Sports Illustrated, the most respected voice in sports journalism, has covered the NBA for the much of its existence, documenting its expansion from fledgeling league to global force. Curated by editor and bestselling author Chris Ballard, this anthology features the best hoops writing from the SI archives along with new postscripts from nationally renowned basketball journalists including Jackie McMullan, Jack McCallum, Jeff Pearlman, S.L. Price, Lee Jenkins, Frank Deford, and more.
In the last 15 years as a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, Reilly has covered every aspect of the sporting life, from tennis moms to Lakers-obsessed Jack Nicholson. This collection presents the best of Reilly: unforgettable sporting moments, favorite columns, and unpublished pieces.
Celebrate the championship glory, Hall of Fame personalities, and passionate fans that make the Boston Celtics one of the most revered teams in basketball Sports Illustrated™ celebrates basketball greatness with The Boston Celtics at 75, an extraordinary collection of classic stories and photographs from the pages of SI. This commemorative book salutes hall of famers like Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Bob Cousy, Paul Pierce, and coach Red Auerbach. Fans will unearth countless gems from the Celtics' past on each page of this diamond celebration.
"One Shot at Forever is powerful, inspirational. . . This isn't merely a book about baseball. It's a book about heart." -- Jeff Pearlman, New York Times bestselling author of Boys Will Be Boys and The Bad Guys Won In 1971, a small-town high school baseball team from rural Illinois, playing with hand-me-down uniforms and peace signs on their hats, defied convention and the odds. Led by an English teacher with no coaching experience, the Macon Ironmen emerged from a field of 370 teams to represent the smallest school in Illinois history to make the state final, a distinction that still stands. There the Ironmen would play against a Chicago powerhouse in a dramatic game that would change their lives forever. In this gripping, cinematic narrative, Chris Ballard tells the story of the team and its coach, Lynn Sweet: a hippie, dreamer, and intellectual who arrived in Macon in 1966, bringing progressive ideas to a town stuck in the Eisenhower era. Beloved by students but not administration, Sweet reluctantly took over the ragtag team, intent on teaching the boys as much about life as baseball. Together they embarked on an improbable postseason run that buoyed a small town in desperate need of something to celebrate. Engaging and poignant, One Shot at Forever is a testament to the power of high school sports to shape the lives of those who play them, and it reminds us that there are few bonds more sacred than that among a coach, a team, and a town. "Macon's run at the title reminds us why sports matter and why sportswriting has such great power to inspire. . . [It's] one hell of a good story, and Ballard has written one hell of a good book." -- Jonathan Eig, Chicago Tribune
A Season on the Brink chronicles the basketball season that John Feinstein spent following the Indiana Hoosiers and their fiery coach, Bob Knight. Knight granted Feinstein an unprecedented inside look at college basketball -- with complete access to every moment of the season. Feinstein saw and heard it all -- practices, team meetings, strategy sessions, and mid-game huddles -- during Knight's struggle to avoid a losing season. A Season on the Brink not only captures the drama and pressure of big-time college basketball but paints a vivid portrait of a complex, brilliant coach walking a fine line between genius and madness.
Sports Illustrated, the most respected voice in sports journalism, has covered Major League Baseball for over seven decades, documenting its heroes, villains, great characters, and iconic moments. A wide-ranging portrait of America's pastime, this anthology features the best baseball writing from the SI archives by nationally renowned journalists including Frank Deford, Mark Kram, George Plimpton, Peter Gammons, and Tom Verducci.
