This title offers readers an exciting introduction to football safety. Vivid photographs and easy-to-read text aid comprehension for readers. Features include a table of contents, two infographics, fun facts, a sidebar, Making Connections questions, a glossary, and an index. QR Codes in the book give readers access to book-specific resources to further their learning.
The First Instructional Manual for Football Players and Coaches Ever Published by the National Football LeaguePosition by position Guide to Learning to Play the GameQuarterbackRunning backReceiverOffensive LineDefensive LineLinebackerDefensive BackPlacekickerPunterKick Returner
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The story of how the NFL, over a period of nearly two decades, denied and sought to cover up mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage “League of Denial may turn out to be the most influential sports-related book of our time.”—The Boston Globe “Professional football players do not sustain frequent repetitive blows to the brain on a regular basis.” So concluded the National Football League in a December 2005 scientific paper on concussions in America’s most popular sport. That judgment, implausible even to a casual fan, also contradicted the opinion of a growing cadre of neuroscientists who worked in vain to convince the NFL that it was facing a deadly new scourge: a chronic brain disease that was driving an alarming number of players—including some of the all-time greats—to madness. In League of Denial, award-winning ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru tell the story of a public health crisis that emerged from the playing fields of our twenty-first-century pastime. Everyone knows that football is violent and dangerous. But what the players who built the NFL into a $10 billion industry didn’t know—and what the league sought to shield from them—is that no amount of padding could protect the human brain from the force generated by modern football, that the very essence of the game could be exposing these players to brain damage. In a fast-paced narrative that moves between the NFL trenches, America’s research labs, and the boardrooms where the NFL went to war against science, League of Denial examines how the league used its power and resources to attack independent scientists and elevate its own flawed research—a campaign with echoes of Big Tobacco’s fight to deny the connection between smoking and lung cancer. It chronicles the tragic fates of players like Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, who was so disturbed at the time of his death he fantasized about shooting NFL executives, and former San Diego Chargers great Junior Seau, whose diseased brain became the target of an unseemly scientific battle between researchers and the NFL. Based on exclusive interviews, previously undisclosed documents, and private emails, this is the story of what the NFL knew and when it knew it—questions at the heart of a crisis that threatens football, from the highest levels all the way down to Pop Warner.
The game of American football may be the greatest team sport that exists. It epitomizes the need of a "team" first approach to achieve the desired success. Success is often measured as the hoisting of a championship trophy, which involved a journey that required discipline, perseverance, sacrifice, and hard work. These traits are the backbone of success in football, but more importantly they are the backbone or blueprint for success in life. The Science of American Football provides an in-depth discussion on the physiology of the game of American football, including the physiological strain associated with playing in various environmental extremes. Acclimatization, preparation, and medical issues associated with each of these environmental extremes are discussed as well as medical issues occurring during the athlete’s playing career (common sites of injury) and potential risks arising post-career (e.g. neurological dysfunction, arthritic joints, obesity). The book goes on to consider aspects of player selection and preparation, including discussion of evidence-based physical conditioning programs, appropriate nutrition, and specific dietary supplementation for the American football player. The Science of American Football is the first book to focus on the physiology, science, and medical issues associated with the game of American football and will be key reading for students of coaching and exercise science as well as those with a keen interest in understanding the science of American football, such as coaches and players.
From the untimely deaths of young athletes to chronic disease among retired players, roiling debates over tackle football have profound implications for more than one million American boys—some as young as five years old—who play the sport every year. In this book, Kathleen Bachynski offers the first history of youth tackle football and debates over its safety. In the postwar United States, high school football was celebrated as a "moral" sport for young boys, one that promised and celebrated the creation of the honorable male citizen. Even so, Bachynski shows that throughout the twentieth century, coaches, sports equipment manufacturers, and even doctors were more concerned with "saving the game" than young boys' safety—even though injuries ranged from concussions and broken bones to paralysis and death. By exploring sport, masculinity, and citizenship, Bachynski uncovers the cultural priorities other than child health that made a collision sport the most popular high school game for American boys. These deep-rooted beliefs continue to shape the safety debate and the possible future of youth tackle football.
