Football Audiobooks | Sports & Recreation

In the Name of the Father: Family, Football, and the Manning Dynasty

No family in the history of American sports has ascended to the storybook level of greatness and royal succession quite like the Mannings. Although the façade has occasionally cracked-murmurs of locker-room scandal, flashes of fraternal jealousy-this talented trio of quarterbacks is enshrined in American culture, epitomizing once-proud but dying nostrums of Southern Christian manhood. With remarkable nuance, "outstanding biographer" (Dallas Morning News) Mark Ribowsky traces their roots from red-clay Mississippi. From patriarch Archie's heyday at Ole Miss, with its complicated history, to the rise of his Super Bowl champion sons Peyton and Eli, a complex new cultural reality emerges. Drawing on dozens of new interviews, Ribowsky shows that the path to football immortality has not always been smooth, nor completely glorious. The result is a distinctly American saga of a flawed lineage that forever changed the game.

Mark Ribowsky (Author), Barry Abrams (Narrator)

Audiobook

Belief

From prison to premiership glory; this is Marlion Pickett's extraordinary story. It's the third quarter in the biggest game of the season. A young man lines up for goal. The 100,000 strong crowd leaps to its feet and roars as Marlion Pickett sends the ball soaring through the goalposts for his first ever major, celebrated by every teammate, a tradition upheld even on Grand Final day. It was the 2019 AFL Grand Final, and Richmond's Marlion Pickett was making history as the first player in over 50 years to debut on that 'one day in September'. Marlion helped the Tigers thrash the Greater Western Sydney Giants in their debut grand final appearance and was judged third best on ground, only six days after steering Richmond's VFL team with his best on ground performance to their nail biting Grand Final victory. Marlion Pickett's extraordinary story of redemption is a true fairy tale. The tale of a man who came back from the brink to triumph on Australian sport's biggest stage, a long-held dream come true. What's even more remarkable about Marlion's journey is how this young, troubled Aboriginal kid from Western Australia ever got his chance in the first place. A story all too sadly familiar - about drugs, crime, violence and time spent in jail - but also about a life picked up piece by piece through his own belief in himself and those around him who believed in him too. Belief also takes us inside the South Fremantle and Richmond Football clubs - clubs that have made stars and cult heroes out of other Indigenous players; clubs willing to overlook a talented kid's troubled past to give him a chance. We meet the fellow players and support network who stood by Marlion's side as he fought back against injury and the doubters and proudly ran onto the field at the MCG. Marlion's resilience and strength is inspirational. His is an unforgettable Australian story of triumph over adversity. Foreword by Brendan Gale, CEO Richmond Football Club and Damien Hardwick, Senior Coach Richmond Football Club '[Belief reads] like a Steinbeck novel cum Tarantino film due to the vividly unfolding drama on almost every page.' Dr Sean Gorman, AFL.com.au

Dave Warner, Marlion Pickett (Author), Dave Warner, Meyne Wyatt (Narrator)

Audiobook

How 'Bout Them Cowboys?: Inside the Huddle with the Stars and Legends of America's Team

Welcome to Jerryworld and an all-access pass to the most valuable sports franchise on the planet, the Dallas Cowboys. Many books have been written about the Cowboys, but there's never been an account like this one. HOW 'BOUT THEM COWBOYS tells the story of the NFL's most successful franchise, with special access to its outspoken owner, Jerry Jones, his sons Stephen and Jerry Jr., daughter Charlotte, and dozens of interviews of current and former players and coaches, and characters from across Cowboy Nation. While tracking the successes and controversies of some of the biggest names in the NFL on and off the field, HOW 'BOUT THEM COWBOYS? remembers the legends of previous generations, and explains why the star on the helmet has become iconic, and how a little expansion team from North Texas has evolved into a global $5 billion brand. Primed for their make-or-break 2018 season, HOW 'BOUT THEM COWBOYS? delivers a fun and surprising account of America's Team, its greatest celebrities, its mercurial management, the vicious rivalries, and the enduring saga that makes this the most popular and polarizing team in sports.

