Football Audiobooks | Sports & Recreation

Finally Free: An Autobiography Audiobook

One of the most talented and polarizing athletes of our generation, Michael Vick’s stunning story has captured news headlines across the nation. From his poverty-stricken youth, to his success on the field in high school and college, to his rise to NFL stardom and his fall from grace, Finally Free shows how a gifted athlete’s life spiraled out of control under the glare of money and fame, aided by his own poor choices. In his own words, Vick details his regrets, his search for forgiveness, the moments of unlikely grace — and the brokenness that brought his redemption on the way to his celebrated return to the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles. - With forward by Tony Dungy “Vick has apologized and acknowledged the suffering he caused. He has expressed his remorse and his desire to help more animals than he harmed by being an advocate for the humane treatment of animals. We realize the potential Vick has to reach at-risk youth and pull them out of the quicksand…” —The Humane Society of the United States “Finally Free tells an amazing story. It’s not all pretty, but it’s real. This book will let you know why I’m so proud of Michael Vick and honored to call him a friend.” — Tony Dungy, Former NFL head coach for the Indianapolis Colts “I want to be remembered as a guy who never gave up, whether with my family, out on the football field, in a prison cell, or playing one-on-one basketball with somebody in the neighborhood. Standing firm in God always, pushing through, even in my darkest moments.” — Michael Vick ***Please Contact Member Services for Additional Documents***

Michael Vick (Author), Rodney Gardiner (Narrator)

Audiobook

Expected Goals: The story of how data conquered football and changed the game forever

Football has always measured success by what you win, but only in the last twenty years have clubs started to think about how you win. Data has now suffused almost every aspect of how football is played, coached, scouted and consumed. But it’s not the algorithms or new metrics that have made this change, it’s the people behind them. This is the story of modern football’s great data revolution and the group of curious, entrepreneurial personalities who zealously believed in its potential to transform the game. Central to this cast is Chris Anderson, an academic with no experience in football, who saw data as an opportunity to fundamentally change a sport that did not think it could be changed. His aim: to infiltrate the strange, insular world of professional football by establishing a club whose entire DNA could be built around data. Expected Goals charts his remarkable journey into the heart of the modern game and reveals how clubs across the world, from Liverpool to Leipzig and Brentford to Bayern Munich, began to see how data could help them unearth new players, define radical tactics and plot their path to glory.

Rory Smith (Author), Simon Darwen (Narrator)

Audiobook

Once a Giant: A Story of Victory, Tragedy, and Life After Football

The inside story of the Super Bowl champion 1986 Giants, the extraordinary friendships that resulted--and stunning revelations about the hardships they faced, based on new interviews with Bill Parcells, Phil Simms, Mark Bavaro, and Bill Belichick. The 1986 New York Giants are legendary. A championship team coached by Bill Parcells and his wunderkind assistant Bill Belichick, featuring future Hall of Famers and All-Pros like Phil Simms, Lawrence Taylor, Mark Bavaro, and Harry Carson. They were dominant on the field and formed a unique and lasting bond off of it. More than thirty years later, it's the friendships that have proved more important--a matter of life and death. In Once a Giant, bestselling football writer Gary Myers tells the story of that team and what became of it. Gridiron glory eventually faded; chronic pain, addiction, and in some cases crimes have followed. Many football players face these harsh realities, but the Giants have confronted and survived them together. With unprecedented access, Myers dives into such issues as Mark Bavaro's battle with injuries, the breakup and reconciliation of Parcells and Belichick, and Lawrence Taylor's struggles with sobriety. He creates a never-before-seen portrait of the team's run to the title, and their even more challenging fight to live after it ended.

Gary Myers (Author), Charles Constant (Narrator)

Audiobook

Paterno

Joe Posnanski's biography of the late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno follows in the tradition of works by Richard Ben Cramer on Joe DiMaggio and David Maraniss on Vince Lombardi. Having gained unprecedented access to Paterno, as well as the coach's personal notes and files, Posnanski spent the last two years of Paterno's life covering the coach, on (and off) the field and through the scandal that ended Paterno's legendary career. Joe Posnanski, who in 2012 was named the Best Sportswriter in America by the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame, was with Paterno and his family as a horrific national scandal unfolded and Paterno was fired. Within three months, Paterno died of lung cancer, a tragic end to a life that was epic, influential, and operatic. Paterno is the fullest description we will ever have of the man's character and career. In this honest and surprising portrait, Joe Posnanski brings new insight and understanding to one of the most controversial figures in America.

