Texas is a diverse state. But the one thing that binds Texans more than their state pride, even more than religion, is football. For the many towns and cities of Texas, high school football is more than a sport or an extracurricular activity—it’s the glue of their community. Author Gray Levy, a high school football coach for more than two decades, became disillusioned with the state of the education system nationwide and traveled to Texas, a place where high school football still matters, to see just what schools and communities were doing right. What he found will both confirm and debunk common presumptions about high school football in Texas, a complex phenomenon that varies by region, school size, and the ethnic diversity of the Lone Star State.
Football is fun--let's play! Find all the basics in this lively guide. The markings on a football field What football players wear The positions, from quarterback to wide receiver The excitement of the kickoff The thrill of scoring a touchdown All these and more are included with a useful glossary at the end.
Band Geeks unite in this fresh new middle-grade series by debut author (and former band director) Michelle Schusterman! Holly Mead’s first day of seventh grade isn’t going as planned. Her brother ruins her carefully chosen outfit, she’s almost late, and her new band director has some surprisingly strict rules. Worst of all, it seems like her best friend, Julia, has replaced her with Natasha, the pretty, smart, new French horn player! Holly is determined to get first chair, but Natasha is turning out to be some pretty stiff competition—and not just in band. Band might be a competition, but friendship isn’t—and Holly needs to figure it out before she loses Julia for good.
In The Heart of Football-players tell you why they play, coaches tell you why they coach, and everyone involved in the game tells you why they love football so much.
When Jon Gruden asks his Tampa Bay Bucs, "Do you love football?!" it's to remind them why they pull on their shoulder pads every Sunday morning. It's not about the money or the fame; it's about their passion for what they do. And passion is something that has fueled Gruden's entire career. From his college playing days and his climb through the coaching ranks -- from college to assistant coaching jobs with the NFL's elite teams, to his first head coach job with the Oakland Raiders, and finally, with the Tampa Bay Bucs -- his meteoric rise is unparalleled. Underneath it all, though, he's just a humble, hardworking, no-nonsense guy who has no hobbies: "I'm not a scratch golfer. I don't know how to bowl. I can't read the stock market. Hell, I have a hard time remembering my wife's cell phone number. But I can call 'Flip Right Double X Jet 36 Counter Naked Waggle at 7 X Quarter' in my sleep." Now, in this motivational memoir, Gruden provides insight into what makes him tick. Do You Love Football?! is an intimate look at his life as a player, coach, and head coach, as well as the principles that have made him the hottest coach in the NFL.
“One of Ten Best History Books of 2021.” —Smithsonian Magazine For fans of The Boys in the Boat and The Storm on Our Shores, this impeccably researched, deeply moving, never-before-told “tale that ultimately stands as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit” (Garrett M. Graff, New York Times bestselling author) about a World War II incarceration camp in Wyoming and its extraordinary high school football team. 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. That is, until the fall of 1943, when the camp’s high school football team, the Eagles, started its first season and finished it undefeated, crushing the competition from nearby, predominantly white high schools. Amid all this excitement, American politics continued to disrupt their lives as the federal government drafted men from the camps for the front lines—including some of the Eagles. As the team’s second season kicked off, the young men faced a choice to either join the Army or resist the draft. Teammates were divided, and some were jailed for their decisions. The Eagles of Heart Mountain honors the resilience of extraordinary heroes and the power of sports in a “timely and utterly absorbing account of a country losing its moral way, and a group of its young citizens who never did” (Evan Ratliff, author of The Mastermind).
Ask most of the millions of pre-teen soccer-playing girls in America if they plan to make the U.S. Women's National Team someday and the answer for them - and most of their parents - will be a resounding "Yes!" Among the most successful international teams in any sport in the past three decades, the USNWT has emerged as a collective cultural icon, with its individual members redrafting the very definition of female across the globe. With the lines blurring between male and female behavior, girls are competing ferociously and celebrating wildly without apology. Women are demanding gender and racial equity, while dressing and speaking authentically, and loving however and whomever they choose. The reality is that making the National Team is about as likely as winning the lottery. Of the tens of millions of soccer players since the team was formed in 1985, fewer than 250 women have ever made it to the highest level as of 2020. In Raising Tomorrow's Champions, one of those players, 16-year professional Joanna Lohman, joins current soccer dad and 40-year journalist Paul Tukey to share the team members' stories, from the early pioneers like Michelle Akers, Brandi Chastain and Mia Hamm, who are now parents themselves, to modern-day household names like Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe. For a true picture of what makes these women champions, Joanna and Paul also talked to their parents, coaches and teammates. The result of this unprecedented access to the National Team is an intimately revealing portrait of what it takes to make it to the top, not just in soccer, but in life. Not every child will make the most elite team, but the choices they - and their families - make in the face of challenge and adversity may define their childhood, their high school experiences, their college options, and their path forward in life. Not every child will necessarily even play soccer, but the lessons shared within Raising Tomorrow's Champions can help him or her become accomplished, authentic, and satisfied adults no matter what path they choose.
One overeducated Florida State fan confronts the religiously perverted, racially suspect, and sexually fraught nature of the sport she hates to love: college football. Diane Roberts is a self-described feminist with a PhD from Oxford. She's also a second-generation season ticket holder—and an English professor—at one of the elite college football schools in the country. It's not as if she approves of the violence and hypermasculinity on display; she just can't help herself. So every Saturday from September through December she surrenders to her Inner Barbarian. The same goes for the rest of her "tribe," those thousands of hooting, hollering, beer-swilling Seminoles who, like Roberts, spent the 2013–14 season basking in the loping, history-making Hail Marys of Jameis Winston, the team's Heisman-winning quarterback, when they weren't gawking, dumbstruck, at the headlines in which he was accused of sexual assault. In Tribal, Roberts explores college football's grip on the country at the very moment when gender roles are blurring, social institutions are in flux, and the question of who is—and is not—an American is frequently challenged. For die-hard fans, the sport is a comfortable retreat into tradition, proof of our national virility, and a reflection of an America without troubling ambiguities. Yet, Roberts argues, it is also a representation of the buried heart of this country: a game and a culture built upon the dark past of the South, secrets so obvious they hide in plain sight. With her droll Southern voice and a phrase-turning style reminiscent of Roy Blount Jr. and Sarah Vowell, Roberts offers a sociological unpacking of the sport's dubious history that is at once affectionate and cautionary.
A guide for women football fans explains each component of the game of football, describes the role of each position player, outlines common plays, and provides descriptions of some of the most memorable moments in NFL history.
