Download or read book America s Trailblazing Middle Linebacker written by Joe Zagorski and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-02-12 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Willie Lanier was the first African-American middle linebacker in pro football history, playing for the Kansas City Chiefs from 1967-1977 in an era when discrimination against black athletes was still very much the norm. Lanier gave football fans a new mold of athlete, comprised of equal amounts intelligence, creativity, individualism, and collaboration. America's Trailblazing Middle Linebacker: The Story of NFL Hall of Famer Willie Lanier explores the life and times of this groundbreaking football star. A walk-on at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, Lanier established himself as a force on the field. Drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in 1967, Lanier fought his way to the starting middle linebacker position and became a Super Bowl champion, an eight time All-Pro, and the NFL’s Man of the Year in 1972. After retiring from football, Lanier went to work in the business world and became the CEO of a major US company. This book delves into Lanier’s college years, his NFL exploits, and his many successes off the gridiron, revealing a man who, through hard work and determination, made the most of every opportunity that came his way. On and off the football field, Lanier showed America a glimpse of the future, when fairness, opportunity, and racial integrity could be the reality for everyone. An inspiration for athletes and fans everywhere, Lanier’s story is that of a man who loved challenges, and faced every one of them with an unmatched drive to excel and succeed. Lanier was, and still is, a trailblazer.

Download or read book The 2 003 Yard Odyssey written by Joe Zagorski and published by Austin Macauley Publishers. This book was released on 2024-05-24 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “It was a season where the impossible became possible. It was a season where the hard to believe became believable.” --Marv Levy, Pro Football Hall of Fame Coach. The 1973 Buffalo Bills made pro football history. They had an offense that broke several important rushing records during that memorable year. And they had a superstar running back by the name of O.J. Simpson, who broke a glass ceiling of sorts by becoming the first man -- and indeed the only man -- to ever rush for more than 2,000 yards in one 14-game regular season. That glory-filled accomplishment provided the celebrated culmination to this epic tale of a week-by-week journey from an initial goal to its triumphant ending. In The 2,003-Yard Odyssey: The Juice, The Electric Company, and an Epic Run for a Record, several members of that Buffalo Bills team recall their memories of that year. They discuss how that 1973 season began with a bunch of question marks, then how a boast by one of their offensive linemen led to a challenge for the whole squad to address. A major focus in this book are the feats of the incomparable O.J. Simpson, who earned pro football fame and glory with his record-breaking 1973 performance. This story recounts how Simpson set a mark that was thought of by most people to be impossible to achieve. It was an odyssey unlike any other in NFL annals, and it is explored in concentrated depth and detail within these pages. Joe Zagorski is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America and the Pro Football Researchers Association. He has written several previous books about various teams and players of the NFL. He is also a contributing writer to the website Pro Football Journal and the administrator of the Facebook page, The NFL in the 1970s. He resides in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Marv Levy, who wrote the foreword for this book, is a coaching legend in both the United States and in Canada. He led the Buffalo Bills to four straight Super Bowl appearances from 1990 to 1993. He is also an honored member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Download or read book The 2 003 Yard Odyssey written by Joe Zagorski and published by Austin Macauley. This book was released on 2024-05-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It was a season where the impossible became possible. It was a season where the hard to believe became believable." --Marv Levy, Pro Football Hall of Fame Coach. The 1973 Buffalo Bills made pro football history. They had an offense that broke several important rushing records during that memorable year. And they had a superstar running back by the name of O.J. Simpson, who broke a glass ceiling of sorts by becoming the first man -- and indeed the only man -- to ever rush for more than 2,000 yards in one 14-game regular season. That glory-filled accomplishment provided the celebrated culmination to this epic tale of a week-by-week journey from an initial goal to its triumphant ending. In The 2,003-Yard Odyssey: The Juice, The Electric Company, and an Epic Run for a Record, several members of that Buffalo Bills team recall their memories of that year. They discuss how that 1973 season began with a bunch of question marks, then how a boast by one of their offensive linemen led to a challenge for the whole squad to address. A major focus in this book are the feats of the incomparable O.J. Simpson, who earned pro football fame and glory with his record-breaking 1973 performance. This story recounts how Simpson set a mark that was thought of by most people to be impossible to achieve. It was an odyssey unlike any other in NFL annals, and it is explored in concentrated depth and detail within these pages. Joe Zagorski is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America and the Pro Football Researchers Association. He has written several previous books about various teams and players of the NFL. He is also a contributing writer to the website Pro Football Journal and the administrator of the Facebook page, The NFL in the 1970s. He resides in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Marv Levy, who wrote the foreword for this book, is a coaching legend in both the United States and in Canada. He led the Buffalo Bills to four straight Super Bowl appearances from 1990 to 1993. He is also an honored member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Download or read book Jack Lambert Tough as Steel written by Ron Rotunno and published by Son-Rise Publications & Distribution Company. This book was released on 1997 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Wedded to the Game written by Shannon O'Toole and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Bringing to bear a background in sociology and a firsthand understanding of being married to the NFL, O'Toole is uniquely qualified to report from behind pro football's doors. Part insider tell-all, part sociological study, her book is packed with candid, on-the-spot accounts of NFL life, providing a rare glimpse into the often hidden world behind the game."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book The NFL in the 1970s written by Joe Zagorski and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-06-24 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1970 merger between the American Football League and the National Football League laid the foundation for a stronger brand of gridiron competition, providing a new level of excitement for fans. This book examines each year of the NFL's pivotal decade in detail, covering the great names, great rivalries and great games, as well as the key changes in both strategy and rules. Along the way, the author explains how pro football developed into a near-religious American tradition.

