Athlete Biography

SHE DOMINATED MEN IN THE RING… AND WROTE THE RULES OF #METOO 80 YEARS BEFORE THE HASHTAG The explosive sport biography reveals how Mildred Burke, the forgotten pioneer of girl wrestling, women wrestling, and pro-wrestling, invented sports feminism… and gives you the tools to smash your own limits. Step into vintage 1930s America, where a 5'2" waitress defied gender stereotypes, dominated male wrestlers twice her size in mixed wrestling (woman wrestling man) and catch wrestling (catch-as-catch-can), and became the first million-dollar female athlete. She built the first all-female ...

From the moment she burst onto the MMA scene, Ronda Rousey was unbeatable. She repeatedly strung together back-to-back flawless victories, racking up a collection of records and forever changing the face of sports as the UFC’s first female champion. A superstar in her sport, she transcended athletics, appearing in blockbuster films and becoming a role model for women everywhere. Then, on November 15, 2015, it all came crashing down. In OUR FIGHT, Rousey explores the greatest challenge of her life and, ultimately, how she rebuilt her life into something better in the aftermath.

Simone Biles was raised by a single mother with addiction issues, forcing her grandparents to intervene. But Simone soon discovered balance beams and gymnastics mats, setting her on a path toward Olympic greatness. Carli Lloyd, meanwhile, believed her youth soccer career was really starting to take off, only to be cut from her team. Instead of quitting the sport she loved, Carli rebuilt her confidence, ultimately becoming one of the leaders on the World Cup Champion US Women's Soccer team. The athletes featured in this book met earth-shaking challenges head on, and went on to conquer the sports world.

When “Renaissance runner” (New York Times) Alexi Pappas - Olympic athlete, actress, filmmaker, and writer - was four years old, her mother died by suicide, drastically altering the course of Pappas’s life and setting her on a search for female role models. When her father signed his bereaved daughter up for sports teams as a way to keep her busy, female athletes became the first women Pappas looked up to, and her Olympic dream was born. At the same time, Pappas had big creative dreams, too: She wanted to make movies, write, and act.

From playground to pro court—this is where legends begin. Packed with inspiring stories of 25 basketball superstars, this book helps kids see what it really takes to succeed: hustle, heart, and never giving up. Each legend—from historic icons to today’s game-changers—has a story that motivates and teaches life lessons. Chapters include a life lesson, top 5 highlights, 10 fun facts, and a mini bio Features male and female players from different backgrounds and eras High-interest nonfiction for boys and girls ages 7–13 Great for classroom libraries, sports fans, and future MVPsThis ...

Oksana Masters was born in Ukraine—in the shadow of Chernobyl—seemingly with the odds stacked against her. She came into the world with one kidney, a partial stomach, six toes on each foot, webbed fingers, no right bicep, and no thumbs. Her left leg was six inches shorter than her right, and she was missing both tibias.

Few names in the history of baseball evoke the excellence and dynamism that Rickey Henderson’s does. He holds the record for the most stolen bases in a single game, and he’s scored more runs than any player ever. “If you cut Rickey Henderson in half, you’d have two Hall of Famers,” the baseball historian Bill James once said. But perhaps even more than his prowess on the field, Rickey Henderson’s is a story of Oakland, California, the town that gave rise to so many legendary athletes like him.

By age twenty, at the height of the Jazz Age, Trudy Ederle was the most accomplished swimmer in the world. She’d won Olympic gold and set a host of world records. But the greatest challenge remained: the English Channel. Only a few swimmers, none of them women, had ever made the treacherous twenty-one mile crossing. Trudy’s failed first attempt seemed to confirm what many naysayers believed: No woman could possibly accomplish such a thing. In 1926, Ederle proved them wrong.

In Brave Enough, Jessie Diggins reveals the true story of her journey from the American Midwest into sports history. With candid charm and characteristic grit, she connects the dots from her free-spirited upbringing in the woods of Minnesota to racing in the bright spotlights of the Olympics. Going far beyond stories of races and ribbons, she describes the challenges and frustrations of becoming a serious athlete.

