Heroic Comeback


Book Description

When Wilma Rudolph was a child, she couldnÕt walk, yet she overcame the odds to win three gold medals as an Olympic Sprinter in 1960, inspiring wonder. Young readers will delight in reading about Rudolph and athletes like her in Real Heroes of Sport: Heroic Comebacks.




Pro Football's All-Time Greatest Comebacks


Book Description

"Describes great comeback stories for teams and athletes from National Football League (NFL) history"--




The Champion's Mind


Book Description

Even among the most elite performers, certain athletes stand out as a cut above the rest, able to outperform in clutch, game-deciding moments. These athletes prove that raw athletic ability doesn't necessarily translate to a superior on-field experience—its the mental game that matters most. Sports participation—from the recreational to the collegiate Division I level—is at an all-time high. While the caliber of their games may differ, athletes at every level have one thing in common: the desire to excel. In The Champion's Mind, sports psychologist Jim Afremow, PhD, offers the same advice he uses with Olympians, Heisman Trophy winners, and professional athletes, including: • How to get in a "zone," thrive on a team, and stay humble • How to progress within a sport and sustain long-term excellence • Customizable pre-performance routines to hit full power when the gun goes off or the puck is dropped With hundreds of useful tips, breakthrough science, and cutting-edge workouts from the world's top trainers, The Champion's Mind will help you shape your body to ensure a longer, healthier, happier lifetime.




Baseball's Comeback Players


Book Description

This book profiles forty major league ballplayers who engineered remarkable comebacks to salvage fading careers. Details of each comeback is provided along with a summary of the player's career. The comeback players range from Hall of Famers like Ted Williams and Stan Musial; to near-greats like Tommy John and Luis Tiant; to journeyman performers like George McQuinn and Tony Cuccinello. In the absence of statistical standards to evaluate or even define comebacks, the selection of the top comeback players was based on the following criteria: historical significance, uniqueness, dramatic content, degree of difficulty, and the player's overall reputation and standing.





Book Description




American Triumvirate


Book Description

With compelling detail and pure passion, James Dodson recounts the singular brilliance of three golf titans and how they saved the professional tour and created the game as we know it today. During the Depression golf was in crisis. As a spectator sport it was on the verge of extinction. This was the unhappy prospect facing Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, and Ben Hogan –two dirt-poor boys from Texas and another from Virginia, who had dedicated themselves to the sport. But then lightning struck, and from the late thirties into the fifties these three men were so thoroughly dominant that they transformed both how the game was played and how society regarded it. Paving the way for the subsequent popularity of players from Arnold Palmer to Tiger Woods, they were, and will always remain, a triumvirate for the ages.




Paths to Glory


Book Description

An essential experience of being a baseball fan is the hopeful anticipation of seeing the hometown nine make a run at winning the World Series. In Paths to Glory, Mark L. Armour and Daniel R. Levitt review how teams build themselves up into winners. What makes a winning team like the 1900 Brooklyn Superbas or the 1917 White Sox or the 1997 Florida Marlins? And how are these teams different? What makes each championship team a unique product of its time? Armour and Levitt provide the historical context to show how the sport's business side has changed dramatically but its competitive environment remains the same. Utilizing new statistics to evaluate a player's value and career patterns, Armour and Levitt explore the teams that took risks, created their own opportunities, and changed the game. How did the Washington Senators achieve the unthinkable and blow past Babe Ruth's Yankees in 1924 and 1925? How did the 1965 Minnesota Twins quickly rise to the top and why did they just as suddenly fall? Did Charlie Finley assemble the last old-fashioned championship team before free agency, or was the Moustache Gang another example of winning by building from within? Why did the star-laden Red Sox of the 1930s keep falling short? In exploring these teams and more, Armour and Levitt analyze the players, the managers, and the executives who built teams to win and then lived with the consequences.




Confucianism, A Habit of the Heart


Book Description

Can Confucianism be regarded as a civil religion for East Asia? This book explores this question, bringing the insights of Robert Bellah to a consideration of various expressions of the contemporary Confucian revival. Bellah identified American civil religion as a religious dimension of life that can be found throughout US culture, but one without any formal institutional structure. Rather, this "civil" form of religion provides the ethical principles that command reverence and by which a nation judges itself. Extending Bellah's work, contributors from both the social sciences and the humanities conceive of East Asia's Confucian revival as a "habit of the heart," an underlying belief system that guides a society, and examine how Confucianism might function as a civil religion in China, Korea, and Japan. They discuss what aspects of Confucian tradition and thought are being embraced; some of the social movements, political factors, and opportunities connected with the revival of the tradition; and why Confucianism has not traveled much beyond East Asia. The late Robert Bellah's reflection on the possibility for a global civil religion concludes the volume.




Hound Town


Book Description

Winning is about more than putting the puck in the net. A team needs to work hard every day, both on and off the ice, to create the strength and determination required to make a run at victory. It also takes a community of people dedicated to helping in any way they can. The Soo Greyhounds have become one of the most dynamic, successful, and exciting teams playing hockey in North America, but they didn't get there alone. In Sault Ste. Marie, it takes a village to raise a hockey team. Player profiles include some of the Greyhounds' alumni, such as Wayne Gretzky, Ron Francis, Joe Thornton, Paul Coffey, Adam Foote, John Vanbiesbrouck and Craig Hartsburg as they pursued their hockey and other dreams. Hound Town looks at the relationship between a team and its community as the franchise heads into its forty-fifth season. It also, demystifies the operations of a hockey franchise in the OHL by providing accurate information to assist players, parents, advisors, and fans. Through player profiles, highlights and struggles from each season, and a look behind the scenes at the amazing people who provide support, it shows that the Soo Greyhounds are an integral part of Sault Ste. Marie, and truly the community's team. From the team's first season in 1972 to the shifting trends in today's game, the book provides an insider's perspective on a seminal OHL hockey club, and what it takes to make Sault Ste. Marie one of the best hockey towns anywhere.




Two to Go


Book Description

A funny and moving novel about fried chicken, friendship, and big dreams of leaving the minimum-wage, fast-food grind far, far behind.