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Sports / Recreation
It's difficult to imagine today--when the Super Bowl has virtually become a national holiday and the National Football League is the country's dominant sports entity--but pro football was once a ramshackle afterthought on the margins of the American sports landscape. In the span of a single generation in postwar America, the game charted an extraordinary rise in popularity, becoming a smartly managed, keenly marketed sports entertainment colossus whose action is ideally suited to television and whose sensibilities perfectly fit the modern age.
America's Game traces pro football's grand transformation, from the World War II years, when the NFL was fighting for its very existence, to the turbulent 1980s and 1990s, when labor disputes and off-field scandals shook the game to its core, and up to the sport's present-day preeminence. A thoroughly entertaining account of the entire universe of professional football, from locker room to boardroom, from playing field to press box, this is an essential book for any fan of America's favorite sport.
In the middle of Oliver Horovitz s high school graduation ceremony, his cell phone rang: It was Harvard. He d been accepted, but he couldn t start for another year.
A caddie since he was twelve and a golfer sporting a 1.8 handicap, Ollie decides to spend his gap year in St. Andrews, Scotland a town with the U.K. s highest number of pubs per capita, and home to the Old Course, golf s most famous eighteen holes where he enrolls in the St. Andrews Links Trust caddie trainee program. Initially, the notoriously brusque veteran caddies treat Ollie like a bug. But after a year of waking up at 4:30 A.M. every morning and looping two rounds a day, Ollie earns their grudging respect only to have to pack up and leave for Harvard.
There, Ollie s new classmates are the sons of Albania s UN ambassador, the owner of Heineken, and the CEO of Goldman Sachs. Surrounded by sixth generation legacies, he feels like a fish out of water all over again and can t wait to get back to St. Andrews. Even after graduation, when his college friends rush to Wall Street, Horovitz continues to return each summer to caddie on the Old Course.
A hilarious, irresistible, behind-the-scenes peek at the world s most celebrated golf course and its equally famous caddie shack "An American Caddie in St. Andrews"is certain to not only entertain golfers and fans of St. Andrews but also anyone who dares to remember stumbling into adulthood and finding one s place in the world.
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With compelling detail and pure passion, James Dodson recounts the singular brilliance of three golf titans and how they saved the professional tour and created the game as we know it today.
During the Depression golf was in crisis. As a spectator sport it was on the verge of extinction. This was the unhappy prospect facing Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, and Ben Hogan -two dirt-poor boys from Texas and another from Virginia, who had dedicated themselves to the sport. But then lightning struck, and from the late thirties into the fifties these three men were so thoroughly dominant that they transformed both how the game was played and how society regarded it. Paving the way for the subsequent popularity of players from Arnold Palmer to Tiger Woods, they were, and will always remain, a triumvirate for the ages.
During the Depression--after the exploits of Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen and Bobby Jones (winning the Grand Slam as an amateur in 1930) had faded in the public's imagination--golf's popularity fell year after year, and as a spectator sport it was on the verge of extinction. This was the unhappy prospect facing two dirt-poor boys from Texas and another from Virginia who had dedicated themselves to the game yet could look forward only to eking out a subsistence living along with millions of other Americans. But then lightning struck, and from the late thirties into the fifties these three men were so thoroughly dominant--each setting a host of records--that they transformed both how the game was played and how society regarded it.
Sports fans in general are well aware of Hogan and Nelson and Snead, but even the most devoted golfers will learn a great many new things about them here. Their hundredth birthdays will be commemorated throughout 2012--Nelson born in February, Snead in May, and Hogan in August--but as this comprehensive and compelling account vividly demonstrates, they were, and will always remain, a triumvirate for the ages.
A celebration of 100 years of the NFL from Hall of Fame receiver and bestselling author Jerry Rice!
"This book is an amazing compilation of the game's history as seen through the eyes of my friend Jerry Rice, aka The GOAT. You are going to love this book almost as much as you loved watching Jerry play!" --Barry Sanders, NFL Hall of Fame Class of 2004
The authors of the New York Times bestseller 50 Years, 50 Moments celebrate the first 100 years of the National Football League, interweaving history, personal stories, memories, and observations of some of its greatest players, coaches, and advocates to chronicle football's amazing evolution from a fledgling regional fly-by-night operation into a multi-billion global brand and one of America's leading franchises.
Over the past century, professional football has transformed from a game played in leather helmets on cow pastures to one of the most high-tech, popular sports on the planet. In this entertaining and concise history, Jerry Rice and Randy O. Williams celebrate the NFL's centennial, bringing together colorful memories, insights, and personal experiences and observations from the heroes, losers, innovators, and defining legends who have played the game at its highest level. America's Game is filled with inside stories of the league's fiercest rivalries, closest competitions, and most memorable characters, from the early days of Red "The Galloping Ghost" Grange and "Slingin'" Sammy Baugh to Jim Brown and "Broadway" Joe Namath to Lawrence Taylor, Jerry Rice, and Tom Brady.
