ESPN: The Ultimate Pro Football Guide


Book Description

This guide is truly the ultimate source for pro football trivia, esoterica, curiosities, stats, anecdotes, rivalries, facts, quotes, and recaps; just about what you'd expect from an ESPN publication. Arranged by team, each section lists the most notable games, players, and coaches in team history, and then asks intriguing questions such as: "Is Dan Marino or Bob Griese the best Miami Dolphin quarterback of all time" Marino by a hair. The Ultimate Pro Football Guide also tells you where to score the best eats and drinks in the respective teams' cities and provides such minutiae as what locals wear to game day, how many times your team has appeared on The Simpsons, and which local columnist you should read on game day. You can't ask for more from a football guide; it makes every team the home team. --Tod Nelson




Finding the Winning Edge


Book Description

NFL coaching legend Bill Walsh offers his unique blueprint and conceptual insights for coaches at all levels of play. Among the topics covered in this comprehensive 560-page, hardcover book are: Understanding the role of head coach; Strategies and tactics for dealing with a highly competitive adversary; Designing a winning game plan; Organising the staff; The importance of being able to focus and concentrate; Evaluating players; Game-day responsibilities; And much, much more.




Eating the Dinosaur


Book Description

The bestselling author of "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" returns with an all-original nonfiction collection of questions and answers about pop culture, sports, and the meaning of reality.




ESPN College Football Encyclopedia


Book Description

The most comprehensive reference book ever assembled on the history of college football From South Bend, Indiana, to Lincoln, Nebraska, Palo Alto, California, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Tallahassee, Florida, college football attracts the most dedicated fans in all of sports. This book is their Biblea rich and exhaustive reference guide to the games history, tradition, and lore. Based on three years of research by the nations foremost college football experts, the book features: lCapsule histories for each of the Division 1-A programs, the Ivy League schools, and the historically black colleges lYear-by-year schedules and scores for each school lStatistical leaders from each school lFight-song lyrics lBox scores for every bowl game ever played lWeekly AP and UPI polls dating back to 1936 lA four-color insert illustrating the evolution of each schools helmet design lEssays by the games top wordsmiths, including Dan Jenkins, Beano Cook, Chris Fowler, and more. lAnd a lively round-table discussion on the state of the game with ESPNs popular GameDay team (Fowler, Lee Corso, and Kirk Herbstreit). Packed with tables and charts and designed in an easy-to-read style, the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia is sure to dazzle even the most knowledgeable fan.




Belichick


Book Description

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The definitive biography of the NFL's most enigmatic, controversial, and yet successful coach Bill Belichick is perhaps the most fascinating figure in the NFL--the infamously dour face of one of the winningest franchises in sports. As head coach of the New England Patriots, he's led the team to five Super Bowl championship trophies. In this revelatory and robust biography, readers will come to understand and see Belichick's full life in football, from watching college games as a kid with his father, a Naval Academy scout, to orchestrating two Super Bowl-winning game plans as defensive coordinator for the Giants, to his dramatic leap to New England, where he has made history. Award-winning columnist and New York Times best-selling author Ian O'Connor delves into the mind of the man who has earned a place among coaching legends like Lombardi, Halas, and Paul Brown, presenting sides of Belichick that have been previously unexplored. O'Connor discovers how this legendary coach shaped the people he met and worked with in ways perhaps even Belichick himself doesn't know. Those who follow and love pro football know Bill Belichick only as the hooded genius of the Patriots. But there is so much more--from the hidden tensions and deep layers to his relationship with Tom Brady to his sometimes frosty dealings with owner Robert Kraft to his ability to earn the unmitigated respect of his players--if not their affection. This is a man who has many facets and, ultimately, has created a notorious football dynasty. Based on exhaustive research and countless interviews, this book circles around Belichick to tell his full story for the first time, and presents an incisive portrait of a mastermind at work.




Sweetness


Book Description

The definitive biography of Chicago Bears and Hall of Fame superstar Walter Payton. Based on meticulous research and interviews with nearly 700 contacts, an unforgettable portrait that describes a man who lived his life just like he played the game: at full speed.




Football's Most Wanted™ II


Book Description

Readers will score a touchdown at their tailgate parties with Football’s Most Wanted™ II: The Top 10 Book of More Bruising Backs, Savage Sacks, and Gridiron Oddities by Walter Harvey. With fun facts and amazing anecdotes from professional and college football, it’s sure to delight fans new and old while presenting a wealth of interesting and amusing tidbits and trivia. Harvey takes over in the second half after a stellar performance by the starter, Football’s Most Wanted™, and is poised to lead your team to victory. With more than fifty additional top-ten lists on a plethora of pigskin possibilities, there’s something here for everybody. Harvey includes information on some of the greatest gridiron rivalries, amazing football streaks and records, the youngest coaches and oldest players, famous and defunct college football bowls, coaches who both excelled and failed when making the jump from college to the pros, and the most entertaining touchdown celebrations. He touches on footballers who go into commercials, introduces the famous “other halves” of football players, and even details ten of the longest scoring plays in NFL history. Football’s Most Wanted™ II: The Top 10 Book of More Bruising Backs, Savage Sacks, and Gridiron Oddities is a sure score for every fan.




The ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia


Book Description

Presents the statistics of professional American football players, coaches, and teams for each season from 1920-2006.




Football's Most Wanted™


Book Description

In 1920, the University of Texas Longhorns ate their mascot at a postseason banquet. In 1940, Turk Edwards of the Washington Redskins suffered a career-ending knee injury during the pre-game coin toss. In 1969, Clive Rush was nearly electrocuted while being introduced as the new coach of the Boston Patriots. During the 1893 Army-Navy game, a general punched a heckling admiral and challenged him to a duel, which resulted in President Grover Cleveland suspending the game for six years. Football’s Most Wanted™ features the worst players, the most inept teams, the strangest plays, the most bizarre nicknames, the most fantastic finishes, the dirtiest players, the oddest injures, the greatest upsets, and the most boneheaded calls in both professional and college football. Many of these 700 anecdotes, arranged in 70 top-ten lists, are published here for the first time. Football’s Most Wanted™ features the worst players, the most inept teams, the strangest plays, the most bizarre nicknames, the most fantastic finishes, the dirtiest players, the oddest injures, the greatest upsets, and the most boneheaded calls in both professional and college football. Many of these 700 anecdotes, arranged in 70 top-ten lists, are published here for the first time.




ESPN Southeastern Conference Football Encyclopedia


Book Description

THE ESPN SEC FOOTBALL ENCYCLOPEDIA INCLUDES • expanded profiles and histories of all twelve Southeastern Conference football programs, as well as former SEC schools Georgia Tech and Tulane • original essays on what makes each SEC program unique written by such experts as Winston Groom (Alabama), Lou Holtz (South Carolina), and Buster Olney (Vanderbilt) • two-page record books for each school, with all-time and annual leaders • all-time teams, college and pro football hall of fame inductees, first-round draft choices, and retired numbers for every school • a complete bowl history for each team, including box scores • a history of the Southeastern Conference written by Chuck Culpepper, and the all-time SEC team as selected by Ivan Maisel, author of A War in Dixie