Sports & Recreation : Football

The Super Bowl champion discusses his love for football, detailing his childhood, school years, becoming a professional football coach, and winning the Super Bowl at the age of thirty-nine. more...

Price: $10.95

The ultimate fan's guide to America's most popular sport. Since the last edition of Football For Dummies , new stadiums have been built, new stars have ascended, and records have been broken. This new edition has been revised to reflect today's game, giving football fans up-to-the-minute information on all the rules and regulations, positions, plays, and penalties. more...

Price: $19.99

In Giant, Plaxico Burress takes you into the locker room, onto the practice field, and into the huddle, providing a flat-out-honest look at life on and off the field with the New York Giants and at the making of a champion. Throughout the 2007 season, Plaxico battled near-crippling injuries, and despite rarely practicing, being heavily bandaged, and on serious painkillers, he led the New York Giants in receptions, yards, and touchdowns. He continued to play through pain in the playoffs, only to be further injured before Super Bowl XLII. Playing the arrogant Patriots—who were inviting the Giants to their victory party before the game was over—Plaxico concealed a significant injury that might have changed the outcome of the game if the Pats had known. When he first joined the Giants, Plaxico expected to be the go-to guy for the young quarterback Eli Manning. What he didn't expect was the media and fan scrutiny that was heaped on Manning as they battled to win games. What Plaxico also didn't expect was the difficult relationship he had with head coach Tom Coughlin, who was a stickler for discipline and who would fine players for even the mildest offenses. For five years Plaxico had played for the laid-back Bill Cowher and the Pittsburgh Steelers. In contrast, within weeks of joining the Giants, Plaxico and Coughlin were butting heads, and the fines followed. But there to make things a little easier were friends like Jeremy Shockey and Amani Toomer, nearly polar opposites. With Shock, everything was always full-tilt and his mouth would usually get him into trouble. Toomer was the easygoing elder statesman—at times absentminded, but a brilliant receiver. And in 2007, Manning, with Plaxico's advice and support, would rise above the scrutinizing media and come into his own, and Coach Coughlin would relax his grip somewhat and let the team breathe. The results were obvious. It's all here. The ups and downs, the trash-talking, the sweat and more...

Price: $19.95

The stories behind the success of one of the NFL’s most popular teams. Built on the firsthand accounts of the players and coaches who made the Redskins great–Joe Theismann, Larry Brown, Vince Lombardi, George Allen, and numerous others–Thom Loverro takes fans on a tour of the team’s glorious past. more...

Price: $24.95

I DREAM IN BLUE is the uproarious and impassioned story of how one middle–aged fan ran away from his everyday life in order to join the ranks of his favorite team on earth: the New York Giants. Director spends the 2006–2007 season up close and personal with Big Blue, in the locker room and on the practice field, schmoozing with fan favorites like Tiki Barber, arguably the league's best running back, who announces mid–way through the season that this will be his last, and famed quarterback Eli Manning, who faces, among other challenges, the pressures imposed on him by his impressive pedigree. But while the players are propped up by battalions of trainers, doctors, physical therapists, mental health professionals, nutritionists, film technicians, locker room attendants, media advisers and the best of coaches, Director guts it out with Big Blue all on his own –– without even the benefit of getting his ankles taped. Refusing to let anything get in his way –– not his fumble–prone television career, not the very same degenerative hip disease that forced the great Bo Jackson off the gridiron, not even planning his daughter's bat–mitzvah from the road –– he is there with the team from the first snap of summer camp to the final gun of the season. And like the players he adores, he's got only one end in mind: the Super Bowl. Along the way, Director tells the story of how a family business, founded with only $500 by an Irish bookmaker in the gaudy Prohibition era of Red Grange, Jack Dempsey, Will Rogers, and Babe Ruth, has endured to become an essential component of New York City's heartbeat –– and also the heartbeat of Director, our tour–guide through this great athletic dynasty. Ultimately, I DREAM IN BLUE is the story of a desperate Hail Mary –– a die–hard fan's quest to have one last endzone celebration. more...

Price: $11.95