Summary of Caitlin Murray's The National Team


Book Description

Get the Summary of Caitlin Murray's The National Team in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. "The National Team" chronicles the evolution of the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team, from its serendipitous formation in 1985 to its struggles and triumphs on the world stage. Advocates like Marty Mankamyer and Betty D’Anjolell pushed for the sport's recognition, leading to the team's first international appearance in Italy. The passage of Title IX in 1972 had a significant impact, providing many players with opportunities to play sports at a higher level. Coaches like Anson Dorrance and April Heinrichs played pivotal roles in scouting and developing talent, including stars like Mia Hamm and Michelle Akers...




The Character Edge


Book Description

The former superintendent at West Point and a psychologist explain why all successful leaders rely on a foundation of strong character. Among the most successful leaders throughout history—from Abe Lincoln to Rosa Parks, Mahatma Gandhi to Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, Jr. to Nelson Mandela—some were brilliant mathematicians and economists, others were creative visionaries, still others were masterful at strategic planning. Their mastery of their field wasn’t the secret to their highly effective leadership. All of their skill, grit, resilience, charisma, and courage emanated from one thing: their strength of character. Character—the moral values and habits of an individual—is in the spotlight now more than perhaps at any other point in modern history. Politicians distort facts. Corporations cheat customers and investors. Athletes are caught using illegal supplements. In addition to harming our culture at large, these failures of character have a profound and undermining impact on leadership. The authors of this book are experts on the value of character, its correlation with successful leadership, and how to build it in individuals and prospective leaders. General Robert L. Caslen, Jr. served the US Army for over 43 years and served as Superintendent at the US Military Academy at West Point. Psychologist Dr. Michael D. Matthews is a Professor of Engineering Psychology at West Point who has focused on the psychology of character for years. Together they witnessed firsthand that raw talent is not enough to stand on its own; successful leadership relies on the critical foundation of a strong character. In The Character Edge they leverage their perspectives to offer an empowering, story-driven argument—backed by the latest scientific research—that character is vital to success. They give readers the tools to build and sustain character in themselves and their organizations by testing readers' strengths of the gut, head and heart and teaching how to build trust and nurture the seeds of character.




What's the Score?


Book Description

Who is the first female athlete you admired? Were male and female athletes treated differently in your high school? Is there a natural limit to women's athletic ability? How has Title IX opened up opportunities for women athletes? Every semester since 1996, Bonnie Morris has encouraged students to confront questions like these in one of the most provocative college courses in America: Athletics and Gender, A History of Women's Sports. What's the Score?, Morris's energetic teaching memoir, is a peek inside that class and features a decades-long dialogue with student athletes about the greater opportunities for women—on the playing field, as coaches, and in sports media. From corsets to segregated schoolyards to the WNBA, we find women athletes the world over conquering unique barriers to success. What's the Score? is not only an insider's look at sports education but also an engaging guide to turning points in women's sports history that everyone should know.




Soccer For Dummies


Book Description

Flick, fake, and dribble your way to soccer mastery Prepare for the World Cup or learn the rules for your own indoor or outdoor league, with Soccer For Dummies. We cover the world’s most popular sport from one end of the field to the other, starting with the history of soccer and the basics of the game. Discover the positions on the field, the best tactics for winning, and the skills the players (including you!) need in order to dominate. This update to the comprehensive guide introduces you to all the soccer greats and up-and-comers whose moves you’ll want to know. You'll find extensive coverage of women's soccer, including women’s world cup, the NWSL, Women’s Super League, and the UEFA Women’s Championship, and get descriptions of various leagues around the globe, and the lowdown on where you can find soccer games and resources, online and elsewhere. Learn how soccer got to be the #1 most popular sport in the world Get up to speed on the world’s best leagues, teams, and players, so you can follow and enjoy the World Cup Discover tips on playing and coaching, plus fun soccer facts and resources for learning more Become the ultimate soccer fan with your newfound knowledge of the game Soccer For Dummies is for anyone who wants to learn more about soccer, the rules, how the game is played, how professional leagues operate around the world, and how to follow them.




Don't Stick to Sports


Book Description

A significant examination of how athletes have fought for inclusion and equality on and off the playing field, despite calls for them to “stick to sports.” The claim that sports are—or ought to be—apolitical has itself never been an apolitical position. Rather, it is a veiled attempt to control which politics are acceptable in the athletic realm, a designation intricately linked to issues of race, gender, ethnicity, and more. In Don't Stick to Sports: The American Athlete’s Fight against Injustice, Derek Charles Catsam carefully explores this disparity. He looks at how, throughout recent sports history in the United States, minority athletes have had to fight every step of the way for their right to compete, and how they continue to fight for equity today. From African Americans and women to LGBTQ+ and religious minorities, Catsam shows how these athletes have taken a stand to address the underlying injustices in sports and society despite being told it’s not their place to do so. While it’s impossible for a single book to tell the entire history of exclusion in the sporting world, Don’t Stick to Sports looks at key moments from the World War I era to the present to shatter the myth of sports as a meritocracy, of sports-as-equalizer, highlighting the reality as something far more complicated—of sports as a malleable world where exclusion and inclusion are rarely straight-forward.