Joe Mantegna, Joe Posnanski (Author), Joe Mantegna, Joe Posnanski (Narrator)

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What It Takes: Fighting For My Life and My Love of the Game

In 2011, Mark Herzlich became a starting linebacker for a New York Giants team that would win the Super Bowl-just two years after he had been told that he would never play football again. Now Herzlich tells his triumphant story for the first time. As a child, Herzlich found an inspiring and grounding force in football, eventually turning his passion into a first-team All-American spot at Boston College. But after being named the conference's top defensive player his junior season, the budding star was sidelined by a persistent, debilitating pain in his left leg. After months of tests, Herzlich received a shocking diagnosis: He had Ewing's sarcoma, a rare bone cancer. Doctors put his odds of survival as low as fifteen percent-and no one thought he would be able to run, much less play, again. Then Herzlich learned of a radical alternative treatment that would give him the best chance to regain his strength and maybe even play football again. He had a choice to make, one that would allow him the chance to return to the game he loved, but it came at the risk of his life. Herzlich relied on family, friends, faith, and deep wells of determination to help him through treatment, and his drastic plan worked. Not only could he run, but he was stronger than ever physically, and mentally ready to battle his way to a spot on an NFL roster. When he was passed over by all 32 teams in the draft, he dug deeper and continued his training, winning a spot in the Giants' training camp, and eventually, on the team. Mark Herzlich fought a battle against cancer, against statistics, and some days against himself. Told with candor and raw emotion, this is a story for anyone who has ever fought to beat the odds, for anyone who has ever been told that what they are about to attempt is next to impossible. Herzlich's story embodies powerful lessons about what can be achieved through persistence and belief, and he serves as living proof that overcoming the impossible is only the beginning.

Mark Herzlich (Author), Mark Herzlich (Narrator)

Audiobook

My First Coach: Inspiring Stories of NFL Quarterbacks and Their Dads

From the New York Times bestselling author of Brady vs. Manning and dean of football writers - a book that explores the many interesting facets to NFL quarterbacks and their relationships with their fathers. Tom Brady's father is an estate planner. Jim Harbaugh's father had a long career as a college coach. Archie Manning played fourteen years in the NFL and never made the playoffs, but his sons Peyton and Eli won a combined four Super Bowls. Joe Montana is considered by many to be the greatest quarterback of all time, but his two sons bounced around college football with limited success. Jameis Winston's father supported his family working overnight highway construction in Alabama. Derek Carr's father moved the family to Houston after Derek's older brother, David, was drafted by the Texans. MY FIRST COACH goes behind the scenes to explore the unique relationship between these and other quarterbacks and their fathers, as well as investigate various approaches to parenting through their stories. Can young athletes overcome helicopter parents? How did the kids with NFL aspirations deal with their fathers who'd already made it? What kind of pressure did they have to overcome? What kind of pressure did the father who succeeded put on his son to be an athlete? Would the expectations be lower and the results greater if the father was an attorney or doctor? Was it better for the fathers to be overbearing, or borderline disinterested? MY FIRST COACH tells the compelling, real-life stories of some of the country's most famous quarterbacks and how they took advantage of or overcame their relationships with their fathers.

Gary Myers (Author), Paul Ryden (Narrator)

Audiobook

Role of a Lifetime: Reflections on Faith, Family, and Significant Living

We live in a world that all too often operates under the overriding template of self-promotion, embracing a "hooray for me" attitude, and which measures success in increasingly small timeframes dotted with markers of temporal value. Millions of viewers know James Brown as a sports commentator and former athlete. With ROLE OF A LIFETIME, James reveals a different side of his character. Part memoir and part self-help, this book draws on James' lessons from his life experiences to guide readers to find fulfillment and significance. He offers values and encouragment to others of all generations, assisting them in their search for meaning in navigating a world that increasingly promotes transient values, if any at all. His message that shortcuts and gimmicks are counterproductive to a person's success provides hope that there is a God who cares about them and their futures.

James Brown, Nathan Whitaker (Author), James Brown (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Woman's Guide to Football: How to Talk His Language

Hail Mary, Sports Widows! Get off the bench and into the game with a relationship kick off that will lead you straight into the end zone. In less than an hour, you can learn all the football basics you need to help you connect with your favorite guy. Join in the fun as Paula Duffy, lifelong sports enthusiast and founder of Incidental Contact, a sports learning site for women, entertains you with the basic rules of the game, information on the players and what they do, and common terms used by announcers as well as how to use what you've learned to get and keep a guy's attention as you "Talk Sports." A firm believer that a little sports knowledge can go a long way, Duffy says "sports talk is the most easily learned and best way to break the ice in any context...at home, in business or at play. I am here to debunk the myth that men don't like to talk. Men do like to talk...sports." So ladies, your fumbling days are over. It's time to move out of the stands and onto the playing field to grab that tight end you want to get to meet, or a boyfriend or husband you want to know better.

