Biography Sports Coaches

No coach in National Football League history endured more playoff heartache than Marty Schottenheimer. Despite racking up two hundred regular-season victories (only five coaches in the entire ninety-year history of the NFL ever won more games), Marty never reached the Super Bowl during his coaching career. Martyball tells the story of a man who persevered through an avalanche of misfortune and playoff agony that would have brought most men to their knees. But Marty never lost sight of why he fell in love with coaching in the first place: he wanted to teach and mold men through the game of football.

Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry could not have had two more divergent personalities. Yet, while working for the New York Giants of the mid-to-late ’50s under head coach Jim Lee Howell, the pair formed what stands, to this day, as the greatest set of coordinators on one team. Given their personalities, one might have likened Howell’s job to that of Dwight Eisenhower as the general struggled to control the egos and politics of his allied subordinates during WWII. But for some reason, Lombardi and Landry worked almost seamlessly, and as a result, the Giants rose to the top of the NFL.

No man has affected more runners in more ways than Bill Bowerman. During his 24-year tenure as track coach at the University of Oregon, he won four national team titles and his athletes set 13 world and 22 American records. He also ignited the jogging boom, invented the waffle-sole running shoe that helped establish Nike, and coached the US track and field team at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.

No college basketball coach has ever dominated the sport like John Wooden. His UCLA teams reached unprecedented heights in the 1960s and '70s, capped by a run of ten NCAA championships in twelve seasons and an eighty-eight-game winning streak, records that stand to this day. Wooden also became a renowned motivational speaker and writer, revered for his "Pyramid of Success." The portrait that emerges from Davis's remarkable biography is of a man in full, whose life story still resonates today.

The life and legacy of pioneering international basketball superstar Hakeem Olajuwon, a two time NBA champion whose Hall of Fame career forever changed the game, both in the United States and around the globe—from the New York Times bestselling author of Giannis. It’s now the norm for NBA...

"With Every Shot Counts, I hope that you’ll be as inspired by Carlos' journey as I’ve been."—Shaquille O’Neal From NBA All-Star and ESPN commentator Carlos Boozer, a gripping, intimate and inspiring memoir about overcoming trauma, achieving your dreams and staying true to who you are in...

“Beyond Broadway Joe gives great insights into that famous Jets team and those individuals. A great read for any football fan and an absolute must for Jet fans.” —Rex Ryan, former New York Jets coach On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the New York Jets' historic achievement, a...

Tony Dungy's words and example have intrigued millions of people, particularly following his victory in Super Bowl XLI, the first for an African-American coach. How is it possible for a coach—especially a football coach—to win the respect of his players and lead them to the Super Bowl without the screaming histrionics, the profanities, the demand that the sport come before anything else? How is it possible for anyone to be successful without compromising faith and family?

The Super Bowl champion wide receiver for the New England Patriots shares his inspiring story of an underdog kid who became one of the most reliable and inspiring players in the NFL. When the Patriots were down 28-3 in Super Bowl LI, there was at least one player who refused to believe they...

Nick Nurse distills the wisdom, insight, and experiences that helped him lead the Toronto Raptors to the NBA championship in his first year as head coach. Foreword by Phil Jackson.NBA fans had low expectations for rookie coach Nick Nurse and his Toronto Raptors. But what those naysayers didn't...

What would one call taking teens with no evident running talent and putting them through breakneck training combined with mantras from rock n' roll, techniques from Kenya, and philosophy from Australia, and turning them into champions? Is it revolutionary? Or just plain crazy? Bill Aris has heard both, but one thing is indisputable. Everything Aris does with his runners - male and female - is new and extraordinary, and he has created a new American running dynasty.

While the household was buffeted by the coach's tumultuous firings and hirings, which periodically propelled the family to a new city, Jennifer dreamed of being the first female quarterback in the NFL. But as she grew, she yearned mostly to be someone that her father would notice. In a world where only football mattered, what could she strive for, who could she become?

When Coach Joe Kennedy started offering a prayer on the field after each high school football game, the school district tried to shut him down, launching a seven-year legal battle that went to the Supreme Court—twice. In June 2022, he won. Average Joe is the story of an unlikely champion of religious freedom. A former atheist, Kennedy never imagined he’d lead the defense of Americans’ First Amendment rights. He certainly didn’t intend to be at odds with his wife, who was the school district’s personnel director.

The Players' Coach is a player-development masterclass. It is also an inspirational life story, from humble beginnings to becoming the quarterback for the University of Iowa, a college coaching career, and then to assistant-coach and offensive-coordinator roles in six different decades. This book is destined to be a football classic, a coaching Bible, and a must-listen on leadership.

Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1997, Don Shula remains the winningest coach of all time with 347 career victories and the only undefeated season in NFL history. But before he became the architect of the Dolphins dynasty, Shula was a hardworking kid selling fish on the banks of Lake Erie. As acclaimed sports biographer Mark Ribowsky shows, Shula met serious resistance at home when he asked to play high school football, but when his parents finally relented, they discovered that their son had an unmatched mind for the game's strategy and a stomach for its brutality. 

Collectively, Rick Pitino, Jim Calhoun, and Gary Williams have won more than 2,300 games and six national championships and reached thirteen Final Fours. Before Pitino became the face of the Providence, Kentucky, and Louisville programs, before Calhoun turned UConn into a national power, and before Williams brought Maryland to its first national championship, these coaches cut their teeth in front of modest-sized crowds in college gymnasiums of Boston during the '70s and '80s. Boston Ball charts how this trio of coaches, seemingly out of nowhere, started a basketball revolution

As head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners, Barry Switzer was the fourth most successful coach in NCAA history. Both praised and reviled by the media as the "outlaw" of college football, Switzer was characterized as the "greatest rogue, pirate, hustler, and con man" ever to command a football team. As head coach for the Dallas Cowboys, he led America's team to victory in Superbowl XXX. In Bootlegger's Boy, Switzer gets the chance to tell it all from his point of view.

How three football legends -- Bill Walsh, Joe Gibbs, and Bill Parcells -- won eight Super Bowls during the 1980s and changed football forever. Bill Walsh, Joe Gibbs and Bill Parcells dominated what may go down as the greatest decade in pro football history, leading their teams to a combined...

India’s biggest sports stars share their secrets for finding greatness From Anju Bobby George’s unexpected gold medal at the World Athletics Final in Monaco to Abhinav Bindra’s Olympic gold in Beijing, India’s sportspersons have constantly proved that they stand shoulder to shoulder with...