almost unfathomable fame and fortune living what appeared to be the perfect life - married to a Swedish beauty and the father of two young children. Winner of 14 major golf championships and 79 PGA Tour events, Woods was the first billion-dollar athlete, earning more than $100 million a year in endorsements from the likes of Nike, Gillette, AT&T, and Gatorade. But it was all a carefully crafted illusion. As it turned out, Woods had been living a double life for years.

In this revealing, in-depth look at the NFL's greatest quarterback controversy, Adam Lazarus takes listeners into the locker room and inside the huddle to deliver the real story behind the rivalry - when Joe Montana and Steve Young battled on and off the field and forged one of the finest football dynasties of all time. From 1987 to 1994, the two future Hall of Famers spurred each other on to remarkable heights, including three Super Bowl wins and four MVP awards, setting new standards for quarterback excellence.

LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of the twenty-first century, and he’s in the conversation with Michael Jordan as the greatest of all time. The reigning king of the game and the first active NBA player to become a billionaire, LeBron wears the crown like he was born with it. Yet his ascent has been anything but effortless and predetermined—the truth is vastly more interesting than that. LeBron tells the full, riveting saga of how a child adrift found the will to become a titan. Jeff Benedict paints a vivid picture of LeBron’s epic origin story, showing the gradual rise of a star.

Several years after his playing career was cut short by injury before it had a chance to really begin, John Madden was hired as an assistant coach by the Oakland Raiders, one of professional football's most iconoclastic franchises. Two years later he was named the team's head coach and proceeded to lead the Raiders to five championship games in his first seven seasons. Following years of heartbreaking losses in some of history's most memorable games.

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.

Pete Carroll is one of the most successful coaches in football today. As the head coach at USC, he brought the Trojans back to national prominence, amassing a 97-19 record over nine seasons. Now he shares the championship-winning philosophy that led USC to seven straight Pac-10 titles.

The National Football League's current dominance has obscured how professional football got its start. In The League, John Eisenberg reveals that Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell took an immense risk by investing in the professional game. At that time, the sport barely registered on the national scene. The five owners succeeded only because at critical junctures in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, each sacrificed the short-term success of his team for the longer-term good of the League.

America's Game traces pro football's grand transformation, from the World War II years, when the NFL was fighting for its very existence, to the turbulent 1980s and 1990s, when labor disputes and off-field scandals shook the game to its core, and up to the sport's present-day preeminence. A thoroughly entertaining account of the entire universe of professional football, from locker room to boardroom, from playing field to press box, this is an essential book for any fan of America's favorite sport.

The visiting clubhouse in San Diego was soggy, sweaty and sticky after the 1998 Yankees swept the Padres in four games and celebrated winning their 24th World Series title. The players raised bottles of Champagne, sprayed the bubbly on each other and reveled in a baseball season that might have been more memorable than any in history. Jack Curry was part of that unforgettable scene as a reporter, navigating around the clubhouse to ask the same, pertinent question.