Author: Todd Anton Publisher: Triumph Books ISBN: 1600788459 Category : Sports & Recreation Languages : en Pages : 289
Book Description
More than any other sport, professional football contributed fighting men to the battles of World War II, and the 22 or so players or former players that lost their lives are among the riveting stories told in this tribute to football's war heroes that spans many decades and military conflicts. The National Football League counts three Congressional Medal of Honor recipients among its honors, along with numerous Silver Stars, Distinguished Flying Crosses, and Purple Hearts. When Football Went to War offers a ground-breaking look at football—college and professional football alike—and many of the wartime heroes who came off the field of play to fight for their country. Detailed biographies of those who gave their lives are supplemented by many other stories of wartime heroism, from World War I through to Pat Tillman's tragic death in the Global War on Terrorism. Football has become the most popular sport in America and this heartfelt book honors the many sacrifices of NFL athletes over the years in service of their country.
Author: Publisher: Fodor's ISBN: Category : Sports & Recreation Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
Written by the sports staff of the country's leading and most respected daily sports section, this is the first and only complete guide to America's major league sports stadiums and arenas. With bright, full-color layouts and filled with stadium stats and facts, this guide is perfect for both fans who travel to the games and fans who cheer from their easy chairs.
Author: Alan H. Levy Publisher: McFarland ISBN: 9780786483853 Category : Sports & Recreation Languages : en Pages : 186
Book Description
Many are familiar with Jackie Robinson and the integration of Major League Baseball after all the years of separate black and white leagues, but fewer people know of the segregation and then integration of the National Football League. The timing and sequence of events were different, but football followed a pattern similar to that of baseball in regard to the beginning and end of racial segregation. This work traces professional football's movement from segregation to integration, beginning with a discussion of the various reasons why the game was first segregated. It describes the schemes that NFL owners came up with to ban African Americans from the league in the 1930s and 1940s, and tells how these barriers broke down after World War II. The author considers how professional football overcame the legacies of Jim Crow and how Jim Crow laws may still haunt the game.
Author: Greg Nichols Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 1466835346 Category : Sports & Recreation Languages : en Pages : 289
Book Description
In the midst of a strike and economic uncertainty, a football team from an iconic steel town just outside Pittsburgh set out to capture its sixth straight season without a loss, uniting a region and inspiring the nation. In the summer of 1959, most of the town of Braddock, Pennsylvania--along with half a million steel workers around the country--went on strike in the longest labor stoppage in American history. With no paychecks coming in, the families of Braddock looked to its football team for inspiration. The Braddock Tigers had played for five amazing seasons, a total of 45 games, without a single loss. Heading into the fall of ‘59, this team from just outside Pittsburgh, whose games members of the Steelers would drop by to watch, needed just eight victories to break the national record for consecutive wins. Sports Illustrated and other media descended upon the banks of the Monongahela River to profile the team and its revered head coach, future Hall of Famer Chuck Klausing, who molded his boys into winners while helping to effect the racial integration of his squad. While the townspeople bet their last dollars on the Tigers, young black players like Ray Henderson hoped that the record would be a ticket to college and spare them from life in the mills alongside their fathers. In Striking Gridiron, author Greg Nichols recounts every detail of Braddock's incredible sixth, undefeated season--from the brutal weeks of summer training camp to the season's final play that defined the team's legacy. In the words of Klausing himself, "Greg Nichols couldn't have written it better if he'd been on the sidelines with us." But even more than the story of a triumphant season, Nichols's narrative is an intimate chronicle of small-town America during the hardest of times. Striking Gridiron takes us from the sidelines and stands on game day into the school hallways, onto the street corners, and into the very homes of Braddock to reveal a beleaguered blue-collar town from a bygone era--and the striking workers whose strength was mirrored by the football heroics of steel-town boys on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons.
Author: Dick Schafrath Publisher: Gray & Company, Publishers ISBN: 159851024X Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 239
Book Description
He won national football championships with the 1964 Cleveland Browns and the 1957 Ohio State University Buckeyes. He served two terms in the Ohio senate. He was the first person ever to canoe across Lake Erie. He ran 60 miles nonstop between Cleveland and Wooster, Ohio, on a bet. He met presidents. He wrestled bears. Yes, Dick Schafrath has plenty of stories to tell. In this book, he tells the most entertaining and inspiring stories from his first 70 years. Stories of growing up on an Ohio farm with no plumbing, plowing behind a pair of mules; of playing alongside famous teammates and coaches (Jim Brown, Paul Brown, Gary Collins, Woody Hayes . . .); of political campaigns and publicity stunts; of a life dedicated to hard work and ruled by stubborn determination (hence his longtime nickname, "The Mule"). These stories will entertain and inspire.
Author: Michael MacCambridge Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press ISBN: 0822982803 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 451
Book Description
Chuck Noll won four Super Bowls and presided over one of the greatest football dynasties in history, the Pittsburgh Steelers of the '70s. Later inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, his achievements as a competitor and a coach are the stuff of legend. But Noll always remained an intensely private and introspective man, never revealing much of himself as a person or as a coach, not even to the players and fans who revered him. Chuck Noll did not need a dramatic public profile to be the catalyst for one of the greatest transformations in sports history. In the nearly four decades before he was hired, the Pittsburgh Steelers were the least successful team in professional football, never winning so much as a division title. After Noll's arrival, his quiet but steely leadership quickly remolded the team into the most accomplished in the history of professional football. And what he built endured well beyond his time with the Steelers—who have remained one of America's great NFL teams, accumulating a total of six Super Bowls, eight AFC championships, and dozens of division titles and playoff berths. In this penetrating biography, based on deep research and hundreds of interviews, Michael MacCambridge takes the measure of the man, painting an intimate portrait of one of the most important figures in American football history. He traces Noll's journey from a Depression-era childhood in Cleveland, where he first played the game in a fully integrated neighborhood league led by an African-American coach and then seriously pursued the sport through high school and college. Eventually, Noll played both defensive and offensive positions professionally for the Browns, before discovering that his true calling was coaching. MacCambridge reveals that Noll secretly struggled with and overcame epilepsy to build the career that earned him his place as "the Emperor" of Pittsburgh during the Steelers' dynastic run in the 1970s, while in his final years, he battled Alzheimer's in the shelter of his caring and protective family. Noll's impact went well beyond one football team. When he arrived, the city of steel was facing a deep crisis, as the dramatic decline of Pittsburgh's lifeblood industry traumatized an entire generation. "Losing," Noll said on his first day on the job, "has nothing to do with geography." Through his calm, confident leadership of the Steelers and the success they achieved, the people of Pittsburgh came to believe that winning was possible, and their recovery of confidence owed a lot to the Steeler's new coach. The famous urban renaissance that followed can only be understood by grasping what Noll and his team meant to the people of the city. The man Pittsburghers could never fully know helped them see themselves better. Chuck Noll: His Life's Work tells the story of a private man in a very public job. It explores the family ties that built his character, the challenges that defined his course, and the love story that shaped his life. By understanding the man himself, we can at last clearly see Noll's profound influence on the city, players, coaches, and game he loved. They are all, in a real sense, heirs to the football team Chuck Noll built.
Author: Todd Anton
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Author: Bob Moon
Author: George Cantor
Author: Alan H. Levy
Author: Greg Nichols
Author: Dick Schafrath
Author: George Sullivan
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Author: Michael MacCambridge