Cowboy fans will never forget how Roger Staubach's Hail Mary lifted his team to a last-second playoff victory over the Vikings. Patriot followers will always point to The Tuck Rule Game as a franchise landmark where Adam Vinatieri's two clutch kicks in deep snow propelled his team to victory over the Raiders. Generations of Steelers fans will celebrate James Harrison's electrifying 100-yard interception return for a touchdown in Super Bowl XLIII. All are among the most memorable moments in NFL history. Divided by increments of twenty-five years, each section of America's Game includes the authors' selections for their "All Star" players and teams.
America's Game is a unique tribute to this enduring cultural phenomenon, and will become the authoritative tribute to all that is great about the sport Americans--and the world--loves.
A celebration of 100 years of the NFL from Hall of Fame receiver and bestselling author Jerry Rice!
"This book is an amazing compilation of the game's history as seen through the eyes of my friend Jerry Rice, aka The GOAT. You are going to love this book almost as much as you loved watching Jerry play!" --Barry Sanders, NFL Hall of Fame Class of 2004
The authors of the New York Times bestseller 50 Years, 50 Moments celebrate the first 100 years of the National Football League, interweaving history, personal stories, memories, and observations of some of its greatest players, coaches, and advocates to chronicle football's amazing evolution from a fledgling regional fly-by-night operation into a multi-billion global brand and one of America's leading franchises.
Over the past century, professional football has transformed from a game played in leather helmets on cow pastures to one of the most high-tech, popular sports on the planet. In this entertaining and concise history, Jerry Rice and Randy O. Williams celebrate the NFL's centennial, bringing together colorful memories, insights, and personal experiences and observations from the heroes, losers, innovators, and defining legends who have played the game at its highest level. America's Game is filled with inside stories of the league's fiercest rivalries, closest competitions, and most memorable characters, from the early days of Red "The Galloping Ghost" Grange and "Slingin'" Sammy Baugh to Jim Brown and "Broadway" Joe Namath to Lawrence Taylor, Jerry Rice, and Tom Brady.
Cowboy fans will never forget how Roger Staubach's Hail Mary lifted his team to a last-second playoff victory over the Vikings. Patriot followers will always point to The Tuck Rule Game as a franchise landmark where Adam Vinatieri's two clutch kicks in deep snow propelled his team to victory over the Raiders. Generations of Steelers fans will celebrate James Harrison's electrifying 100-yard interception return for a touchdown in Super Bowl XLIII. All are among the most memorable moments in NFL history. Divided by increments of twenty-five years, each section of America's Game includes the authors' selections for their "All Star" players and teams.
America's Game is a unique tribute to this enduring cultural phenomenon, and will become the authoritative tribute to all that is great about the sport Americans--and the world--loves.
The mobility and stability tests will assess your form, and the corrective exercises, along with step-by-step photos, will improve your core and overall performance, so that you can train and run with confidence, knowing how to avoid injuries!
For more than four hundred years, the art of ballet has stood at the center of Western civilization. Its traditions serve as a record of our past. A ballerina dancing "The Sleeping Beauty" today is a link in a long chain of dancers stretching back to sixteenth-century Italy and France: Her graceful movements recall a lost world of courts, kings, and aristocracy, but her steps and gestures are also marked by the dramatic changes in dance and culture that followed. Ballet has been shaped by the Renaissance and Classicism, the Enlightenment and Romanticism, Bolshevism, Modernism, and the Cold War. "Apollo's Angels" is a groundbreaking work--the first cultural history of ballet ever written, lavishly illustrated and beautifully told.
Ballet is unique: It has no written texts or standardized notation. It is a storytelling art passed on from teacher to student. The steps are never just the steps--they are a living, breathing document of a culture and a tradition. And while ballet's language is shared by dancers everywhere, its artists have developed distinct national styles. French, Italian, Danish, Russian, English, and American traditions each have their own expression, often formed in response to political and societal upheavals.
From ballet's origins in the Renaissance and the codification of its basic steps and positions under France's Louis XIV (himself an avid dancer), the art form wound its way through the courts of Europe, from Paris and Milan to Vienna and St. Petersburg. It was in Russia that dance developed into the form most familiar to American audiences: "The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, " and "The Nutcracker "originated at the Imperial court. In the twentieth century, emigre dancers taught their art to a generation in the United States and in Western Europe, setting off a new and radical transformation of dance.
Jennifer Homans is a historian and critic who was also a professional dancer: She brings to "Apollo's Angels" a knowledge of dance born of dedicated practice. She traces the evolution of technique, choreography, and performance in clean, clear prose, drawing readers into the intricacies of the art with vivid descriptions of dances and the artists who made them. Her admiration and love for the ballet shines through on every page. "Apollo's Angels" is an authoritative work, written with a grace and elegance befitting its subject.