Download or read book A Concise History of the U S Air Force written by Stephen Lee McFarland and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 1997 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Except in a few instances, since World War II no American soldier or sailor has been attacked by enemy air power. Conversely, no enemy soldier orsailor has acted in combat without being attacked or at least threatened by American air power. Aviators have brought the air weapon to bear against enemies while denying them the same prerogative. This is the legacy of the U.S. AirForce, purchased at great cost in both human and material resources.More often than not, aerial pioneers had to fight technological ignorance, bureaucratic opposition, public apathy, and disagreement over purpose.Every step in the evolution of air power led into new and untrodden territory, driven by humanitarian impulses; by the search for higher, faster, and farther flight; or by the conviction that the air way was the best way. Warriors have always coveted the high ground. If technology permitted them to reach it, men, women andan air force held and exploited it-from Thomas Selfridge, first among so many who gave that "last full measure of devotion"; to Women's Airforce Service Pilot Ann Baumgartner, who broke social barriers to become the first Americanwoman to pilot a jet; to Benjamin Davis, who broke racial barriers to become the first African American to command a flying group; to Chuck Yeager, a one-time non-commissioned flight officer who was the first to exceed the speed of sound; to John Levitow, who earned the Medal of Honor by throwing himself over a live flare to save his gunship crew; to John Warden, who began a revolution in air power thought and strategy that was put to spectacular use in the Gulf War.Industrialization has brought total war and air power has brought the means to overfly an enemy's defenses and attack its sources of power directly. Americans have perceived air power from the start as a more efficient means of waging war and as a symbol of the nation's commitment to technology to master challenges, minimize casualties, and defeat adversaries.

Download or read book The Year the Packers Came Back written by Joe Zagorski and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2019-11-20 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1972 Green Bay Packers were not expected to challenge for a playoff spot, or even to top their four victories from the season before. But the players were an eclectic group of over-achievers, 20 of whom were brand new to the team. Despite disheartening decisions by a questionable head coach, they gelled almost immediately and by season's end became the only Packers team throughout the 1970s to earn a division title. This book details how they succeeded beyond all expectations and tells one of the great stories in pro football history.

Download or read book Play Big written by Jen Welter and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inspiring, gutsy handbook for success from the first woman to ever coach in the NFL When Jen Welter became a linebackers coach for the Arizona Cardinals in 2015, she was the first woman to ever break the glass sideline of the NFL. In Play Big, Welter reveals the grit that it took to be a trailblazer in the ultimate boys' club. Pre-NFL, Welter was an undersized, underestimated athlete who made sacrifice after sacrifice to achieve her football dreams -- rising to the top of women's football leagues and eventually daring to play against men twice her size. Play Big lays out how she succeeded despite the odds, through force of will and determination, revealing the wisdom Welter gained over countless setbacks and challenges. With vivid wit and candor, Play Big will coach you to do the same -- whatever your obstacles might be -- while translating Welter's hard-earned advice for cultivating true perseverance and toughness.