Gary Myers (Author), James Edward Thomas (Narrator)

Audiobook

Why Football Matters: My Education in the Game

Acclaimed essayist Mark Edmundson reflects on his own rite of passage as a high school football player to get to larger truths about the ways America's Game shapes its men. Football teaches young men self-discipline and teamwork. But football celebrates violence. Football is a showcase for athletic beauty and physical excellence. But football damages young bodies and minds, sometimes permanently. Football inspires confidence and direction. But football instills cockiness, a false sense of superiority. The athlete is a noble figure with a proud lineage. The jock is America at its worst. When Mark Edmundson’s son began to play organized football, and proved to be very good at it, Edmundson had to come to terms with just what he thought about the game. Doing so took him back to his own childhood, when as a shy, soft boy growing up in a blue-collar Boston suburb in the sixties, he went out for the high school football team. Why Football Matters is the story of what happened to Edmundson when he tried to make himself into a football player. What does it mean to be a football player? At first Edmundson was hapless on the field. He was an inept player and a bad teammate. But over time, he got over his fears and he got tougher. He learned to be a better player and came to feel a part of the team, during games but also on all sorts of escapades, not all of them savory. By playing football, Edmundson became what he and his father hoped he’d be, a tougher, stronger young man, better prepared for life.

Mark Edmundson (Author), James Jenner (Narrator)

Audiobook

Their Life's Work: The Brotherhood of the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers

The Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s won an unprecedented and unmatched four Super Bowls in six years. A dozen of those Steelers players, coaches, and executives have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, and three decades later their names echo in popular memory: "Mean" Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Mike Webster, Jack Lambert, Lynn Swann, and John Stallworth. In ways exhilarating and heartbreaking, they define not only the brotherhood of sports but those elements of the game that engage tens of millions of Americans: its artistry and its brutality. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, Their Life's Work is a richly textured story of a team and a sport, what the game gave these men, and what the game took.

Gary M. Pomerantz (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

Audiobook

Billion Dollar Fantasy: The High-Stakes Game between FanDuel and DraftKings That Upended Sports in A

The story of the rise of daily fantasy sports, and the brilliant entrepreneurs disrupting the way we consume sports The inside story of the rise, fall, and rise of FanDuel and DraftKings-two companies that began as obscure start-ups and, seemingly overnight, became billion-dollar companies, and just as quickly found themselves the target of the FBI and Department of Justice and the center of a national scandal. Veteran sportswriter Albert Chen draws on candid, unprecedented interviews with every key player in tech, sports, gambling, and the fantasy leagues to create a breakneck narrative around a group of entrepreneurs, players, and gamblers. Billion Dollar Fantasy recounts the origins of modern gambling and fantasy sports in America, and follows the unlikely rise of the fantasy sports world through the lens of the two start-ups at the center of the story. For fans of The Big Short, The Facebook Effect, or Bringing Down the House, this book tells the tale of a culture of risk, hubris, greed, redemption, and a group of larger-than-life characters trying to make sense of the complex new world they've created.

Albert Chen (Author), Chris Abell (Narrator)

Audiobook

Kingdom Quarterback: Patrick Mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs, and How a Once Swingin' Cow Town Chase

