Driven


Book Description

The legendary NFL receiver, all-time receptions and yards leader for the Green Bay Packers, and Dancing with the Stars champion looks back on his life and career. When he was picked in the seventh-round of 1999 NFL draft, Donald Driver couldn’t find Green Bay on a map. He was given little chance of making the Packers roster, much less of amassing over 10,000 yards in his career and becoming a Super Bowl champion. But in an unlikely journey, Driver has overcome obstacle after obstacle to become one of the most successful players in the NFL. Now, for the first time, Driver recalls his time growing up in Houston, spending nights living in a U-Haul trailer with his mother and stealing cars and selling drugs with his brother to get by. He recalls what it was like to walk into the locker room as a little-regarded prospect out of Alcorn State, an athlete who one year earlier thought his future was in high jump rather than football, and why he would have never made the team without the support of General Manager Ron Wolf. With the help of his winning speed, skill, not to mention, smile, Driver became one of Brett Favre's most-trusted targets and a fan favorite at Lambeau. (Though it took some time for him to perfect his Lambeau leap.) Driven takes you inside the locker room with Favre, shares his experiences with Reggie White, and recalls his more recent role as a veteran leader for like Aaron Rodgers and Greg Jennings during their Super Bowl run in 2010. Over 14 years Driver has been through it all—game winning touchdowns, crushing playoff defeats, frightening injuries, and the glory of the Super Bowl. Traveling off the field, Driver discuss his relationship with his wife and three children: how uncertain they were when he undertook the relentless training necessary to become a champion on the 2012 season of Dancing With the Stars, and how supportive they are of his charity work and service to God. Driver retired on his terms after 14 years in the NFL: as a Packer for life. Driven is the definitive story of Donald Driver’s extraordinary journey.




Green Bay Packers


Book Description

The history of the fabled franchise is explored. The Packers are a cornerstone of the NFL and one of the most recognizable sports teams in the world




Life After Favre


Book Description

A Wisconsin native returns to Green Bay to cover the Packers' tumultuous first season following the departure of their legendary quarterback, Brett Favre.




Instant Replay


Book Description

In 1967, when Jerry Kramer was a thirty-one-year-old Green Bay Packers offensive lineman, in his tenth year with the team, he decided to keep a diary of the season. “Perhaps, by setting down my daily thoughts and observations,” he wrote, “I’ll be able to understand precisely what it is that draws me back to professional football.” Working with the renowned journalist Dick Schaap, Kramer recorded his day-to-day experiences as a player with perception, honesty, humor, and startling sensitivity. Little did Kramer know that the 1967 season would be one of the most remarkable in the history of pro football, culminating with the legendary championship game against Dallas now known as the “Ice Bowl,” in which Kramer would play a central role. Nor could he have anticipated that his diary would evolve into a book titled Instant Replay, first published in 1968, that would become a multimillion-copy bestseller and be celebrated by reviewers everywhere, including the Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley, who calls it “to this day, the best inside account of pro football, indeed the best book ever written about that sport and that league.” This groundbreaking look inside the world of professional football is one of the first books ever to take readers into the locker room and reveal the inner workings of a professional sports franchise. From training camp, through the historic Ice Bowl, then into the locker room of Super Bowl II, Kramer provides a captivating player’s perspective on pro football when the game was all blood, grit, and tears. He also offers a rare and insightful view of the team’s storied leader, Coach Vince Lombardi. Bringing the book back into print for the first time in more than a decade, this new edition of Instant Replay retains the classic look of the original and includes a foreword by Jonathan Yardley and additional rarely seen photos from the celebrated “Lombardi era.” As vivid and engaging as it was when it was first published, Instant Replay is an irreplaceable reminder of the glory days of pro football.




