The Franchise: Lebron James and the Remaking of the Cleveland Cavaliers
Award-winning sports journalists Terry Pluto and Brian Windhorst give us an in-depth look at how a team and a city are being rebuilt around superstar LeBron James. When the Cleveland Cavaliers won the top pick in the 2003 NBA draft, an entire city buzzed with excitement. How often does a LeBron James come along? Especially for Cleveland, a midmarket rustbelt city without a sports championship in fifty years, and for the Cavaliers, a team that had never reached the NBA finals. Now, everyone has a stake in LeBron. From billionaire team owner Dan Gilbert down to the popcorn vendors, everyone has something riding on this one guy. Chock full of facts and analysis.
PUNCH! Why Women Participate in Violent Sports
Over the past year, a startling development has occurred in the mainstream press: sportswriters have started taking note of women who participate in violent sports. Such women include Tonya Butler, who wants to be the first woman to play in a Division I football game; Laila Ali, a professional boxer with a winning record, who wants to follow in her father’s footsteps; and Margaret McGregor, the first woman to fight a man in a professional boxing bout (she won). But there have always been women who participated in contact sports. Think of the women’s hockey team who competed in the 1998 Olympics – they’ve been playing the game for years. Or consider the Golden Gloves Boxing Championships, which allowed female competitors since 1995. Or consider the case of Susan Booth, nobody famous, a gym owner, mother of two and fifth-degree (master) black belt in Tae Kwon Do. She’s been fighting for fifteen years. Continue Reading »
Nebraska Football: The Greatest Games, Players, Coaches, And Teams in the Glorious Tradition of Cornhusker Football (Game Day)
The names are oh, so familiar to fans of college football. Johnny Rodgers. Dave Rimington. Mike Rozier. Tommie Frazier. Eric Crouch. Grant Wistrom. Those names and countless others have given Nebraska football an unmatched tradition and legacy of greatness and made football Saturdays high holy days in the Cornhusker State.
In this book, we’ve attempted to distill that tradition of greatness into words and pictures. It’s a daunting task. Few programs inspire the loyalty and passion that Nebraska football exacts from its fans, and with good reason.