New York Times Best Seller 2015 RFK Book Awards Special Recognition 2015 Lillian Smith Book Award 2015 AAUP Books Committee "Outstanding" Title Based on more than eighty interviews, this fast-paced, richly detailed biography of Perry Wallace, the first African American basketball player in the SEC, digs deep beneath the surface to reveal a more complicated and profound story of sports pioneering than we've come to expect from the genre. Perry Wallace's unusually insightful and honest introspection reveals his inner thoughts throughout his journey. Wallace entered kindergarten the year that Brown v. Board of Education upended "separate but equal." As a 12-year-old, he sneaked downtown to watch the sit-ins at Nashville's lunch counters. A week after Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, Wallace entered high school, and later saw the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. On March 16, 1966, his Pearl High School basketball team won Tennessee's first integrated state tournament--the same day Adolph Rupp's all-white Kentucky Wildcats lost to the all-black Texas Western Miners in an iconic NCAA title game. The world seemed to be opening up at just the right time, and when Vanderbilt recruited him, Wallace courageously accepted the assignment to desegregate the SEC. His experiences on campus and in the hostile gymnasiums of the Deep South turned out to be nothing like he ever imagined. On campus, he encountered the leading civil rights figures of the day, including Stokely Carmichael, Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, and Robert Kennedy--and he led Vanderbilt's small group of black students to a meeting with the university chancellor to push for better treatment. On the basketball court, he experienced an Ole Miss boycott and the rabid hate of the Mississippi State fans in Starkville. Following his freshman year, the NCAA instituted "the Lew Alcindor rule," which deprived Wallace of his signature move, the slam dunk. Despite this attempt to limit the influence of a rising tide of black stars, the final basket of Wallace's college career was a cathartic and defiant dunk, and the story Wallace told to the Vanderbilt Human Relations Committee and later The Tennessean was not the simple story of a triumphant trailblazer that many people wanted to hear. Yes, he had gone from hearing racial epithets when he appeared in his dormitory to being voted as the university's most popular student, but, at the risk of being labeled "ungrateful," he spoke truth to power in describing the daily slights and abuses he had overcome and what Martin Luther King had called "the agonizing loneliness of a pioneer."
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the coach of the 2016 and 2018 NCAA Tournament–winning Villanova University men’s basketball team comes a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a champion, along with lessons from his coaching career and the story of his personal road to success. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG When Kris Jenkins sank a three-pointer at the buzzer to win the 2016 NCAA Tournament, it was a victory not just for a team and its coach but for an entire program. In his twentieth season with the Villanova program, including a five-year stint as an assistant to Coach Rollie Massimino, Coach Jay Wright had achieved his lifelong dream—and witnessed the culmination of a decades-long effort to build a culture of winning around a set of core values. In Attitude, Coach Wright shares some of the leadership secrets that have enabled Villanova, a private university with an undergraduate enrollment of less than 6,500, to thrive in the hypercompetitive world of college athletics. As he recounts the story of the 2015–16 Wildcats, Coach Wright offers anecdotes from his own journey up the ladder of success, with lessons learned on the Little League playing fields of his youth and wisdom passed down from his coaches and mentors. Each step of Villanova’s journey to a national championship incorporates a signature term torn from Coach Wright’s own motivational playbook. Here are key principles that aspiring leaders can apply, not only on the basketball court but in the boardroom, the classroom, and the living room. From learning to accept your role to remembering to honor those who came before us, Jay Wright’s core values provide a positive blueprint for transformational team building based on the idea that anyone—from the head coach to the last player on the bench—can be a leader when the moment demands it. The product of a lifetime’s worth of championship-level preparation, Attitude is perfect for anyone looking to build a team, achieve a goal, or nurture their own winning culture. Praise for Attitude “Jay Wright’s Attitude is filled with wonderful anecdotes, life lessons, and that which we all seek: wisdom.”—Phil Knight, co-founder and chairman emeritus, Nike “In 2015–16, Villanova displayed the best attributes of a champion by playing hard, smart, and together. Jay Wright instilled those traits in his team, and in Attitude he shares the universal leadership lessons that helped it succeed.”—Mike Krzyzewski, head coach, Duke University basketball
"Beautifully illustrated and sharply written, SprawlBall is both a celebration and a critique of the 3-point shot. If you want to understand how the modern NBA came to be, you'll need to read this book." --Nate Silver, editor of fivethirtyeight.com From the leading expert in the exploding field of basketball analytics, a stunning infographic decoding of the modern NBA: who shoots where, and how. The field of basketball analytics has leaped to overdrive thanks to Kirk Goldsberry, whose visual maps of players, teams, and positions have helped teams understand who really is the most valuable player at any position. SprawlBall combines stunning visuals, in-depth analysis, fun, behind-the-scenes stories and gee-whiz facts to chart a modern revolution. From the introduction of the 3-point line to today, the game has changed drastically . . . Now, players like Steph Curry and Draymond Green are leading the charge. In chapters like "The Geography of the NBA," "The Interior Minister (Lebron James)," "The Evolution of Steph Curry," and "The Investor (James Harden)," Goldsberry explains why today's on-court product--with its emphasis on shooting, passing, and spacing--has never been prettier or more democratic. And it's never been more popular. For fans of Bill Simmons and FreeDarko, SprawlBall is a bold new vision of the game, presenting an innovative, cutting-edge look at the sport based on the latest research, as well as a visual and infographic feast for fans.