Fresh off of a gutsy, thrilling 2023 Super Bowl win for the Kansas City Chiefs, two inspiring stories that fit perfectly together-a biography of superstar quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, who brought the Chiefs to their first Super Bowl win in fifty years in 2020 as well as a second in 2023, along with the historical struggles and recent resurgence of the former "Paris of the Plains," Kansas City. There is nobody like Patrick Mahomes. In three seasons, he has won a Super Bowl and competed in another, earned the titles of First Team All-Pro, NFL Offensive Player of the Year, and league MVP, and turned the Kansas City Chiefs from famed playoff failures into the most successful team in the NFL. With his unique and groundbreaking playing style, and winning personality both on and off the field, Mahomes has become a truly transcendent quarterback in a journey that mirrors and accentuates the rebirth of the once swingin' cow town of Kansas City, Missouri. Once an adventure-filled jazz epicenter and nightlife hub to rival New Orleans, Kansas City's wild edges and captivating neighborhoods were snuffed out in pursuit of a suburbanized dream that largely left out people of color. It's been a long road attempting to move past the scars of segregation and overcome the city's flyover reputation, but Kansas City is now poised to make a comeback, and no other person or team embodies that hope like Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. Kansas City and Mahomes represent the story of the midwestern American city-how they grew, how they shaped the country, how the sport of football came to mean so much to them, how they failed, and how they are changing. Kansas City-area natives Mark Dent and Rustin Dodd have written for outlets such as The New York Times, The Kansas City Star, and Texas Monthly, bringing their deep connection to the city, football expertise, and polished writing skills to create a serious book about a very entertaining subject-the rebirth of a city, a team's triumph, and how Patrick Mahomes, and the team he led, were exactly what was needed to bring Kansas City back together again.

Mark Dent, Rustin Dodd (Author), Kemet Coleman (Narrator)

Audiobook

Play Like You Mean It

No football fan will want to be without the book that delivers pure, unfiltered Rex Ryan-head coach of the New York Jets and one of the most popular, outspoken, well-liked, and widely respected personalities in the National Football League. Rex Ryan is known for his exuberance . . . and Play Like You Mean It explores every aspect of Ryan's amazing passion for the game of football, plus the lessons he has learned in leadership and motivation during his years in and around the game. In his own words, Ryan takes readers behind the scenes of the NFL as he shares colorful football stories from his experiences with the Jets and the Ravens as well as his years recruiting players, coaching college foot-ball, and growing up as a child of legendary NFL coach Buddy Ryan. Rex's unique brand of enthusiasm and motiva-tion comes through on every page. Most of all, fans will get insider access to Ryan's headline-grabbing, brutally honest, and undeniably entertaining views on the NFL . . . and the very human side of the larger-than-life athletes who devote their lives to the game of foot-ball. From Ryan's acceptance of the Jets head coaching job to his success in turning around a team that has long been number two in New York, from his drafting and believing in Mark Sanchez to kicking off the 2010 season with massive expectations (and a target on his back)-this book goes deep, and entertains on every level.

Rex Ryan (Author), Dan Lauria (Narrator)

Audiobook

My Life On The Line: How the NFL Damn Near Killed Me, and Ended Up Saving My Life

Growing up in a red-state corner of California, the not-so-subtle messages he heard as a young man routinely equated being gay with disease and death. Letting people in on the darkest secret he kept buried inside was not an option, and it never would be. Ryan never envisioned just how far his football career would take him. He was recruited by the University of California, Berkeley. Then it was on to the NFL for stints with the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs. Bubbling under the surface of Ryan's entire NFL career was a collision course between his secret sexuality and his hidden drug use. As injuries mounted and his daily intake of opioids reached a near-lethal level, he wrote his suicide note to his parents and plotted his death. Yet someone had been watching. A member of the Chiefs organization stepped in, recognizing the signs of drug addiction. Ryan reluctantly sought psychological help, and it was there that he revealed his lifelong secret for the very first time. Nearing the twilight of his career, Ryan faced the ultimate decision: end it all, or find out if his family and football friends could ever accept a gay man in their lives.