Download or read book Permanent Present Tense written by Suzanne Corkin and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-05-15 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Permanent Present Tense Suzanne Corkin tells the incredible story of the amnesiac Henry Gustave Molaison - known only as H.M. until his death in 2008 - and what he taught medical science, neuroscience and the world. In 1953, at the age of twenty-seven, Molaison underwent an experimental psychosurgical procedure intended to alleviate his debilitating epilepsy. The outcome was devastating - when Molaison awoke he was unable to form new memories and for the rest of his life would be trapped in the moment. But Molaison's tragedy would prove a gift to humanity, illuminating functions and structures of the brain and revolutionizing the neuroscience of memory. His amnesia became a touchstone for memory impairment in other patients. For nearly five decades, distinguished neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin studied Molaison and oversaw his care. Her account of his life and legacy in Permanent Present Tense reveals an intelligent man who, despite his profound amnesia, was altruistic, friendly, open, and humorous. She explores how his case transformed an entire field, helping to address eternal questions. How do we store and retrieve memories? How do we know that there are different kinds of memory, controlled by different brain circuits? Is our identity bound up with remembering? If you can recall people or events for only a few seconds and cannot learn from the past or plan the future, can you still live a meaningful life? Permanent Present explores the astonishing complexity of the human brain with great clarity, sensitivity, and grace, showing how one man's story challenged our very notions of who we are. Suzanne Corkin is Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience and head of the Corkin Lab at MIT. The author of nine books, Corkin lives in Charlestown, Massachusetts. 'A fascinating account of perhaps the most important case study in the history of neuroscience, rich with implications for our understanding of the brain, our experience, and what it means to be human' Steven Pinker, author of 'How the Mind Works' and 'The Stuff of Thought' 'The best way to understand memory is to witness the ways it can disassemble. In this remarkable book, Suzanne Corkin gifts us with a rare insider's view, revealing how a man who could not remember his immediate past so profoundly influenced science's future' David Eagleman, neuroscientist and New York Times-bestselling author of 'Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain' 'Suzanne Corkin has written an enjoyable and sensitive story of H.M.'s life and what it has taught us about memory. Millions of patients have been the source of advances in science but few are celebrated as individuals. We learn through H.M. that 'Our brains are like hotels with eclectic arrays of guests-homes to different kinds of memory, each of which occupies its own suite of rooms' Philip A. Sharp, Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 'Drawing on her unique investigations over more than four decades, neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin relates the fascinating story of how one severely amnesic man transformed our understanding of mind, brain, and memory' Howard Gardner, author of 'Multiple Intelligences'

Download or read book The Dark Side of the Game written by Tim Green and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2008-11-15 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, 8-year veteran of the NFL Tim Green reveals for the first time the scandals, the horrors, the abuses and also the wonders of playing football

Download or read book The Forgotten First written by Keyshawn Johnson and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unknown story of the Black pioneers who collectively changed the face of the NFL in 1946. THE FORGOTTEN FIRST chronicles the lives of four incredible men, the racism they experienced as Black players entering a segregated sport, the burden of expectation they carried, and their many achievements, which would go on to affect football for generations to come. More than a year before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, there was another seismic moment in pro sports history. On March 21,1946, former UCLA star running back Kenny Washington—a teammate of Robinson's in college—signed a contract with the Los Angeles Rams. This ended one of the most shameful periods in NFL history, when African-American players were banned from league play. Washington would not be alone in serving as a pioneer for NFL integration. Just months after he joined the Rams, thanks to a concerted effort by influential Los Angeles political and civic leaders, the team signed Woody Strode, who played with both Washington and Robinson at UCLA in one of the most celebrated backfields in college sports history. And that same year, a little-known coach named Paul Brown of the fledgling Cleveland Browns signed running back Marion Motley and defensive lineman Bill Willis, thereby integrating a startup league that would eventually merge with the NFL. THE FORGOTTEN FIRST tells the story of one of the most significant cultural shifts in pro football history, as four men opened the door to opportunity and changed the sport forever.

