Urban Way is pretty good. How good do you want to be by Nick Saban is good as well.
I'm looking for some suggestions. I'm about to wrap up my current book and need some ideas. Over the past 4-5 years, I've become a regular book worm (I used to hate reading) but lately I can hammer out about 7-8 books a year now. Would be more but family, tv, video games, job, etc.. get in the way every now and then!
The ones I have read this year I would recommend.
I'm currently reading The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons. If you're an NBA fan and/or a fan of the Sports Guy then you have to read this one. It's 700 pages long so be prepared to spend some time with it. A majority of the book is his Pantheon of Hall of Famers where he ranks to the top NBA players of all-time and puts them in his own version of the HOF with levels. The top level reserved for the 12 best players ever.
I've also read this year:
The Machine by SI's Joe Posanski. A great look at the '75 Big Red Machine.
When March Went Mad by Seth Davis. Details the ISU and MSU 1979 college bball season and the stories of Bird and Magic leading to that 1979 National Title Game.
Last Dance by John Feinstein. I'm yet to read a book by Feinstein that I haven't loved. His golf books are the best in my opinion. This book details the whole NCAA selection process for the basketball tournament. All the changes, rules, current system, how refs are chosen, etc... of selecting the field and how the tournament plays out.
The Greatest Game Ever Played and The Match by Mark Frost. Both are older books about golf but good reads. The first one is a movie now and has been for a while about Francis Ouimet's U.S. Open win as an ammy. The second one is about a private 4-ball match that took place between Ken Venturi and Harvie Ward vs Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson.
The Long Ball by Tom Adelman. Discusses the entire 1975 MLB season with a large portion focusing on the World Series between Cincy and Boston.
I'd recommend each of those to anyone interested in those topics.
so anyone else have any? I tend to focus on baseball, basketball, or golf books. I'm not much into the history of football.
Urban Way is pretty good. How good do you want to be by Nick Saban is good as well.
"To be the man, you've got to beat the man."
Success Is a Choice by Rick Pitino is pretty good.
A Season on the Brink by Feinstein was good
Out of Bounds by Jim Brown
any of Charles Barkley's books are entertaining
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"The Last Great Fight" by Joe Layden is a good one. Chronicles the Buster Douglass-Mike Tyson fight.
Bear - about Bear Bryant is real good. Written in kind of interview format. I think the author actually just transcribed hours of interview and made it a book.
Two great books about the on and off the field activities of 2 of the 70s greatest football franchises are Ken Stabler's book, "Snake" about the 74-75 Raiders and "Two Bricks Shy of a Load" about the late 70s Steelers. Brian Bozworth's book about his time at Oklahoma is good too. Times have definately changed..all the teams in these books consisted of pure bred hellions.
...And if you ain't down with that, I got 2 words for ya....
The Tony Dungy book is excellent!
baseball fans need to read Ball Four by Jim Bouton, great book bout season in the majors
How March became Madness by Eddie Einhorn is a great book on the NCAA tourney
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Any book by John Feinstein is GREAT...but the two I loved were "The Last Amateurs" and "A March to Madness"
The Last Amateurs details all the programs in the Patriot League which does not give out athletic scholarships, like the Ivy League schools. It tells how the conference came about and why they do the things they do...great book
A March to Madness is the book that got me hooked on ACC basketball...it is an older book that details a season in the ACC back when Rick Barnes was at Clemson...absolutely an amazing read...I would highly recommend this one
also "The Miracle of St. Anthony" by Adrian Wojnarowski is a good book...it is about the author's year he spent with St. Anthony HS where legendary coach Bob Hurley is the head coach...it details how the school is very poor and they struggle each year to just stay open but they churn out great basketball teams regardless...he walks into the program at a good time to write a book about because it is when they went undefeated and won the national title
also one final book is "Cinderella: Inside the Rise of Mid-Major College Basketball" by Michael Litos...it takes a look at the CAA in a year which just so happens to be the year George Mason went to the final four...talk about good timing!
some others I've liked:
The Carolina Way by Dean Smith
Hard Work by Roy Williams
Blue Blood by Art Chansky
A Passion to Lead by Jim Calhoun
Magic Johnson and Larry Bird's book was good with a lot of behind-the-scenes stories that I found interesting myself, but that's just because I'm a basketball junky...the name of the book escapes me, but shouldn't be hard to find as it came out 3 or 4 months ago
"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."
-Martin Luther King Jr.
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