War Football

During his fourteen years as the head of the NFL Players Association, DeMaurice Smith was a front line advocate for football players through some of the most tumultuous crises in NFL history: Colin Kaepernick’s protests, Deflategate, a lockout, two collective bargaining agreements, and more. But after witnessing the league’s troubling response to discrimination and racial unrest, both within the league and beyond, Smith realized it was time to pull back the curtain and speak truth to power.

Bill Belichick is one of the titans of today's game of football. Now, sports commentator and best-selling author Michael Holley follows three NFL teams - the New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs, and Atlanta Falcons - from training camp 2010 through the Super Bowl and into the April draft, opening a new window into Belichick's influence on the game. This one-of-a-kind exploration takes football fans behind the scenes of the most popular sport in America, with unprecedented insider access to the head coaches, scouts, trainers, and players.

In the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the 1942 Rose Bowl was moved from Pasadena to Durham, North Carolina, out of fear of Japanese attacks on the West Coast. It remains the only Rose Bowl game to ever be played outside of Pasadena. Duke University, led by legendary coach Wallace Wade Sr., faced off against underdog Oregon State College, with both teams preparing for a grueling fight on the football field while their thoughts wandered to the battlefields they would soon be on.

Like the men whose epic stories Jon Krakauer has told in his previous bestsellers, Pat Tillman was an irrepressible individualist and iconoclast. In May 2002, Tillman walked away from his $3.6 million NFL contract to enlist in the United States Army. He was deeply troubled by 9/11, and he felt a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Two years later, he died on a desolate hillside in southeastern Afghanistan.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, college football was at the height of its popularity. As the nation geared up for total war, one branch of the service dominated the aspirations of college football stars: the United States Marine Corps. Which is why, on Christmas Eve of 1944, when the 4th and 29th Marine regiments found themselves in the middle of the Pacific Ocean training for what would be the bloodiest battle of the war – the invasion of Okinawa—their ranks included one of the greatest pools of football talent ever assembled.

The Border War football series between Colorado State and Wyoming is defined by its longevity, proximity and one of the more unique traveling trophies in sports. The universities, separated by only 65 miles, have battled on the gridiron in three centuries for the iconic Bronze Boot, which was an actual combat boot worn by a military member in Vietnam. This book covers the history of the rivalry, from its controversial beginning in 1899 through the snowy battle for the boot in 2017. The Border War combatants agree to disagree on the all-time series ledger, but both sides have enjoyed their ...

"The Art of War for Soccer" is a groundbreaking book that seamlessly adapts the ancient wisdom of Sun Tzu to the modern soccer pitch, offering readers a unique lens through which to understand the strategy, tactics, and psychology of one of the world’s most beloved sports. This compelling read draws direct parallels between the battlefields of yesteryears and today's soccer arenas, illustrating how principles of warfare can inform and enhance approaches to soccer coaching, team management, and individual player development. At the heart of the book is the notion that success in soccer, ...

In the spring of 1942, the United States government forced 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes in California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona and sent them to incarceration camps across the West. Nearly 14,000 of them landed on the outskirts of Cody, Wyoming, at the base of Heart Mountain. Behind barbed wire fences, they faced racism, cruelty, and frozen winters. Trying to recreate comforts from home, they established Buddhist temples and sumo wrestling pits. Kabuki performances drew hundreds of spectators — yet there was little hope.

In the 1960s, on the heels of the “Greatest Game Ever Played”, professional football began to flourish across the country - except in Texas, where college football was still the only game in town. But in an unlikely series of events, two young oil tycoons started their own professional football franchises in Dallas the very same year: the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, and, as part of a new upstart league designed to thwart the NFL’s hold on the game, the Dallas Texans of the AFL. Almost overnight, a bitter feud was born.

This book is a story of survivors after a nuclear war. The community takes on a whole new meaning in the after-effects. The lucky ones live far enough away from the initial explosions. Survival becomes the one priority of all humans. Some will be civil to a point. Some will be ruthless. Some will murder anyone for their next meal. The journey begins on a small farm in the Midwest with a couple about to have their first child. What they see in the sky drastically changes their world.