Download or read book The Big East written by Dana O'Neil and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2023-02-28 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive, compulsively readable story of the greatest era of the most iconic league in college basketball history—the Big East “This book, full of long-standing rivalries, unmatched moments in the lives of coaches and players, and juicy insider gossip, is, like the game of basketball, a ton of fun.”—Philadelphia magazine The names need no introduction: Thompson and Patrick, Boeheim and the Pearl, and of course Gavitt. And the moments are part of college basketball lore: the Sweater Game, Villanova Beats Georgetown, and Six Overtimes. But this is the story of the Big East Conference that you haven’t heard before—of how the Northeast, once an afterthought, became the epicenter of college basketball. Before the league’s founding, East Coast basketball had crowned just three national champions in forty years, and none since 1954. But in the Big East’s first ten years, five of its teams played for a national championship. The league didn’t merely inherit good teams; it created them. But how did this unlikely group of schools come to dominate college basketball so quickly and completely? Including interviews with more than sixty of the key figures in the conference’s history, The Big East charts the league’s daring beginnings and its incredible rise. It transports fans inside packed arenas to epic wars fought between transcendent players, and behind locker-room doors where combustible coaches battled even more fiercely for a leg up. Started on a handshake and a prayer, the Big East carved an improbable arc in sports history, an ensemble of Catholic schools banding together to not only improve their own stations but rewrite the geographic boundaries of basketball. As former UConn coach Jim Calhoun eloquently put it, “It was Camelot. Camelot with bad language.”

Download or read book Collision of Wills written by Jack Gilden and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2018-10 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In their seven years together, quarterback Johnny Unitas and coach Don Shula, kings of the fabled Baltimore Colts of the 1960s, created one of the most successful franchises in sports. Unitas and Shula had a higher winning percentage than Lombardi's Packers, but together they never won the championship. Baltimore lost the big game to the Browns in 1964 and to Joe Namath and the Jets in Super Bowl III--both in stunning upsets. The Colts' near misses in the Shula era were among the most confounding losses any sports franchise ever suffered. Rarely had a team in any league performed so well, over such an extended period, only to come up empty. The two men had a complex relationship stretching back to their time as young teammates competing for their professional lives. Their personal conflict mirrored their tumultuous times. As they elevated the brutal game of football, the world around them clashed about Vietnam, civil rights, and sex. Collision of Wills looks at the complicated relationship between Don Shula, the league's winningest coach of all time, and his star player Johnny Unitas, and how their secret animosity fueled the Colts in an era when their losses were as memorable as their victories.

Download or read book Shake and Bake written by Bob Kuska and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2021-02 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shake and Bake is the story of Archie Clark, one of the top playmaking guards in the 1970s pre-merger NBA. While not one of the game’s most recognized superstars, Clark was a seminal player in NBA history who staggered defenders with the game’s greatest crossover dribble (“shake and bake”) and is credited by his peers as the originator of today’s popular step-back move. Signed as the Lakers third-round draft pick in 1966, Clark worked his way into the starting lineup in his rookie year. But Clark was more than a guaranteed double-double whenever he stepped on the floor. He was a deep-thinking trailblazer for players’ rights. Clark often challenged coaches and owners on principle, much to the detriment of his career and NBA legacy, signing on as a named litigant in the seminal Robertson v. NBA antitrust case that smashed the player reserve system and jump-started the modern NBA. So lace up your high-top Chuck Taylors, squeeze into a pair of short shorts, and shake and bake back in time to the days of Wilt, Russell, Oscar, Jerry, Elgin, Hondo—and Archie.

Download or read book Swoon Great Seducers and Why Women Love Them written by Betsy Prioleau and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-02-04 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of "Seductress" examines the ladies' man and answers the eternal question: what do women want?

Download or read book Slow Getting Up written by Nate Jackson and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One man's odyssey into the brutal hive of the National Football League As an unsigned free agent who rose through the practice squad to the starting lineup of the Denver Broncos, Nate Jackson took the path of thousands of unknowns before him to carve out a professional football career twice as long as the average player. Through his story recounted here—from scouting combines to preseason cuts to byzantine film studies to glorious touchdown catches—even knowledgeable football fans will glean a new, starkly humanized understanding of the NFL's workweek. Fast-paced, lyrical, dirty, and hilariously unvarnished, Slow Getting Up is an unforgettable look at the real lives of America's best athletes putting their bodies and minds through hell.