The American Football League
The American Football League

Author: Ed Gruver

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2011-01-14

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9780786486601

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Unable to buy into an existing team and rebuffed by National Football League owners who had no desire to expand, 27-year-old Lamar Hunt, the son of Texas billionaire H.L. Hunt, formed the American Football League in 1959. He placed his team in Dallas, called them the Texans, and invited other young entrepreneurs to join him. The seven men who did called themselves members of the "Foolish Club," but on September 9, 1960, the AFL made its regular season debut and went on to change the face of football forever. Unlike the NFL, the American Football League featured wide open offenses and innovative coaching strategies, capturing a new generation of fans dedicated to the league and its players. The AFL aggressively pursued college stars--Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon in its inaugural season and Joe Namath in 1965. The eight teams signed a collective television agreement that split the money equally among the franchises, thus providing far more stability and balance than earlier start-up leagues. Based on interviews with owners, coaches, players, scouts, broadcasters and writers from the era, this is a colorful account of the AFL and its place in sports history.

100 Yards of Glory
100 Yards of Glory

Author: Joe Garner

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9780547547985

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The creators of the best-selling And the Crowd Goes Wild present an officially endorsed collection of key historical events that combines archival photography with coverage of such famed stories as the Immaculate Reception, the Ice Bowl and the Music City Miracle, in a volume complemented by a 10-part documentary by an Emmy Award-winning team.

America's Game
America's Game

Author: Michael MacCambridge

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2008-11-26

Total Pages: 610

ISBN-13: 0307481433

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It’s difficult to imagine today—when the Super Bowl has virtually become a national holiday and the National Football League is the country’s dominant sports entity—but pro football was once a ramshackle afterthought on the margins of the American sports landscape. In the span of a single generation in postwar America, the game charted an extraordinary rise in popularity, becoming a smartly managed, keenly marketed sports entertainment colossus whose action is ideally suited to television and whose sensibilities perfectly fit the modern age. America’s Game traces pro football’s grand transformation, from the World War II years, when the NFL was fighting for its very existence, to the turbulent 1980s and 1990s, when labor disputes and off-field scandals shook the game to its core, and up to the sport’s present-day preeminence. A thoroughly entertaining account of the entire universe of professional football, from locker room to boardroom, from playing field to press box, this is an essential book for any fan of America’s favorite sport.

Sports and the Racial Divide
Sports and the Racial Divide

Author: Michael E. Lomax

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2011-03-11

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 1617030465

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With essays by Ron Briley, Michael Ezra, Sarah K. Fields, Billy Hawkins, Jorge Iber, Kurt Kemper, Michael E. Lomax, Samuel O. Regalado, Richard Santillan, and Maureen Smith This anthology explores the intersection of race, ethnicity, and sports and analyzes the forces that shaped the African American and Latino sports experience in post-World War II America. Contributors reveal that sports often reinforced dominant ideas about race and racial supremacy but that at other times sports became a platform for addressing racial and social injustices. The African American sports experience represented the continuation of the ideas of Black Nationalism—racial solidarity, black empowerment, and a determination to fight against white racism. Three of the essayists discuss the protest at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. In football, baseball, basketball, boxing, and track and field, African American athletes moved toward a position of group strength, establishing their own values and simultaneously rejecting the cultural norms of whites. Among Latinos, athletic achievement inspired community celebrations and became a way to express pride in ethnic and religious heritages as well as a diversion from the work week. Sports was a means by which leadership and survival tactics were developed and used in the political arena and in the fight for justice.

NFL Century
NFL Century

Author: Joe Horrigan

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2019-08-27

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 1635653606

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From the former executive director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame comes a sweeping and lively history of the National Football League, timed to coincide with the NFL’s 100th anniversary season. “I can think of no one better qualified—or more enthusiastic—to chronicle the National Football League’s century-long history than Joe Horrigan.”—Marv Levy, Hall of Fame NFL coach The NFL has come a long way from its founding in Canton, Ohio, in 1920. In the hundred years since that fateful day, football has become America’s most popular and lucrative professional sport. The former scrappy upstart league that struggled to stay afloat has survived a host of challenges—the Great Depression and World War II, controversies and scandals, battles over labor rights and competition from rival leagues—to produce American icons like Vince Lombardi, Joe Montana, and Tom Brady. It is an extraordinary and entertaining history that could be told only by Joe Horrigan, former executive director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and perhaps the greatest living historian of the NFL, by drawing upon decades of NFL archives. Compelling, eye-opening, and authoritative, NFL Century is a must-read for NFL fans and anyone who loves the game of football. Advance praise for NFL Century “Joe Horrigan takes the reader on a delightful tour of the seminal moments of the NFL in the past one hundred years—the players, owners, coaches, executives, and historical events that made the game of football the most popular in America. It’s a wonderful walk down memory lane for any football fan, young or old.”—Michael Lombardi, author of Gridiron Genius “There is no one—and I mean no one—who knows more about the history of the NFL than Joe Horrigan, the heart and soul of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. As the gold standard of sports leagues celebrates its one hundredth season, it’s appropriate that the gold standard of sports historians has written NFL Century, an entertaining and educational journey.”—Gary Myers, New York Times bestselling author of Brady vs Manning

The Super Bowl
The Super Bowl

Author: Matt Doeden

Publisher: Millbrook Press

Published: 2017-08

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13: 1512427543

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The Super Bowl is the most popular US sporting event. This book features great plays and notable moments, as well as the pomp and spectacle associated with the biggest game of the year.

T is for Touchdown
T is for Touchdown

Author: Brad Herzog

Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press

Published: 2013-08-15

Total Pages: 42

ISBN-13: 1627531998

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The sounds of autumn include the crunch of fallen leaves underfoot and the thump of the kickoff starting the first home football game. Sleeping Bear Press is proud to continue our bestselling sports series with Tis for Touchdown: A Football Alphabet. Sports writer Brad Herzog's easy-to-read-aloud rhymes engage even the youngest of readers, while hardcore fans can devour the detailed expository that covers the sport of the pigskin, from A-Z and end zone to end zone. Plays and players are just a few of the topics covered. Brad Herzog's first job as a newspaper sports reporter allowed him to travel with the Cornell University football team. He has been writing about the game ever since. A past Grand Gold Medal Award winner from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, Brad has written more than a dozen fiction and nonfiction children's books. Brad lives on California's Monterey Peninsula. Mark Braught's sixteen years of professional experience has earned him prestigious awards from The American Advertising Federation (ADDY), Communications Art, the NYArt Directors Club, and the Society of Illustrators, to name a few. He lives in Commerce, Georgia. Touchdown is his third book with Sleeping Bear Press.