This is an easy-to-understand reference for anyone who wants to learn more about America and American fo otball. It looks at: the language of the game; strategies an d subtleties of play; equipment and players; and associated cultural traditions. '
In the bestselling tradition of Freakonomics and Scorecasting comes a clever and accessible look at the big ideas underlying the science of football. Did you hear the one about the MacArthur genius physicist and the NFL coach? It’s not a joke. It’s actually an innovative way to understand chaos theory, and the remarkable complexity of modern professional football. In Newton’s Football, journalist and New York Times bestselling author Allen St. John and TED Speaker and former Yale professor Ainissa Ramirez explore the unexpected science behind America’s Game. Whether it’s Jerry Rice finding the common ground between quantum physics and the West Coast offense or an Ivy League biologist explaining—at a granular level—exactly how a Big Mac morphs into an outside linebacker, Newton’s Football illuminates football—and science—through funny, insightful stories told by some of the world’s sharpest minds. With a clear-eyed empirical approach—and an exuberant affection for the game—St. John and Ramirez address topics that have long beguiled scientists and football fans alike, including: • the unlikely evolution of the football (or, as they put it, “The Divinely Random Bounce of the Prolate Spheroid”) • what Vince Lombardi has in common with Isaac Newton • how the hardwired behavior of monkeys can explain a head coach’s reluctance to go for it on fourth-down • why a gruesome elevator accident jump-started the evolution of placekicking • how Teddy Roosevelt saved football using the same behavioral science concept that Dreamworks would use to save Shrek • why woodpeckers don’t get concussions • how better helmets actually made the game more dangerous Every Sunday the NFL shares a secret with only its savviest fans: The game isn’t just a clash of bodies, it’s a clash of ideas. The greatest minds in football have always possessed an instinctual grasp of science, understanding the big ideas and gritty realities that inform the game’s rich past, as well as its increasingly uncertain future. Blending smart reporting, counterintuitive creativity, and compelling narrative, Newton’s Football takes gridiron analysis to the next level, giving fans a book that entertains, enlightens, and explains the game anew. Praise for Newton’s Football “It was with great interest that I read Newton’s Football. I’m a fan of applying of science to sport and Newton’s Football truly delivers. The stories are as engaging as they are informative. This is a great read for all football fans.”—Mark Cuban “A delightfully improbable book putting science nerds and sports fans on the same page.”—Booklist “This breezily-written but informative book should pique the interest of any serious football fan in the twenty-first century.”—The American Spectator “The authors have done a worthy job of combining popular science and sports into a work that features enough expertise on each topic to satisfy nerds and jocks alike. . . . The writers succeed in their task thanks to in-depth scientific knowledge, a wonderful grasp of football’s past and present, interviews with a wide array of experts, and witty prose. . . . [Newton’s Football is] fun and thought-provoking, proving that football is a mind game as much as it is a ball game.”—Publishers Weekly
Is football an athletic contest or a social event? Is it a game of skill, a test of manhood, or merely an organized brawl? Michael Oriard, a former professional player, asks these and other intriguing questions in Reading Football, the first contemporary book about football's formative years. American football began in the 1870s as a game to be played, not watched. Within a brief ten years, it had become a great public spectacle with an immense following, a phenomenon caused primarily by the voluminous commentary about the game conducted in popular newspapers and magazines. Oriard shows how this constant narrative in football's early years developed many different stories about what the game meant: football as pastime, as the sport of gentlemen, as a science, as a game of rules and their infringements. He shows how football became a series of cultural stories about power, luck, strategy, and deception. These different interpretations have been magnified by football's current omnipresence on television. According to Oriard, televised football now plays a cultural role of enormous importance for men, yet within the field of cultural studies the influence of football has been ignored until now. From the book: "A receiver sprints down the sideline, fast and graceful, then breaks toward the middle of the field where a safety waits for him. From forty yards upfield the quarterback releases the ball; it spirals in an elegant arc toward the goalposts as the receiver now for the first time looks back to pick up its flight. The pass is a little high; the receiver leaps, stretches, grasps the ball--barely, fingers clutching--at the very moment that the safety drives a helmet into his unprotected ribs. The force of the collision flings the receiver backward, slamming him to the turf. . . . This familiar tableau, this exemplary moment in a football game, epitomizes the appeal of the sport: the dramatic confrontation of artistry with violence, both equally necessary."
Winning strategies from 90 top football coaches in the nation comprise this collection of knowledge and insights from many of the best defensive minds of the game. Illustrations.
