Shaq's Family Style


Book Description

A celebration of cultural icon Shaquille O’Neal’s love of food, family, and fun, with 80 low-stress comfort food recipes for busy families. “The flavors and recipes in this book are big, bold, and fun just like Shaq Daddy himself! If you love the man, you’ll love this book!”—Michael Symon, author of Fix It with Food Basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal loves food. A lot. In fact, fans of Inside the NBA know they’ll most likely hear Shaq tell his co-hosts all about what he ate for dinner while they analyze the action in the paint. Shaq’s love of food, eating, and family cooking began in his childhood home, where his mom cooked for him and his three siblings. With his own family, he carries on the commitment to creating family connection and fun through food. In Shaq’s Family Style, featuring his inimitable sense of humor, he shares eighty recipes for bringing family together around the table, plus 100 photographs to whet the appetite. From Loaded Potato Waffles to One Pan Baked Southern Mac & Cheese, Sheet Pan BBQ Chicken Thighs with Sweet Potato Bake, and Spicy Jambalaya with Andouille Meatballs, these are meals that busy home cooks can get on the table after the kids’ practice or when there’s a houseful over to watch a game. Even novices will be able to cook these recipes with confidence the first time—and on replay. When the plates are cleared, it's time for banana pudding (there's always banana pudding!) or one of Shaq's other family-favorite desserts. It's the Shaq Attaq! . . . in the kitchen.




Playing Piano in a Brothel


Book Description

As he did in his acclaimed '77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age and his earlier nonfiction works, Terry Frei combines reporting, historical research, memoir, and opinion, discussing his varied experiences and the diverse characters-including John and Jack Elway, plus 2010 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith-he has encountered in covering Colorado, national, and international sports since he was a green sportswriter in the era of '77. Those diverse figures include Olympic heroes, Hall of Famers, world boxing champions, and other marquee athletes. He also displays his knack for narrative and inquisitive journalism, introducing readers to intriguing figures and taking them behind the scenes of some very high-profile events and settings. All this follows a blunt and unsparing assessment of the modern newspaper and sports journalism.




Basketball Junkie


Book Description

As seen in ESPN Films’ Unguarded, a “powerful . . . bracing . . . exceptional” true account of the former NBA and overseas pro’s rise and harrowing fall (NPR Books). I was dead for thirty seconds. That’s what the cop in Fall River told me. When the EMTs found me, there was a needle in my arm and a packet of heroin in the front seat. At basketball-crazy Durfee High School in Fall River, Massachusetts, junior guard Chris Herren carried his family’s and the declining city’s dreams on his skinny frame. He was heavily recruited by major universities, chosen as a McDonald’s All-American, featured in a Sports Illustrated cover story, and at just seventeen years old became the central figure in Fall River Dreams, an acclaimed book about the 1994 Durfee team’s quest for the state championship. Leaving Fall River for college, Herren starred on Jerry Tarkanian’s Fresno State Bulldogs team of talented misfits, which included future NBA players as well as future convicted felons. His gritty, tattooed, hip-hop persona drew the ire of rival fans and more national attention: Rolling Stone profiled him, 60 Minutes interviewed him, and the Denver Nuggets drafted him. When the Boston Celtics acquired his contract, he lived the dream of every Massachusetts kid—but off the court Herren was secretly crumbling, as his alcohol and drug use escalated and his life spiraled out of control. Twenty years later, Chris Herren was a husband, a father, and a heroin junkie, who would flirt with death—and ultimately live to tell about it.




Basketball


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Inspired by a major ESPN film series, this is an extraordinary oral history of basketball—its eye-opening untold history, its profound deeper meaning, its transformative influence on the world—as told through an unprecedented series of candid conversations with the game’s ultimate icons. This is the greatest love story never told. It has passion and heartbreak, triumph and betrayal. It is deeply intimate yet crosses oceans, upends lives and changes nations. This is the true story of basketball. It is the story of a Canadian invention that took over America, and the world. Of a supposed “white man’s sport” that became a way for people of color, women, and immigrants to claim a new place in society. Of a game that demands everything of those who love it, yet gives so much back in return. To tell this story, acclaimed journalists Jackie MacMullan, Rafe Bartholomew and Dan Klores embarked on a groundbreaking mission to interview a staggering lineup of basketball trailblazers. For the first time hundreds of legends, from Kobe, Lebron and Steph Curry to Magic Johnson, Dr. J and Jerry West, spoke movingly about their greatest passion. Former NBA commissioner David Stern and iconic coaches like Phil Jackson and Coach K opened up like never before. Those who shattered glass ceilings, from Bill Russell and Yao Ming to Cheryl Miller and Lisa Leslie, explained what it really took to lay claim to their place in the game. At once a definitive oral history and something far more revelatory and life affirming, Basketball: A Love Story is the defining untold oral history of how basketball came to be, and what it means to those who love it.