Cyd Zeigler, Ryan O'callaghan, Ryan O’callaghan (Author), Graham Halstead (Narrator)

Audiobook

Heisman

To the select fraternity of men who have won the Heisman Trophy since its inception in 1935, the award is so much more than just a football trophy. The Heisman is a national symbol of collegiate football experience and competitiveness. Over time, it has become the single most celebrated individual award in all of American sports. Although the Heisman Trophy is old, it does not age. If anything, its impact gets stronger every year. No other individual award captures the country's imagination like the Heisman does. From the very first time toe meets leather to kick off a college football season, fans across the country begin debating which players will be the top Heisman Trophy candidates. While the Heisman Trophy is the most famous individual award in sports, very little is known about John W. Heisman, the man the Downtown Athletic Club of New York chose to honor in 1936 by naming its national player of the year award for him. In Heisman: The Man Behind the Trophy, John M. Heisman, the legendary coach's great-nephew, and New York Times bestselling author Mark Schlabach offer college football fans across the country the first authorized and definitive biography of the man whose life has been memorialized by the Heisman Trophy. After combing through thousands of pages of Heisman's personal documents, writings, playbooks, and never-before-published correspondence with some of college football's most famous coaches, the authors have chronicled Heisman's life from a young boy growing up on the oil fields of northwest Pennsylvania to eventually becoming one of the sport's most innovative and successful coaches.

John M. Heisman, Mark Schlabach (Author), Mark Boyd (Narrator)

Audiobook

Strength of a Champion: Finding Faith and Fortitude Through Adversity

Full of profound revelations and never-before-told anecdotes, Strength of a Champion is a celebration of the human spirit from a man who left everything on the field. As the Baltimore Ravens made their improbable march to victory in Super Bowl XLVII, they turned to their senior advisor of player development, O. J. Brigance, for inspiration each and every Sunday. Following a stellar twelve-year career as a linebacker, including a Super Bowl win with Baltimore in 2000, O. J. "Juice" Brigance joined the Ravens' front office. But in 2007, Brigance was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—also known as Lou Gehrig's disease—and told he had only three to five years to live. As a player, he'd battled hundreds of injuries and setbacks. None of them prepared him to face ALS. With faith and determination in his heart and his wife, Chanda, praying by his side, Brigance fought back against the debilitating disease, even as ALS robbed him of the ability to walk and speak. He kept working, smiling, and touching his players' lives all the way through their remarkable Super Bowl run—more than five years after his diagnosis. Now, Brigance shares his incredible story, offering lessons in resilience and reflecting on the championship team that inspired him in turn. Along with his own journey, Brigance recounts the struggles and successes of Ravens players, including Ray Lewis, Joe Flacco, and Torrey Smith, as well as the strength of head coach John Harbaugh. Having watched their season from the best seat in the house, Brigance highlights their perseverance, confidence, and leadership, and the best that sports can bring out in people. Full of profound revelations and never-before-told anecdotes, Strength of a Champion is a celebration of the human spirit from a man who left everything on the field. O.J. Brigance never asked to be a hero. That's what makes his story so courageous.

O. J. Brigance, Peter Schrager (Author), Sean Crisden (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Express: The Ernie Davis Story

An enduring story of a true scholar-athlete, The Express is a touching, impeccably researched, deeply personal portrait of Ernie Davis and a vivid look at sport in America at the dawn of the civil rights era. Ernie Davis was an All-American on the gridiron and a man of integrity off the field. A multi-sport high school star in Elmira, New York, Davis went on to Syracuse University, where as a sophomore he led his team to an undefeated season and a national championship in 1959, and earned his nickname: the Elmira Express. Two seasons later, Davis broke the legendary Jim Brown's rushing records and became the first black athlete to be awarded the Heisman Trophy. The number-one pick in the 1962 NFL draft, Davis signed a contract with the Cleveland Browns and appeared to be headed for professional stardom. But Davis never ended up playing in the NFL; he was diagnosed with leukemia during the summer before his rookie season and succumbed to the disease less than a year later. In battling his illness, Davis showed great dignity and courage, inspired the nation, and moved President John F. Kennedy to eulogize him as "an outstanding man of great character who consistently served as an inspiration."

Robert C. Gallagher (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

Audiobook

Football Audiobooks in Sports & Recreation