Sporting House

Before the league’s founding, East Coast basketball had crowned just three national champions in 40 years, and none since 1954. But in the Big East’s first 10 years, five of its teams played for a national championship. The league didn’t merely inherit good teams; it created them. But how did this unlikely group of schools come to dominate college basketball so quickly and completely?

The World Series is the most enduring showcase in American team sports. It’s the place where legends are made, where celebration and devastation can hinge on a fly ball off a foul pole or a grounder beneath a first baseman’s glove. And there’s no one better to bring this rich history to life than New York Times national baseball columnist Tyler Kepner, whose bestselling book about pitching, K, was lauded as “Michelangelo explaining the brush strokes on the Sistine Chapel” by Newsday.

Jalen Rose has never been quiet. Not as a kid growing up in Detroit in the '70s and '80s. Not as the brash, trash-talking leader of the legendary "Fab Five" at the University of Michigan. Not as the player under the stewardship of Hall of Famers Larry Bird, Isiah Thomas, and others throughout his 13-year NBA career. And certainly not as a commentator and analyst on ABC/ESPN and Grantland.

Shot Ready is a powerful distillation of Stephen Curry’s transformative philosophy of success—centered on preparation, constant improvement, creativity, connection, mindfulness, and joy—delivered in his incomparable voice and style.

One evening late in his life, veteran sportswriter Mike Sullivan was asked by his son what he remembered best from his three decades in the press box. The answer came as a surprise. "I was at Secretariat's Derby, in '73. That was...just beauty, you know?" John Jeremiah Sullivan didn't know, not really - but he spent two years finding out, journeying from prehistoric caves to the Kentucky Derby in pursuit of what Edwin Muir called "our long-lost archaic companionship" with the horse.

A fourth-generation fisherman, Jake Anderson, grew up in the rich fishing environment of Anacortes, Washington. At age 17, Jake began salmon fishing in Bristol Bay, Alaska, and by the age of 25 he was crab fishing in the Bering Sea. Soon after, Jake became a deckhand on the F/V Northwestern and joined the popular television series Deadliest Catch. Aside from fishing, Jake has a harrowing story that has yet to be told. As an avid skateboarder, Jake aspired to become a professional until he was sidelined by injury, addiction, and homelessness.

For 18 years Ed Viesturs pursued climbing's holy grail: to stand atop the world's 14 8,000-meter peaks, without the aid of bottled oxygen. But No Shortcuts to the Top is as much about the man who would become the first American to achieve that goal as it is about his stunning quest. As Viesturs recounts the stories of his most harrowing climbs, he reveals a man torn between the flat, safe world he and his loved ones share and the majestic and deadly places where only he can go.

Justin Roberts always dreamed of being a ring announcer at World Wrestling Entertainment. From playing with action figures of the Ultimate Warrior, the Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels, Bret Hitman Hart and Hulk Hogan to actually announcing these larger-than-life characters to the ring, Roberts lived out the dream of countless, passionate wrestling fans worldwide.

The Kingdom of Shivas Irons is the enchanting story of Murphy's return to Scotland to investigate reports of further visitations by Shivas Irons and to answer questions about him and MacDuff that have haunted Murphy since his original trip to Burningbush some 31 years before. Murphy and his companion, Buck Hannigan, a skeptical physicist fascinated by Shivas's connections to metanormal events, embark on a magical quest for Irons and MacDuff - and their wisdom about golf and human potential.

My wrestling coach taught me all there is to know about grappling. About getting another gay—I mean, guy—to submit. It’s why I’m the top wrestler on my college wrestling team. I guess you could say I’m pretty good at pinning guys. Coach Mason and I have gotten close lately. He’s proud of what I can do. Says he likes to pin guys too. I stay behind after practice because Coach says he wants to teach me some moves.Coach takes off his shirt, shorts and whistle, and instructs me to spar with him. I'd like to give it a try. Time to see how much of Coach Mason I can really take.

In most sports the pinnacle is Wheaties-box notoriety. But in the world of pool, notoriety is the last thing a hustler desires. Such is the dilemma that faces one Danny Basavich, an affable, generously proportioned Jewish kid from Jersey, who flounders through high school until he discovers the one thing he excels at - the felt - and hits the road.

Football god. Ladies man. Campus celebrity. Guys want to be me and girls want to bed me. Commitment? What's that? Then I saw her - tiny, gorgeous, and oh so...mine.

In this behind-the-scenes look at the making of a champion, the coach of the Villanova University men's basketball team shares his competitive and cooperative philosophy along with lessons from his coaching career and the story of his personal road to success.

In NASCAR, as in life, the difference between winning and losing often comes down to being in the right place at the right time and making the most of every opportunity. Nobody understands that better than Dave Alpern. Dave started his career as an unpaid intern selling T-shirts for the newly formed Joe Gibbs Racing team. Nearly three decades later, he’s now the president of JGR, a multimillion-dollar elite, record-setting racing team with more than 500 employees. In Taking the Lead, Dave shares the wisdom he’s learned along the way.

The bicycle is a vestige of the Victorian era, seemingly at odds with our age of smartphones and ride-sharing apps and driverless cars. Yet we live on a bicycle planet. Across the world, more people travel by bicycle than any other form of transportation. Almost anyone can learn to ride a bike—and nearly everyone does.

An irreverent, hilarious insider's look at big-time NCAA basketball, through the eyes of the nation's most famous benchwarmer and author of the popular blog ClubTrillion.com (3.6m visits!). Mark Titus holds the Ohio State record for career wins, and made it to the 2007 national championship game. You would think Titus would be all over the highlight reels. You'd be wrong.

Claude "Butch" Harmon is the world's number one golf coach. He taught Tiger Woods through one of the greatest stretches of victories in golf history (and, perhaps even more conspicuously, did not teach Tiger Woods following his unprecedented run), as well as superstars like Greg Norman, Adam Scott, Fred Couples, Darren Clarke, Natalie Gulbis, and Davis Love III.

The Winners Manual: For the Game of Life shares Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel's "Big Ten" fundamentals for success: Attitude, Discipline, Faith, Handling Adversity & Success, Excellence, Love, Toughness, Responsibility, Team, and Hope. Peppered with personal stories from Tressel's storied coaching career, the book shares the fundamental lessons that he has been imparting to his players for the past 20 years.

In Imperfect, Jim Abbot retraces his remarkable journey. Born without a right hand, Jim Abbott as a boy dreamed of being a great athlete. Raised in Flint, Michigan, by parents who saw in his condition not a disability but an extraordinary opportunity, Jim became a two-sport standout in high school, then an ace pitcher for the University of Michigan. But his journey was only beginning. By 21, he’d won the gold medal game at the 1988 Olympics and cracked the starting rotation of the California Angels....

Reggie Jackson and Bob Gibson offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to understand America's pastime from their unique insider perspective.