Sporting House

When a potentially career-ending shoulder injury left quarterback Drew Brees without a team - and facing the daunting task of having to learn to throw a football all over again - coaches around the NFL wondered, Will he ever come back? After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, leaving more than 80 percent of the city underwater, many wondered, Will the city ever come back?

In this engaging book, the internationally best-selling author and famously private writer Haruki Murakami shares with listeners his thoughts on the role of the novel in our society; his own origins as a writer; and his musings on the sparks of creativity that inspire other writers, artists, and musicians.

Whether you’re a seasoned veteran of the game or have never set foot on a court, How Basketball Can Save the World will empower you to become more resilient, tolerant, and wise in your relationship with yourself, others, and the world around you.

He was one of the greatest figures of his generation and arguably the greatest baseball hitter of all time. But what made Ted Williams a legend and a lightning rod for controversy in life and in death? New York Times best-selling author Leigh Montville delivers an intimate, riveting account of this extraordinary life.

Nando Parrado was unconscious for three days before he woke to discover that the plane carrying his rugby team to Chile had crashed deep in the Andes, killing many of his teammates, his mother, and his sister. Stranded with the few remaining survivors on a lifeless glacier and thinking constantly of his father’s grief, Parrado resolved that he could not simply wait to die.

A wickedly smart, funny, and irresistibly off-kilter account of an improbable thousand-mile journey on foot into the heart of modern Florida, the state that Russell calls "America Concentrate".

If a professional referee has a perfect match, nobody says a word about it. If they have a poor one, they immediately become everyone's object of hatred, solely responsible for everything. With these conditions on his shoulders, Jonas Eriksson walked out onto the biggest and most prestigious football pitches in the world time and time again. He portrays the enormous demands placed on the elite tier of referees, how they are ostracised if they don't maintain their weight or pass extreme physical tests. For eighteen years, Jonas Eriksson was one of FIFA's top referees.

There’s only one thing superstar quarterback Rigby Breeland wants more than his career—a chance to win back the heart of the girl he loved and lost. When star quarterback Rigby Breeland punches a reporter and gets put on suspension, his agent demands that he lay low for a few weeks. He goes to the one place where he knows he can stay out of trouble—coastal Clementine, Alabama, Rigby’s hometown. There’s only one complication—Scarlett Foster, the girl Rigby never got over, the one who broke his heart and turned her back on him. One look at Scarlett and Rigby’s heart goes into ...

With his colorful tattoos and booming hip-hop sound track, Mike Iaconelli has turned the world of big-money competitive bass fishing upside down. In Fishing on the Edge, Iaconelli tells his own story, and it's a whopper: a Philly-born, Jersey-bred Yankee who's been stealing the spotlight from bass fishing's traditionally all-Southern anglers, attracting fans and dominating one of the fastest-growing sports in America.

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 this age of billion dollar athletic marketing campaigns, “feel good” philosophy with no connection to reality, and a Sports Media echo chamber that’s all too eager swallow whatever idiotic notion happens to be in vogue at the moment, it’s tough to find people who aren’t afraid to say what they’re really thinking.

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.

On a scale of one to 10, Quinn Thompson is a 15. Gorgeous. Fiery. A cheerleader so far out of my league, it’s embarrassing that I even fantasize about her. I need to find a way to shut down the dirty thoughts she inspires, before it’s too late. If I don’t, this whole new life of mine is at risk. Easier said than done when temptation lives right down the hall.

College football has never been more popular - or more chaotic. Millions fill 100,000-seat stadiums every Saturday; tens of millions more watch on television every weekend. The 2013 Discover BCS National Championship game between Notre Dame and Alabama had a viewership of 26.4 million people, second only to the Super Bowl. Billions of dollars from television deals now flow into the game; the average budget for a top-ten team is $80 million; top coaches make more than $3 million a year; the highest paid, more than $5 million.

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.

It began with a flutter of yellow feathers flitting through the trees, casting beams of sunshine and promise that burst through her kitchen window. This was her sign to look up. As a licensed therapist, Tammah Watts knew that she needed to seek and accept hope, love, and support to overcome her chronic pain and cultivate resilience. But she could not predict that the little yellow bird would put her on the path to healing by fostering a powerful connection with birds and the experience of birding.

There was a turning point in Michael Lewis' life, in a baseball game when he was 14 years old. The irascible and often terrifying Coach Fitz put the ball in his hand with the game on the line and managed to convey such confident trust in Lewis's ability that the boy had no choice but to live up to it. "I didn't have words for it then, but I do now: I am about to show the world, and myself, what I can do."

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.

For more than a decade, Katie Arnold chased adventure around the world, reporting on extreme athletes who performed outlandish feats - walking high lines 1,000 feet off the ground without a harness, or running 100 miles through the night. She wrote her stories by living them, until eventually life on the thin edge of risk began to seem normal. After she married, Katie and her husband vowed to raise their daughters to be adventurous, too, in the mountains and canyons of New Mexico. But when her father died of cancer, she was forced to confront her own mortality.

With heart-pounding descriptions of avalanches and treacherous ascents, Barry Blanchard chronicles his transformation from a poor Native American/white kid from the wrong side of the tracks to one of the most respected alpinists in the world. At 13 he learned to rappel when he joined the 1292 Lord Strathcone's Horse Army Cadets. Soon kicked out for insubordination, he was already hooked on climbing and saw alpinism as a way to make his single mother proud and end his family's cycle of poverty.