American Football History

This wide-ranging history synthesizes scholarship and media sources to give the listener an inside view of the television contracts, labor issues, and other off-the-field forces that shaped the National Football League. Historian Richard Crepeau shows how Commissioner Pete Rozelle's steady leadership guided the league's explosive growth during the era of Monday Night Football and the Super Bowl's transformation into a mid-winter spectacle.

From the former executive director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame comes a sweeping and lively history of the National Football League, timed to coincide with the NFL’s 100th anniversary season. “I can think of no one better qualified—or more enthusiastic—to chronicle the National...

The “deeply researched, surprise-on-every-page, and altogether marvelous” (Weekly Standard) tale of the five owners who shepherded the NFL through its tumultuous early decades and built the most popular sport in America The National Football League is a towering, distinctly American colossus...

From the day Princeton played the first intercollegiate game in 1869, these major schools of the northeast - Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale - shaped football as we now know it. In this rich history, Bernstein shows that much of the culture that surrounds American football, both good and bad, has its roots in the Ivy League.

A Brief History of American Football is a sweeping, cinematic journey through the evolution of America’s most beloved sport. From muddy college fields in the 19th century to billion-dollar stadiums and global broadcasts, Derek Monaghan traces the game’s transformation with vivid storytelling, historical insight, and cultural depth.

In this groundbreaking biography, David Maraniss captures all of football great Vince Lombardi: the myth, the man, his game, and his God. More than any other sports figure, Vince Lombardi transformed football into a metaphor of the American experience. The son of an Italian immigrant butcher...

Award-winning sportswriter Ivan Maisel brings the forgotten legend of Notre Dame head football coach Frank Leahy back to life, based on rare and complete access to Fighting Irish football historical archives and the Leahy family. When Frank Leahy retired from Notre Dame after the 1953 season, he...

The Modern Creation Story American Soccer Didn't Know It Had By the late 1980s, U.S. soccer had solidified its reputation as a global laughingstock, a sporting oxymoron akin to Jamaican bobsledding: • Starting in 1950, the richest, most powerful nation on Earth had gone 0 for 9 trying to qualify for the World Cup. • Once the North American Soccer League petered out, U.S. sporting culture proved unable/unwilling to replace it. • Soccer on TV? Post-1984, only the odd indoor match might be found there — late at night, on content-starved cable outlets, after competitive lumberjacking. ...

In order to see the future, we must first view the past. The second book by author Cody Alexander dives into the evolution of the modern defense. From Bill Arnsparger's hybrid 3-4 to the three-safety defenses found in the pass-happy Big 12, Alexander details the path taken to get to where we are today. One primary element in all modern defenses is the use of hybrid players and the move towards a more position-less game. Coach Alexander explains how modern defenses are taking from the past to recreate what we are seeing on the field today. Defensive football is under attack by the ...

In football, as in life, the value we place on people changes with the rules of the games they play. When we first meet the young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father...

In this groundbreaking biography, David Maraniss captures all of football great Vince Lombardi: the myth, the man, his game, and his God. More than any other sports figure, Vince Lombardi transformed football into a metaphor of the American experience. The son of an Italian immigrant butcher...

When superstar athlete Jim Thorpe and football legend Pop Warner met in 1904 at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, they forged one of the winningest teams in American football history. Called "the team that invented football," they took on the best opponents of their day...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER With the same emotional generosity and effortlessly compelling storytelling that made All Over But the Shoutin’ a beloved bestseller, Rick Bragg continues his personal history of the Deep South. This time he’s writing about his grandfather Charlie Bundrum, a man who...

The untold WWII story of a former NFL player turned White House insider who worked with Churchill’s undercover agents in New York City to conduct the biggest foreign spy operation ever within the US, and inspired Ian Fleming's James Bond, for fans of Ben Macintyre and Erik Larson. As a tough...

By the New York Times bestselling author of Showtime—the source for HBO’s Winning Time—the definitive biography of mythic multi-sport star Bo Jackson. From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums...

The best NFL book of 2019 The NFL celebrates its 100th season in 2019. In this unique book, you will discover the most significant, fascinating and bizarre stories for every single day of the calendar year (even February 29). The perfect book for any NFL fan. Includes a foreword by Nat Coombs, acclaimed NFL broadcaster and writer. From the author: As an NFL history buff, it always surprized me there was no definitive book detailing the NFL’s most significant events on each day of the calendar year. Frustrated I didn’t have one to read I decided to create one myself. Hopefully, you’ll ...

The intimate, fly-on-the wall tale of the decline and fall of an America icon With one notable exception, the firms that make up what we know as Wall Street have always been part of an inbred, insular culture that most people only vaguely understand. The exception was Merrill Lynch, a firm...

Instant New York Times Bestseller ""A masterwork. ... O'Connor answers every question, deftly and deeply, that we've had about the most controversial person in America's biggest game."" —Peter King Four-time New York Times bestselling sport biographer Ian O’Connor pulls back the curtain on...

PRE-ORDER RISE OF THE VILLANS, GUILLEM BALAGUE'S NEW BOOK, NOW. OUT 25 SEPTEMBER ______________________________ 'A must-read for anyone who's doubted Pep's influence, from handing the power to Barça's homegrown crop to never betraying his childhood romanticism of the game Four Four Two...

Aliquippa, Pennsylvania is famous for two things: the Jones and Laughlin Steel mill, an industrial behemoth that helped win World War II; and football, with a high school team that has produced numerous NFL stars, including Mike Ditka and Darrelle Revis. But the mill, once the fourth largest producer in America, closed for good in 2000. What happens to a town when a dream dies? Does it just disappear?