FLC Staff Picks Blog

Vickie's pick: Sport Classics

It takes so much to succeed in sports.  Beyond talent, it takes strategy, awareness, self-determination, sacrifice, emotional intelligence (and intelligence in general) and opportunity.  It's said to be a microcosm of the world; but, I think it's more brave than that. It's highly competitive. And, it's a long-shot.  Those that participate must have the confidence to succeed and desire to live with the ups and downs ... all for the love of the game.  It's ultimately romantic and fulfilling; and those that participate are the most devoted and remarkable people.  Below is just a sampling of the many wonderful sports stories out there.

note: Follow the title links to get a full description or to the "place a hold". We'll pull it for you!

The Real All Americans by Sally Jenkins

Call Number: GV 958 .U55 J46 2008

 If you'd guess that Yale or Harvard ruled the college gridiron in 1911 and 1912, you'd be wrong. The most popular team belonged to an institution called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. The Real All Americans is about the end of a culture and the birth of a game that has thrilled Americans for generations.

 

 

The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn

Call Number: 796.35764 K12b, 2000

This is a book about some young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s in such places as Reading, Pennsylvania; Anderson, Indiana; Plainfield, New Jersey; Woonsocket, Rhode Island; and then went on to play for one of the most exciting professional teams that the major leagues ever fielded--the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s--the team that broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson and set many other records besides.

 

Friday Night Lights, 25th Anniversary Edition by H. g. Bissinger

Call Number: 796.33262 B623f, 2015

Named Sports Illustrated's best football book of all time and a #1 NYT bestseller, this is the classic story of a high school football team whose win-loss record has a profound influence on the town around them. Socially and racially divided, Odessa isn't known to be a place big on dreams, but every Friday night from September to December, when the Panthers play football, dreams can come true.

 

Running with the Kenyans by Adharanand Finn

Call Number: GV 1061.23 .K4 F56 2013

Whether running is your recreation or your religion, Adharanand Finn's incredible journey to the elite training camps of Kenya will captivate and inspire you, as he ventures to uncover the secrets of the fastest people on earth. Finn's mesmerizing quest combines a fresh look at barefoot running practical advice on the sport,and the fulfillment of a lifelong dream: to run with his heroes.

 

Coach Wooden and Me by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Call Number: GV 884 .A1 A23 2017

Former NBA star and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Kareem Abdul-Jabbar explores his 50-year friendship with Coach John Wooden, one of the most enduring and meaningful relationships in sports history. When future NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was still an 18-year-old high school basketball prospect from New York City named Lew Alcindor, he accepted a scholarship from UCLA largely on the strength of Coach John Wooden's reputation as a winner. It turned out to be the right choice ...

 

The Game of Our Lives by David Goldblatt

Call Number: GV 943.55 .F37 G65 2014

The Game of Our Lives is a masterly portrait of soccer and contemporary Britain. Soccer in the United Kingdom has evolved from a jaded, working-class tradition to a sport at the heart of popular culture, from an economic mess to a booming entertainment industry that has conquered the world. The changes in the game, David Goldblatt shows, uncannily mirror the evolution of British society.

 

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby

Call Number: 796.334 H814f, 1998

In America, it is soccer. But in Great Britain, it is the real football. No pads, no prayers, no prisoners.  Fever Pitch is Hornby's tribute to a lifelong obsession. Part autobiography, part comedy, part incisive analysis of insanity, Hornby's award-winning memoir captures the fever pitch of fandom--its agony and ecstasy, its community, its defining role in thousands of young men's coming-of-age stories. Fever Pitch is one for the home team. But above all, it is one for everyone who knows what it really means to have a losing season.

 

Triumph by Jeremy Schaap

Call Number: 796.42 S299t, 2008

At the 1936 Olympics, against a backdrop of swastikas and goose-stepping storm troopers, an African-American son of sharecroppers won a staggering four gold medals and single-handedly demonstrated that Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy was a lie. With his incisive reporting and rich storytelling, Schaap reveals what really happened over those tense, exhilarating weeks in a nuanced and riveting work of sports history.

 

Sting Like a Bee by Leigh Montville

Call Number: GV 1132 .A45 M66 2017

Muhammad Ali, in the late 1960s, was young, successful, brash, and hugely admired-but with some reservations. He was bombastic and cocky in a way that captured the imagination of America, but also drew its detractors. He was a bold young African American in an era when few people were as outspoken. Muhammed Ali vs. the United States of America is an important and incredibly engaging book.

 

Shattering the Glass by Pamela Grundy; Susan Shackelford

Call Number: 796.323082 G889s, 2007

Reaching back over a century of struggle, liberation, and gutsy play, Shattering the Glass is a sweeping chronicle of women's basketball in the United States. Offering vivid portraits of forgotten heroes and contemporary stars, Grundy and Shackelford provide a broad perspective on the history of the sport, exploring its close relationship to concepts of womanhood, race, and sexuality, and to efforts to expand women's rights.

 

Game, Set, Match by Susan Ware

Call Number: 796.342 W272g, 2011

When Billie Jean King trounced Bobby Riggs in tennis's "Battle of the Sexes" in 1973, she placed sports squarely at the center of a national debate about gender equity. In this winning combination of biography and history, Susan Ware argues that King's challenge to sexism, the supportive climate of second-wave feminism, and the legislative clout of Title IX sparked a women's sports revolution in the 1970s that fundamentally reshaped American society.

 

Satchel by Larry Tye

Call Number: GV 865 .P3 T94 2010

Here is the superbly researched, spellbindingly told story of athlete, showman, philosopher, and boundary breaker Leroy "Satchel" Paige. Through dogged research and extensive interviews, award-winning author and journalist Larry Tye has tracked down the truth about this majestic and enigmatic pitcher. Here is the stirring account of the child born to a poor Alabama washerwoman, the boy who earned his nickname .. read to find out!

 

Days of Grace by Arthur Ashe

Call Number: GV 994 .A7 A7 1993

 DAYS OF GRACE is an inspiring memoir of a remarkable man who was the true embodiment of courage, elegance, and the spirit to fight: Arthur Ashe--tennis champion, social activist, and person with AIDS. Frank, revealing, touching--DAYS OF GRACE is the story of a man felled to soon. It remains as his legacy to us all....

 

 

 

Playing for Keeps by David Halberstam

Call Number: 927.96 J82H, 1999

David Halberstam takes the first full measure of Michael Jordan's epic career, one of the great American stories of our time. A narrative of astonishing power and human drama, brimming with revealing anecdotes and penetrating insights, the book chronicles the forces in Jordan's life that have shaped him into history's greatest basketball player, and the larger forces that have converged to make him the most famous living human being in the world.

 

Paper Lion by George Plimpton

Call Number: GV 939 .P55 P37 2016

The book that made a legend -- George Plimpton, with his characteristic wit, recounts his experiences in talking his way into training camp with the Detroit Lions, practicing with the team, and taking snaps behind center. His breezy style captures the pressures and tensions rookies confront, the hijinks that pervade when sixty high-strung guys live together in close quarters, and a host of football rites and rituals.


note: unless otherwise stated, descriptions were edited from publisher information.