sports

Mike Pesca

The host of The Gist podcast shares perspectives by some of history's greatest sports minds on how the world might have changed if iconic plays, trades, injuries or referee's calls had gone the other way.

Phillip Hoose

Charts the rise of the legendary Crispus Attucks High School Tigers in the 1950s. By winning the Indiana state high school basketball boys' championship in 1955, ten teens from a school meant to be the centerpiece of racially segregated education in Indiana shattered the myth of their own inferiority. Their brilliant coach had fashioned an unbeatable team from a group of boys born in the South and raised in poverty, anchored by the astonishing player Oscar 'The Big O' Robertson. The Crispus Attucks Tigers went down in history as the first state champions from the city of Indianapolis and the first all-black team in U.S. history to win a racially open championship tournamen

Ken Bensinger

Presents an account of the FIFA corruption scandal that implicated nearly every aspect of international soccer, sharing insights into the roles of key personalities while tracing the efforts of law enforcement officials to expose the trut

Erica Westly

Chronicles the history of fastpitch softball from its beginnings as an industrial worker's game to an Olympic sport, discusing the women and men who popularized the sport.

David Wanczyk

In Beep, David Wanczyk illuminates the sport of blind baseball to show us a remarkable version of America's pastime. With balls tricked out to beep three times per second like a troubling EKG and with bases that buzz, beep baseball is both innovative and intensely competitive. And when the best beep baseball team in America, the Austin Blackhawks, takes on its international rival, Taiwan Homerun, no one's thinking about disability. What we find are athletes playing their hearts out for a championship. Wanczyk follows teams around the world and even joins them on the field to produce a riveting inside narrative about the game and its players.

Jack Arute

What's it like to race across the blacktop of the nation's most famous track? How does it feel to smash into a concrete wall while going over 200 miles per hour? This exciting, humorous, and poignant collection of tales takes readers inside the most exciting race in America.

David Wanczyk

Journey on and off the field with Andrew Luck, Alex Smith, Joe Flacco, Doug Williams, and Ryan Fitzpatrick to discover the unique experiences, perspectives, and inner lives of five top NFL quarterbacks

Lydia Reeder

In the early 1930s, during the worst drought and financial depression in American history, Sam Babb began to dream. Like so many others, this charismatic Midwestern basketball coach wanted a reason to have hope. Traveling from farm to farm near the tiny Oklahoma college where he coached, Babb recruited talented, hardworking young women and offered them a chance at a better life: a free college education in exchange for playing on his basketball team, the Cardinals.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

n his first memoir written especially for young readers, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar focuses on his relationships with several important coaches in his life---including his father, his high-school coach and Coach Wooden---as he tells the story of his life and career.

Steve Sheinkin

Presents the true story of how Jim Thorpe and Pop Warner created the legendary Carlisle Indians football team, one of the winningest teams in American football history.

Caela Carter

After sacrificing their childhoods, Grace, Leigh, Camille, Wilhelmina, and Monica are competing in the two days of the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials, after which their lives will change forever.

Neil O. Connelly

High school champion wrestler Eddie MacIntyre does not mind his well-earned reputation as a loose cannon, but when he punches a referee he not only loses his chance at the state championships, he gets expelled from school--facing the strong possibility of joining his father in prison, he runs away and joins an illegal underground fighting ring, where he and a girl fighter named Khajee find themselves trapped in a violent world, run by bad men and gamblers.

Chris Crutcher

When it comes to family, Annie is in the losers bracket. While her foster parents are great (mostly), her birth family would not have been her first pick. And no matter how many times Annie tries to write them out of her life, she always gets sucked back into their drama. Love is like that. But when a family argument breaks out at Annie's swim meet and her nephew goes missing, Annie might be the only one who can get him back. With help from her friends, her foster brother, and her social service worker, Annie puts the pieces of the puzzle together, determined to find her nephew and finally get him into a safe home

Tom Easton

Fleur's pretty sure she's a bad feminist. She doesn't stand up to people the way her best friend, Blossom, does. She even muted Emma Watson on Twitter. So when one of Blossom's crusades takes them to a local boxing gym, Fleur surprises everyone, including herself, by signing up for a class. She's even more surprised when she goes back the next week. She's the only girl there, it's the hardest workout she's ever done in her life, and no one, from her Pilates-preferring mom to her orderly boyfriend, is thrilled that she's courting concussions and packing on muscle. But for the first time in her life, Fleur feels strong and willing to fight for something.

John Feinstein

When best friends Tom and Jason leave New York City for an elite, sports-focused boarding school in Virginia to play football, they find some coaches and teammates to be steeped in racism.

Thatcher Heldring

In the summer before high school, Tessa's decision to play football, instead of running cross-country, affects her blossoming romance with football prospect Caleb, her relationship with best friends Marina and Lexie, who are counting on Tessa to try out for cross-country, and her home life with her politically ambitious mother.

John Feinstein

When best friends Tom and Jason leave New York City for an elite, sports-focused boarding school in Virginia to play football, they find some coaches and teammates to be steeped in racism.

Thatcher Heldring

In the summer before high school, Tessa's decision to play football, instead of running cross-country, affects her blossoming romance with football prospect Caleb, her relationship with best friends Marina and Lexie, who are counting on Tessa to try out for cross-country, and her home life with her politically ambitious mother.