Not a Game


Book Description

Allen Iverson transcended race, celebrity, and pop culture and emerged from a troubled past to become one of the most successful and highly compensated athletes in the world. Babb examines what drove his successes and failures, getting behind the familiar, sanitized, and heroic version of Iverson-- the hard-charging, hard-partying athlete who played every game as if it were his last. He brings to life a private, loyal, and often generous Allen Iverson who rarely made the headlines, revealing the back story behind some of Iverson's most memorable moments, and delves deep to discover where Iverson's demons lurked. Over time, Iverson himself came to believe his own hype: that he lived in a world where celebrity is eternal and riches are everlasting.




Rules for Old Men Waiting


Book Description

A brief, lyrical novel with a powerful emotional charge, Rules for Old Men Waiting is about three wars of the twentieth century and an ever-deepening marriage. In a house on the Cape “older than the Republic,” Robert MacIver, a historian who long ago played rugby for Scotland, creates a list of rules by which to live out his last days. The most important rule, to “tell a story to its end,” spurs the old Scot on to invent a strange and gripping tale of men in the trenches of the First World War. Drawn from a depth of knowledge and imagination, MacIver conjures the implacable, clear-sighted artist Private Callum; the private’s nemesis Sergeant Braddis, with his pincerlike nails; Lieutenant Simon Dodds, who takes on Braddis; and Private Charlie Alston, who is ensnared in this story of inhumanity and betrayal but brings it to a close. This invented tale of the Great War prompts MacIver’s own memories of his role in World War II and of Vietnam, where his son, David served. Both the stories and the memories alike are lit by the vivid presence of Margaret, his wife. As Hearts and Minds director Peter Davis writes, “Pouncey has wrought an almost inconceivable amount of beauty from pain, loss, and war, and I think he has been able to do this because every page is imbued with the love story at the heart of his astonishing novel.”




Principles of Successful Coaching by an Old School Coach—Ron Mayberry


Book Description

The first question anyone should have for me is, Why would anyone be interested in an autobiography about my life as a coach? That would be a fair question, since I havent won any national championships nor have I been in demand for speaking engagements. If you compare my coaching record to others, my won-lost record doesnt stand out. With that said, let me explain what I have to offer, and then you decide. This book is not just about my life as a coach, but rather, the lessons I have learned through my coaching career. Being old-school is about coaching kids and young adults, not a particular sport, gender, age, or level of play. I have coached on every level of play that exists and coached both genders on those levels, along with almost every sport that a school offers.




Sports Data Mining


Book Description

Data mining is the process of extracting hidden patterns from data, and it’s commonly used in business, bioinformatics, counter-terrorism, and, increasingly, in professional sports. First popularized in Michael Lewis’ best-selling Moneyball: The Art of Winning An Unfair Game, it is has become an intrinsic part of all professional sports the world over, from baseball to cricket to soccer. While an industry has developed based on statistical analysis services for any given sport, or even for betting behavior analysis on these sports, no research-level book has considered the subject in any detail until now. Sports Data Mining brings together in one place the state of the art as it concerns an international array of sports: baseball, football, basketball, soccer, greyhound racing are all covered, and the authors (including Hsinchun Chen, one of the most esteemed and well-known experts in data mining in the world) present the latest research, developments, software available, and applications for each sport. They even examine the hidden patterns in gaming and wagering, along with the most common systems for wager analysis.




KG: A to Z


Book Description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER​ A unique, unfiltered memoir from the NBA champion and fifteen-time all-star ahead of his induction into the Hall of Fame. Kevin Garnett was one of the most dominant players the game of basketball has ever seen. He was also one of its most outspoken. Over the course of his illustrious twenty-one-year NBA career, he elevated trash talk to an art form and never shied away from sharing his thoughts on controversial subjects. In KG A to Z, published ahead of Garnett’s induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame, he looks back on his life and career with the same raw candor. Garnett describes the adversity he faced growing up in South Carolina before ultimately relocating to Chicago, where he became one of the top prospects in the nation. He details his headline-making decision to skip college and become the first player in two decades to enter the draft directly from high school, starting a trend that would be followed by future superstars like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. He shares stories of playing with and against Bryant, James, Michael Jordan, and other NBA greats, and he chronicles his professional ups and downs, including winning a championship with the Boston Celtics. He also speaks his mind on a range of topics beyond basketball, such as fame, family, racism, spirituality, and music. Garnett’s draft decision wasn’t the only way he’d forever change the game. His ability to play on the perimeter as a big man foreshadowed the winning strategy now universally adopted by the league. He applies this same innovative spirit here, organizing the contents alphabetically as an encyclopedia. If you thought Kevin Garnett was exciting, inspiring, and unfiltered on the court, just wait until you read what he has to say in these pages.