Find your seat and get ready to cheer as short, engaging text matched with oversized images lead young readers into the story of Antonio Brown. They will learn about where he got his start, some of his most notable moments in the NFL, and how he gives back to the community and people who support him. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Big Buddy Books is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.
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.
Antonio Brown is known as one of the best wide receivers in the National Football League (NFL). In 2014, he led all NFL players with 1,698 receiving yards, and in eight seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers, he has totaled almost 10,000 receiving yards. During his first season in 2010, Brown had to fight for his spot, but with hard work and determination he quickly proved his skills. By 2011 he made it to the Pro Bowl for the first time. Read about Brown's football career, his unique path to stardom, and how he keeps his mind and body healthy for every game.
The son of legendary Arena Football League player "Touchdown" Eddie Brown, wide receiver Antonio Brown is nearly as known for his end zone dances as he is for the sheer number of receptions and receiving yards he has racked up since being drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2010. However, none of his success came without struggle: Antonio's parents would divorce when he was a child, and he went through a period of extreme hardship, homelessness, and rejection from multiple colleges—even being expelled from one—before making his way to Central Michigan University and, from there, to the NFL. Antonio Brown is a compelling profile of one of football's best wide receivers. This lively biography provides readers with a behind the scenes look at Brown's personality, life, and career.
"Meet Antonio Brown, wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers. From his training process to what he does for fun off the field, readers will learn all about this star NFL player" --
Antonio Brown was deemed too small to play football at the collegiate and NFL level. The Pittsburgh Steelers took a chance on the wide receiver in 2010 and drafted Brown in the 6th round. The Steelers were rewarded handsomely as brown turned into the game's premier wide receiver. He is no longer Bony Tony, his childhood nickname. At 5' 10" (1.78 m), 181 lbs (82 kg), Brown has withstood the rigors of the NFL and thrived, rising to the level of the greatest receivers in the history of the game, including none other than Jerry Rice. Brown struggled academically before walking on to the team at Central Michigan University, where he was a two-time All-American. He is passionate about education, devoting his efforts to acting as a good role model for young fans. Each book in the Gridiron Greats series takes a close-up look at some of the very best of today's pro football stars. Statistical leaders and championship winners go under the spotlight in a fun to read and visually interesting examination of the player's outstanding career.
Calvin "Megatron" Johnson, star wide receiver for nine seasons with the Detroit Lions of the National Football League, was given his nickname during his rookie year because of his large size and amazing speed. Johnson's speed and acrobatic catches made him a standout player. In 2012, he broke wideout Jerry Rice's long-standing record of 1,848 receiving yards in a season by hitting an astounding 1,964 yards. In simple language, this book describes Johnson's skills and dedication to the game as well as his off-field work. In full-color photographs, readers observe some of Johnson's dazzling plays throughout his remarkable career.
The history of black high school football in segregated Texas: “Though this book is long overdue, it is also right on time.” —Texas Observer At a time when “Friday night lights” shone only on white high school football games, African American teams across Texas burned up the gridiron on Wednesday and Thursday nights. Temple Dunbar, Austin Anderson, and other segregated high schools in the Prairie View Interscholastic League—the African American counterpart of the University Interscholastic League, which excluded black schools from membership until 1967—created an exciting brand of football that produced hundreds of outstanding players, many of whom became college All-Americans, All-Pros, and Pro Football Hall of Famers, including NFL greats such as “Mean” Joe Green, Otis Taylor, Dick “Night Train” Lane, Ken Houston, and Bubba Smith. Thursday Night Lights tells the inspiring, largely unknown story of African American high school football in Texas. Drawing on interviews, newspaper stories, and memorabilia, Michael Hurd introduces the players, coaches, schools, and towns where African Americans built powerhouse football programs under the PVIL leadership. He covers fifty years of history, including championship seasons and legendary rivalries such as the annual Turkey Day Classic game between Houston schools Jack Yates and Phillis Wheatley, which drew standing-room-only crowds of up to 40,000. In telling this story, Hurd explains why the PVIL was necessary, traces its development, and shows how football offered a potent source of pride and ambition in the black community, helping black kids succeed both athletically and educationally in a racist society. “[A] groundbreaking book.” —Houston Chronicle “In America’s current Colin Kaepernick-inspired moment, with sports once again taking on a conspicuous role in debates about black citizenship and the persistence of white racism, this book is especially timely and important.” —Great Plains Quarterly
"Well, son, I guess we have to go the to bank." That's what Leon Hess told me the day the Jets drafted me as the number-one player in the NFL draft. But that first day, the day of the draft, was one of the happiest days in my life, because I knew I was ready to make things happen in the league and help turn things around for the sorry-ass Jets. But what a nightmare! Week after week, loss after loss. The Jets went in with a loser reputation, and they were earning it all over again. We had no emotion, no energy, no hunger. The media tried to cover it all. Rich Kotite tried to explain the disasters away. But nobody outside the team knew the real truth of what really went on. This book is going to change all that.
WITH A FOREWORD BY COACH BRUCE ARIANS The extraordinary behind-the-scenes story of how Coach Bruce Arians, Tom Brady, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers came together to deliver one of the most improbable Super Bowl victories in NFL history. The pursuit was so shrouded in secrecy that it was referred to within the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ organization by codename: Operation Shoeless Joe Jackson. Indeed, the prospect of Tom Brady, six-time Super Bowl champion and widely-acknowledged greatest football player ever, joining the Bucs, a historically hapless franchise that hadn’t made the playoffs in more than a decade, seemed about as likely as Jackson emerging out of an Iowa cornfield in the movie Field of Dreams. But come Brady did. At age forty-three, pushing the boundaries of football mortality and without Bill Belichick by his side for the first time in his NFL career, this would be the ultimate test for the ultimate football legacy. Brady’s new coach, Bruce Arians, also had much to prove. One of the great offensive minds of his generation, Arians returned to coaching in 2018, at the age of 65, in search of the one achievement that had eluded him throughout his illustrious career: a Super Bowl championship. Together, like so many aged snowbirds, Brady and Arians had decamped to Florida to make the most of their remaining years. Renowned sports journalist Lars Anderson was granted extraordinary access to the inner workings of the Bucs’ organization. The result is a remarkable work of sports journalism, peppered with wild inside stories and new insights into Brady, Arians, and the Bucs. From the practice facility to the team plane, from the garage where Brady treats his footballs to the huddle on gameday, Anderson captures the rhythms of perhaps the strangest NFL season ever, turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. In his telling, the Bucs’ quest for one glorious season in the sun becomes a riveting sports epic.
