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  American Coach.     Ivan Maisel. The Triumph and Tragedy of Notre Dame Legend Frank Leahy.     Ivan Maisel, a well-known ESPN college football personality and writer, has put together an in-depth and sagacious biography that addresses one of the most successful coaches in college football history in his latest book, American Coach .    Now it just happens to be a former coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, one of the most storied and renowned schools around the country.     The American coach in question is Frank Leahy who had served as a winning head coach at Notre Dame in the 1940’s and 1950’s.     Further supporting his rise in life and coaching was his good fortune to have been a member of the Irish football team in the late 1920’s under legendary coach and mentor, Knute Rockne.    In his time as the head coach for the fighting Irish, Leahy, much like his mentor, was successful at winning games,...

    Forward Progress.   Bill Connelly. The Definitive Guide to The Future of College Football.  There is no question that college football has changed dramatically over the years especially just in this decade alone.    One may wonder how the current state of college football has arrived in its current plight.   If so, author and ESPN writer, Bill Connelly, tries to set the record straight in his latest book, Forward Progress .  Connelly does in fact also provide his attempt at how he would fix or steer the direction of college football in the near and perhaps distant future as well.    The major and influential topics of this book include a brief history of college football dating back beyond a century of football’s early days.   In addition, Connelly discusses how conferences came about in the formative years, how they have changed and emerged to where they are now but also how the power among the conferen...

  Never Stop.     Dan Hurley.    Life, Leadership, And What It Takes to Be Great.    Dan Hurley and Ian O’Connor.     A fear of failure can be a powerful motivator as can a relentless attitude to be achieve greatness.     It can help a competitor, such as a coach, from falling behind the competition.     It can enable the coach to stay on top of his players, his job and the game they aspire to conquer.      The rewards are immense including fame, fortune, championships and eternal honor among peers and admirers.     The risks, however, of adopting this potentially dangerous attitude can be just as steep but in the other direction, including self-doubt, exhaustion and even mental breakdowns.      Current Connecticut head basketball coach has written about the incredible heights and crippling lows during his experience as a most successful basketball coach...

Madden & Summerall.     Rich Podolsky. How They Revolutionized NFL Broadcasting. Sports broadcasting be it writing, radio or television, is a cottage industry within the wide world of sports in general.     Often the people and personalities that call the games can be as important or even more so than the sport itself.     Some fans may actually tune into a game knowing who is broadcasting simply because these media types are perceived as interesting or entertaining and occasionally even more so than the game.     A wide swath of football fans, even today, are very likely familiar with the broadcasting tandem of John Madden and Pat Summerall and that is the topic of veteran author Rich Podolsky’s latest book, Madden and Summerall .      The author is a long-time member of the media and worked with both subjects of this book and has put together a biography of both broadcasting legends along with some humorou...

     American Kings.   Seth Wickersham. A Biography of the Quarterback.    It is no secret that the most important, perhaps difficult position to play in all sports happens to be the most important position in the game of football as well.   We are talking about the quarterback.    With the responsibilities, and for those that can master the many challenges, comes a kind of “magic” that is nearly indescribable to those that have never played the position.  Magic was a key word used to articulate, for lack of better description, the ability to perform at a high level for some of the quarterbacks throughout this manuscript.    Recent travels in Europe noted beautiful castles ensconced high in the distance off of the Rein River.    Those structures had their caste system in place.    In America, we do not have the same history of venerable buildings.  However, on the gri...

  The Chuck Cooper Story.   David Finoli and Chuck Cooper III Breaking Barriers.   As a mostly lifelong resident of the Pittsburgh area and a sports fan for just about all of those years it is not hard to come across many athletic stars in a variety of sports from one generation to the next.      When it comes to college basketball the region features three division one schools with plenty of history and great players that traversed the hardwoods of those programs.  One such program was Duquesne University; a school located on the bluff just outside the downtown Pittsburgh area.     The school has produced many notable players over the past 80 years but one in particular was a bit off of the radar that recently came to my attention.     In the book, The Chuck Cooper Story, his unique and interesting story is explained via the quality writing style of long-time western Pennsylvania author David...

  Turf Wars.    DeMaurice Smith. The Fight for the Soul of America’s game.   The NFL has a rich history that goes back for decades.     In that time, the league only produced three commissioners that help the owners to grow the sport and make money for all stakeholders, namely the owners.     On the other side of the owners are the players or the labor.     Since they are unionized, they have an executive director to guide them.     There have only been a handful of NFLPA executive directors since the modern formation of the NFL was established.    Therefore, when former NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith, author of Turf Wars, decided to write a tell all book about his fifteen years in office, it was an unprecedented moment in sports literature.    The subtitle for this book perhaps hints at another book about the game of football.     However, the author has go...