If These Walls Could Talk: Green Bay Packers


Book Description

The Green Bay Packers are one of the most successful teams in the NFL, with 13 world championships and four Super Bowl wins. Authors Wayne Larrivee and Rob Reischel through interviews with current and past players, provide fans with a one-of-a-kind, insider's look into the great moments, the lowlights, and everything in between. Readers will hear from players, coaches, and personnel as they discuss their moments of greatness as well as their defeats, making for a keepsake no fan will want to miss.




Packers Pride


Book Description

For more than 90 years, the Green Bay Packers have been the model of excellence across the National Football League. Now, LeRoy Butler—a 12-year veteran and one of the most popular Packers ever to don the uniform—teams up with Rob Reischel to tell the stories of the Packers’ most memorable players and coaches, including Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, Forrest Gregg, Jim Taylor, Herb Adderly, Willie Wood, James Lofton, Sterling Sharpe, Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, and Donald Driver to name but a few. Packers Pride looks at the favorite games, favorite moments, and behind-the-scenes stories of the men who played and coached for the team with 13 World Championships, more than any other team in football.




When Pride Still Mattered


Book Description

By the time he died of cancer in 1970, after one season in Washington during which he transformed the Redskins into winners, Lombardi had become a mythic character who transcended sport, and his legend has only grown in the decades since. Many now turn to Lombardi in search of characteristics that they fear have been irretrievably lost, the oldfashioned virtues of discipline, obedience, loyalty, character, and teamwork. To others he symbolizes something less romantic: modern society's obsession with winning and superficial success. In When Pride Still Mattered, Maraniss renders Lombardi as flawed and driven yet ultimately misunderstood, a heroic figure who was more complex and authentic than the stereotypical images of him propounded by admirers and critics.




Run to Win


Book Description

Looks a the life of the football coach and shows how to apply Vince Lombardi's coaching style to the business world and everyday life.




Gunslinger


Book Description

“Over two decades, Brett Favre was as compelling a figure as any in the National Football League. He alone was 'Must-See TV.' In Gunslinger, Jeff Pearlman provides an extraordinary look at every facet of the life of a man who performed on sport's grandest stage and who had one helluva time along the way.”—Al Michaels In Gunslinger, Jeff Pearlman tells Brett Favre’s story for the first time, charting his unparalleled journey from a rough rural childhood and lackluster high school football career to landing the last scholarship at Southern Mississippi, to a car accident that nearly took his life, and eventually to the NFL and Green Bay, where he restored the Packers to greatness and inspired a fan base as passionate as any in the game. Yet he struggled with demons: addiction, infidelity, the loss of his father, and a fraught, painfully prolonged exit from the game he loved, a game he couldn’t bear to leave. Gritty and revelatory, Gunslinger is a big sports biography of the highest order, a fascinating portrait of the man with the rocket arm whose life has been one of triumph, fame, tragedy, embarrassment, and—ultimately—redemption. “The compelling, complete story of his legend, and his faults.”—Chicago Tribune




Alive and Kicking


Book Description

Chester Marcol was a Polish immigrant who spoke no English when he discovered football by accident in 1965 as a shy high school student in Imlay City, Michigan. By 1972, he was a household name in Wisconsin after being named National Football League rookie of the year with the Green Bay Packers. Known for his frizzy hair, thick glasses, and powerful right leg, he led the league in scoring in two of his first three years and was among the top place-kickers in the game. Marcol authored one of the most famous plays in franchise history in 1980, when he caught his own blocked field goal in overtime and ran for a touchdown in a thrilling 12-6 season-opening victory over the Chicago Bears.In his autobiographyAlive and KickingMarcol talks about the hurdles he overcame as a Polish immigrant to become an NFL star, provides a no-holds-barred look at his alcohol and substance abuse that cost him his football career and family, and for the first time publicly, he discusses his suicide attempt in 1986 that continues to affect his health to this day. A member of the Packers Hall of Fame, Marcol lives in Michigan's Upper Peninsula where he works as a certified alcohol and drug abuse counselor and fights the daily battle to remain clean and sober.