Tia Toomey, the world’s fittest woman, has won the CrossFit Games an incredible six years in a row and is undeniably a true warrior. She has also trained for the Winter Olympics in bobsledding, competed in the Summer Olympics in weightlifting, and was a Commonwealth Games gold medalist. She is, in short, one of the most accomplished and dominant athletes in human history. But for Tia physical fitness is only a small part of overall strength. More important is building mental toughness.

Pull back the curtain on the most powerful position in all of sports: the Quarterback, the American equivalent of royalty, long glamorized, mythologized and worshiped.

Dan "Hendo" Henderson was the first fighter in MMA history to become a double champion, winning championships in PRIDE Fighting Championships and Strikeforce. He faced the biggest names in MMA, on his unparalleled run through the early days of MMA through its remarkable rise in popularity, squaring off against the likes of Fedor Emelianenko, Anderson Silva, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Wanderlei Silva, Michael Bisping, Vitor Belfort, and Renzo Gracie. Henderson's first fight against Mauricio "Shogun" Rua in 2011 is considered one of the greatest fights in UFC history.

Born and raised in West Philadelphia, Kareem thought he and his siblings would always be stuck in “The Bottom”, a community and neighborhood devastated by poverty and violence. Riding their bicycles through Philly’s Fairmount Park, Kareem’s brothers discover a barn full of horses. Noticing the brothers’ fascination with her misfit animals, Lezlie Hiner, founder of The Work to Ride stables, offers them their escape: an after school job in exchange for riding lessons. What starts as an accidental discovery turns into a love for horseback riding.

More than a century ago, a woman ran in the very first modern Olympic marathon. She just did it without permission. Award-winning journalist Maggie Mertens uncovers the story of how women broke into competitive running and how they are getting faster and fiercer every day—and changing our understanding of what is possible as they go.

As a kid, Jackie Robinson loved sports. And why not? He was a natural at football, basketball, and, of course, baseball. But beyond athletic skill, it was his strength of character that secured his place in sports history. In 1947 Jackie joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the long-time color barrier in major league baseball. It was tough being first - not only did "fans" send hate mail but some of his own teammates refused to accept him.

Two-time All-Star and 13-year NBA veteran Caron Butler has an impressive basketball record. He was Big East Co-Player of the Year at UConn, the 10th overall pick of the 2002 NBA Draft and a key player for the Dallas Mavericks in their championship-winning season in 2011. But before Butler had a chance to prove himself on the court, he spent his time trying to prove himself on the streets, as a gang member and drug dealer in his hometown of Racine, Wisconsin. He saw friends gunned down in the bloody street wars near his home....

On the last night of the 2021 CrossFit Games, ten thousand fans watched in horror as Brooke Wells’ elbow dislocated under the weight of a 190-pound barbell. This is the extraordinary story of what happened next: How Wells pulled off a highly improbable comeback that transformed her mentally and physically into one of the fittest women in the world. In Resilient, Wells provides a refreshingly honest, authentic account of how she overcame fear, self-doubt, and a slew of unexpected obstacles to return to the CrossFit Games less than a year after undergoing total elbow reconstruction.

The moving true story of a group of young men growing up on Chicago's West side who form the first all-Black high school rowing team in the nation, and in doing so not only transform a sport, but their lives.

Mike Trout is a standout MLB outfielder. Learn about his childhood and his rise to becoming a baseball superstar.

Ignite your child's imagination with the thrilling pages of "Inspiring Sports Stories for Curious Minds: 18 Athlete Biographies and How They Became the Best in the World". This captivating collection of tales takes your young reader on an unforgettable journey, delivering a front-row seat to the lives of 18 global sports superstars. Every turn of the page reveals a new adventure, a new challenge overcome, and a new champion standing tall. From the soccer fields of Brazil to the tennis courts of the United States, from the swimming pools of Australia to the cricket pitches of India, the ...