A Woman's Game


Book Description

A compelling and comprehensive history charting the rise, fall, and rise again of women's soccer Women's soccer is a game that has so often been relegated to the margins in a world fixated on gender differences above passion and talent. It is a game that could attract 50,000 fans to a stadium in the 1920s, was later banned by England's Football Association grounds for being "unsuitable for females", and has emerged as a global force in the modern era with the US Women's National Team leading the charge. A Woman's Game traces this arc of changing attitudes, increasing professionalism, and international growth. Veteran journalist Suzanne Wrack has crafted a thoroughly reported history which pushes back at centuries of boundaries while celebrating the many wonders that women's soccer has to offer. With the enormous success of the World Cup, 82 million US viewers for the USWNT against Netherlands in the 2019 World Cup Final, enlightened and outspoken players like Megan Rapinoe helping raise the profile of the game across the world, and a fully professional top-tier league going from strength to strength in both the US and the UK, the time cannot be better for this in-depth look at the beautiful game.




Women’s Football in a Global, Professional Era


Book Description

Women’s Football in a Global, Professional Era is an important addition to discussions on sport as work for women, and an essential reference point for students, researchers and sports professionals interested in the debates around the professionalisation of women’s football internationally.




My Greatest Save


Book Description

A deeply moving and painfully honest memoir from the trailblazing, World Cup–winning, Olympic gold medalist, and US Women’s soccer goalie Briana Scurry Briana Scurry was a pioneer on the US Women’s National Team. She won gold in Atlanta in 1996, the first time women’s soccer was ever played in the Olympics. She was a key part of the fabled “99ers,” making an epic save in the decisive penalty-kick shootout in the final. Scurry captured her second Olympic gold in 2004, cementing her status as one of the premier players in the world. She was the only Black player on the team, and she was also the first player to be openly gay. It was a singularly amazing ride, one that Scurry handled with her trademark generosity and class—qualities that made her one of the most popular players ever to wear a US jersey. But Scurry’s storybook career ended in 2010 when a knee to the head left her with severe head trauma. She was labeled “temporarily totally disabled,” and the reality was even worse. She spiraled into depression, debt, and endured such pain that she closed out her closest friends and soccer soulmates. She pawned her gold medals. She walked to the edge of a waterfall and contemplated suicide. It seemed like the only way out until Scurry made her greatest save of all. A memoir of startling candor, My Greatest Save is a story of triumph, tragedy, and redemption from a woman who has broken through barriers her entire life.




The Sisterhood


Book Description

For legions of soccer fans, the players on the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team are the game's standard-bearers. Together their accomplishments include four World Cup titles and four Olympic gold medals. Within five years of their inaugural match in 1985, the team was the best women's soccer team on the planet. But its rise was neither easy nor harmonious. The national team came onto the scene when team sports for women were in their infancy. The players were paid little and played to sparse crowds on marginal pitches and carried their own equipment and luggage. They faced discrimination and unequal treatment, most notably from their governing bodies, FIFA and U.S. Soccer. The Sisterhood is the story of the first and second generations of national team players, known as the 99ers, who were the driving force behind the rise of U.S. women's soccer and who built the foundation for the team's enduring success. Rob Goldman takes the reader onto the pitch and into the minds of the players and coaches for the team's greatest victories and most heartbreaking defeats. Among those featured are players Michelle Akers, Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, and Brandi Chastain, as well as coaches Anson Dorrance and Tony DiCicco. When the team won the '99 World Cup in front of more than ninety thousand fans at the Rose Bowl, it was the largest crowd to ever attend a women's sporting event. After Brandi Chastain's winning penalty kick beat China, everything changed. These women's soccer players were no longer outcasts; they were hard-nosed players and leaders who not only transformed women's sports but led a cultural revolution. They were trailblazers, role models, and selfless best friends. Their story, told here largely in the voices of the players and coaches who were there, is epic and inspiring.




Great Expectations


Book Description

In Great Expectations: The Sociology of Survival and Success in Organized Team Sports, sociological analysis proves to be a powerful ally for grasping how the sports world unfolds for team players, providing a range of sociological ideas and concepts that extend throughout the book. The text boxes and class discussion sections help summarize key issues, linking important sociological concepts to the topics at hand. The eight chapters begin with an introduction and then detail athletes’ activities at different stages in their development.