Written for every sports fan who follows the Broncos, this account goes behind the scenes to peek into the private world of the players, coaches, and decision makers—all while eavesdropping on their personal conversations. From the Denver locker room to the sidelines and inside the huddle, the book includes stories about Lyle Alzado, Tom Jackson, Dan Reeves, and Jim Turner, among others, allowing readers to relive the highlights and the celebrations.
Sports talk in America has evolved from small-time barroom banter into a major media smorgasbord that runs 24/7 on TV and radio. With hundreds of billions of dollars generated annually by pro and college teams in major markets nationwide, sports fans across the country are more dedicated than ever to their teams. And when it comes to sports talk -- especially all-sports radio -- it's all about entertainment, information, prognostication, analysis, rankings, and endless discussion. Prominent sports-media figures in each of the three target cities -- Cleveland, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. -- engage in this phenomenon with a compilation of sports lists sure to delight as well as stir up debate within these already-buzzing sports communities. List topics include: What were the most lopsided trades in local sports history? Who were the most overrated athletes to play in our town? What local athlete had the best appearance in TV or film? What was the most heartbreaking loss in local sports history? What was the greatest single play in local sports history? Who are our team's most hated rivals? Plus dozens of "guest" lists contributed by famous local sports and entertainment celebrities. Denver has franchises in each of the major pro sports -- the Broncos (NFL), the Avalanche (NHL), the Rockies (MLB), and the Nuggets (NBA). And no one knows Denver sports better than Irv Brown and Joe Williams.
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.
The 50 Greatest Players in Denver Broncos History ranks the top 50 players in team history. Along the way, find quotes from the subjects themselves and former teammates as well as statistical summaries of each player's careers with the Broncos. From Hall of Fame players such as John Elway, Floyd Little, and Shannon Sharpe to forgotten greats such as Rulon Jones and Lionel Taylor, the Broncos' best are profiled here in what is bound to be a much-discussed book among the team's broad fan base.
This autobiography traces the life of Floyd Little who wasraised in poverty in New Haven, Connecticut, was bowlegged, sent off to military school, and told his IQ was too low to even consider college. He overcame those obstacles to become a three-time All-American football player at Syracuse University and one of the best NFL running backs of his era with the Denver Broncos. After football, he earned a law degree and ran a successful automobile dealership for more than 25 years. In Promises to Keep, Floyd Little reflects on a lifetime of beating the odds and achieving excellence on and off the field. He shares his memories from his record-setting seasons at Syracuse and in Denver and reflects on his long, unconventional road to the Pro Football Hall of Fame."
Meet Tim Tebow: He grew up playing every sport imaginable, but football was his true passion. Even from an early age, Tim has always had the drive to be the best player and person that he could be. Through his hard work and determination, he established himself as one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of college football and as a top prospect in the NFL. Now, in Through My Eyes: A Quarterback's Journey, he shares the behind-the-scenes details of his life, on and off the football field. Tim writes about his life as he chooses to live it, revealing how his Christian faith, his family values, and his relentless will to succeed have molded him into the person and the athlete he is today.
Case Keenum has traveled one of the most unique paths in the NFL. Recruited by just one college, undrafted, and released three times, Case has overcome every obstacle to become a successful starting quarterback. In 2017, Keenum captured America’s imagination by leading the Minnesota Vikings to a 13-3 record and an NFC North title. His game-winning touchdown in the final seconds of their divisional playoff game against the Saints, the "Minneapolis Miracle," made Case part of NFL history. Keenum shares stories from every stage of his life, starting out as a ball boy for his father’s college team in West Texas, going on to win a state title in high school, and rewriting the NCAA record book at the University of Houston. A devastating knee injury almost derailed his football career, but helped him get closer to the woman who would soon become his wife. Throughout his story, Case will explain how being a Christian helped him navigate the winding path to success. No matter what obstacle has been placed in front of him, Case believes God has a plan for him. That’s why he plays football and that’s why he’s writing this book: To glorify God and to help others who face adversity in their everyday life. “Am I a football player who happens to be a Christian?” Case writes, "No, I’m a Christian who happens to be a football player. That’s my calling. That’s my defining characteristic. Once I realized that, everything else fell into place. I became a better football player and, more importantly, a better person.”
The New York Times bestselling author of Slow Getting Up chronicles his descent into the madness of early retirement and fantasy football. In Slow Getting Up—hailed by Rolling Stone as "the best football memoir of all time"—Nate Jackson told his story face down on the field. Now, in Fantasy Man, he’s flat on his back. Six years have passed since the former Denver Broncos tight end wore a helmet, and every day he drifts further from the NFL Guy, the sanctioned-violence guy, the psychopath who ran head first into other psychos for money. But Nate hasn’t quite left the game. Bed-ridden by a recent surgery to remove bone fragments in his ankle, he’s trying to defend his title as top dog in Bunny 5-Ball, one of the millions of leagues captivating America through modern fantasy football, the interactive human poker game started by rotisserie leagues, boosted by ESPN and Yahoo!, and now elevated to that rarefied world of vaguely-legal Internet gambling by FanDuel and DraftKings.com. And this time it isn’t a 300-pound wall of flesh rushing to crunch his spine. It’s worse. Exploring the fantasy—and the reality—of professional football after you’ve left the field, Fantasy Man is as funny, self-deprecating, and shockingly honest as Slow Getting Up.
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.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction Award Winner • A rip-roaring, edgy and unabashedly raunchy new collection of hilarious essays from the New York Times bestselling author of We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. “Stay-up-all-night, miss-your-subway-stop, spit-out-your-beverage funny.” —Jia Tolentino, New York Times bestselling author of Trick Mirror Irby is forty, and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin despite what Inspirational Instagram Infographics have promised her. She has left her job as a receptionist at a veterinary clinic, has published successful books and has been friendzoned by Hollywood, left Chicago, and moved into a house with a garden that requires repairs and know-how with her wife in a Blue town in the middle of a Red state where she now hosts book clubs and makes mason jar salads. This is the bourgeois life of a Hallmark Channel dream. She goes on bad dates with new friends, spends weeks in Los Angeles taking meetings with "tv executives slash amateur astrologers" while being a "cheese fry-eating slightly damp Midwest person," "with neck pain and no cartilage in [her] knees," who still hides past due bills under her pillow. The essays in this collection draw on the raw, hilarious particulars of Irby's new life. Wow, No Thank You. is Irby at her most unflinching, riotous, and relatable. Don't miss Samantha Irby's bestselling new book, Quietly Hostile!