From military bases to playing fields, from boxing rings to boardrooms - this is the unforgettable true story of a man shaped by discipline, driven by heart, and fueled by an unshakable will to succeed. After leaving home at a young age, he rose to become a West Point graduate, top-ranked boxer, teacher in a rough California school, real estate entrepreneur, licensed pilot, global traveler, devoted husband, and proud father. With every chapter of his life - triumphant, humorous, and sometimes tragic - Eddie leaned on the values instilled in him early - education, persistence, integrity, and...

Updated Second Edition. Since the 1950s, China has used the gifting of soccer stadiums throughout the world (known as stadium diplomacy) as a means of propaganda and influence peddling. This is especially the case on the continent of Africa. The practice has largely been overlooked as a curiosity until recently when it was linked to the People's Republic of China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Chinese Soccer Stadium Diplomacy is used to export the game's virtue while creating debt traps and concessions where strongarmed leaders have photo ops with soccer stars all the while ...

Each November, about a hundred people with paper poppies pinned to their coats gather around a memorial in Edinburgh. They're there to commemorate the more than a dozen members of the local football team, Heart of Midlothian - almost every member of its starting lineup and many of its backup players - who went to war. A Bigger Field Awaits Us tells the little-known but poignant story of a group of Scottish athletes and their fans who went to war together - and the stories of the few who made it home.

Greyson Hill expected his senior year at Pinesport High to be the best . His best friend, Trak, was back from spending his summer at Farragut Academy, a special school catering to the elite LECTROLS society. Genetically improved, LECTROLS are physically enhanced humans who are stronger, faster, and far more aggressive than their normal counterparts. Their physical prowess ensures their dominance in school and in society. Trak and Greyson had always been as close as brothers and they never let anything come between them. That might change if Trak was aware of Greyson's unrequited love ...

He doesn’t scare easy. He doesn’t back down. And this time, the victims can’t even speak for themselves. Private Investigator Jim Knighthorse is used to messy cases, but this one takes the prize. Heidi Mann is convinced her missing boyfriend was murdered by shark poachers. Not just any poachers, but the worst kind: the ones who use live animals as bait. When Mitch Golden’s body turns up shot and dumped in the ocean, Jim’s left to untangle a web of threats, smuggling, and cold-blooded greed stretching from California’s piers to Mexico’s backwater docks. But local cops don’t ...

From the shattered streets of war-torn Croatia to the floodlit finals of the world’s greatest stadiums, Luka Modrić: The Captain from the Ruins is the definitive biography of one of football’s most extraordinary figures. Born in Zaton Obrovački during the Croatian War of Independence, Modrić’s earliest memories were framed by displacement, scarcity, and the echoes of conflict. Yet amidst rubble and uncertainty, he forged the skills and resilience that would carry him from hotel car parks to Champions League glory. This book traces his journey in vivid detail: the improvised pitches...

Football is the heartbeat of Brownwood, Texas. Now, the war has changed everything. Most of the Brownwood men over 18 and under 45 are off fighting, and in a small town, the possibilities are limited. Could this mean a season without football? But no one counted on Assistant Principal Tylene Wilson, who learned the game at her daddy’s knee. She knows more about it than most men, so she does the unthinkable, convincing the school to let her take on the job of coach.

It's the proudest moment of Jack's life – his debut as a professional footballer. Now he has a chance to achieve his dream of playing for his country. But it's 1914 and the world is at war. Talk of sportsmen's cowardice leads to the formation of a Footballers' Battalion and Jack has little choice but to join up. The promise of a Cup in Flanders offers a glimmer of hope, but Jack and his teammates will have to survive a waking nightmare if they are ever to play again.

Ireland’s Call is the poignant account of the Irish sporting heroes who perished on the battlefields of the Great War. Written by an award-winning BBC journalist and bestselling author, it features the lives of Irish international sports stars from the world of football, rugby, cricket, GAA, athletics and hockey, whose lives ended in the mud of the Somme, the despair of Ypres and the heat of Gallipoli.

“The Breacher’s Playbook: A Deklan Novak Novel” Deklan fought his demons in the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan as a Navy SEAL breacher and now in Chicago as a special agent for the FBI’s Violent Crimes Against Children squad. That grit will be what he leans on in his new role as a tough FBI agent tasked with unraveling the disappearance of two children from a daycare center owned by his mother in this first installment. This debut narrative, the first in a planned three-book series, is a fictional account based on Hruby’s real-life story. The mystery thriller lays the ...