Paula Duffy (Author), Paula Duffy (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Kids Got It Right: How the Texas All-Stars Kicked Down Racial Walls

Jim Dent (Author), Brian Hutchinson (Narrator)

Audiobook

King Power

I HAD A HUNCH WE'D BE CHAMPIONS! The most unlikely story in the history of sport, told by our greatest football writerOn 25th March 2015, when King Richard III, recently rescued from a municipal car park, was reburied in Leicester Cathedral, his beloved football team had just lost 4-3 to Tottenham Hotspur and were bottom of the Premier League, relegation certainties. With King Richard finally at rest, everything changed for Leicester City. Here, in his own words, King Richard III tells this, the most remarkable sporting story of all time - how 5,000-1 Premier League outsiders became champions: the goals, the games, the dressing-room banter. He gives us the Jamie Vardy story, from prosthetic-limb factory employee to the most celebrated striker this side of the River Soar; Mahrez, the great Muslim dynamo from Algeria, once stuck in the French seventh tier; the dark days of the sex video and the late December wobble; Lords Drinkwater, Albrighton and the great Tinkerman from Italy, all of them heroes of Shakespearean proportions.This isn't a fairy-tale, this really happened. From the unsanctioned hand of a much-loved Royal, the greatest football book ever written.

Richard III (Author), Peter Joyce (Narrator)

Audiobook

Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times

The New York Times bestseller! From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of This Town, an equally merciless probing of America's biggest cultural force, pro football, at a moment of peak success and high anxiety Like millions of Americans, Mark Leibovich has spent more of his life tuned into pro football than he'd care to admit. Being a lifelong New England Patriots fan meant growing up on a steady diet of lovable loserdom. That is, until the Tom Brady/Bill Belichick era made the Pats the most ruthlessly efficient and polarizing sports dynasty of the modern NFL, and its fans the most irritating in all of Pigskin America. Leibovich kept his obsession quiet, making a nice career for himself covering that other playground for rich and overgrown children, American politics. Still, every now and then Leibovich would reach out to Tom Brady to gauge his willingness to subject himself to a profile. He figured that the chances of Brady agreeing were a Hail Mary at best, but Brady returned Mark's call in summer 2014 and kept on returning his calls through epic Patriots Super Bowl victory and defeat, and a scandal involving Brady--Deflategate--whose grip on sports media was as profound as its true significance was ridiculous. So began a four-year odyssey that took Mark Leibovich deeper inside the NFL than anyone has gone before. From the owners' meeting to the draft to the sidelines of crucial games, he takes in the show at the elbow of everyone from Brady to big-name owners to the cordially despised NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell. Ultimately, BIG GAME is a chronicle of 'peak football'--the high point of the sport's economic success and cultural dominance, but also the time when the dark side began to show. It is an era of explosive revenue growth, but also one of creeping existential fear. Players have long joked that NFL stands for 'not for long,' but as the true impact of concussions becomes inescapable background noise, it's increasingly difficult to enjoy the simple glory of football without the buzz-kill of its obvious consequences. And that was before Donald Trump. In 2016, Mark's day job caught up with him, and the NFL slammed headlong into America's culture wars. BIG GAME is a journey through an epic storm. Through it all, Leibovich always keeps one eye on Tom Brady and his beloved Patriots, through to the 2018 Super Bowl. Pro football, this hilarious and enthralling book proves, may not be the sport America needs, but it is most definitely the sport we deserve.

Mark Leibovich (Author), Joe Barrett (Narrator)

Audiobook

250 Days: Cantona's Kung Fu and the Making of Man U

An incredibly entertaining and perceptive look at the most controversial moment in Premier League history. 25th January 1995 A cold winter's evening. Manchester United away against Crystal Palace at a packed-out Selhurst Park. Eric Cantona, United's mercurial talisman, has been man-marked closely all game by Richard Shaw and become increasingly frustrated. In the 48th minute, Cantona's temper boils over and he kicks out at Shaw. The ref shows him a red card. On his way off the pitch, a Palace fan rushes towards the hoardings to hurl abuse. The Frenchman loses it. He launches into the crowd, aiming a kung-fu kick at the fan's chest. He is forcibly restrained and then taken off down the tunnel. The football world is stunned. Nothing like this has ever happened before. What followed has entered football folklore: the media furore, the seagulls following the trawler, and the longest domestic ban ever handed to a player; it would end up lasting 250 days. As Manchester United's campaign stuttered towards a trophy-less conclusion, surrendering the league on the last day of the season and losing the FA Cup final, Cantona withdrew from the public eye. But, behind closed doors, Ferguson was planning the most remarkable of fresh starts for his star player and for a new-look United. 250 Days tells the story in brilliant detail of one of the most turbulent times in United's recent history. Showing Cantona in a new light, and the genius of Ferguson's man management and vision in close relief, it is an incredibly entertaining and insightful look at the most controversial episode of the Premier League era.

Daniel Storey (Author), Colin Mace (Narrator)

Audiobook

Football Audiobooks in Sports & Recreation