book-excerpt Page 5 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

"Soccer," From <em>Soccer In Sun And Shadow</em>
From Eduardo Galeano's classic, now available as an ebook. We'll have excerpts throughout the week....

A Gay Basketball Player Goes To Bible Study
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes is a nationwide organization that often uses college athletic facilities to host weekly meetings. On the nationally ranked 2003 Colorado Buffaloes women's basketball team, FCA exerted a strong influence, and nearly half of the players attended meetings and Bible ...

When Bill Shankly Ruled Liverpool
One of the best books of 2013 will come out in its first American edition next week when Melville House publishes Red or Dead, David Peace's long, strange, and transfixing novel about Bill Shankly's career at Liverpool FC. The single most convincing fictional depiction of the endless repetition that...

Who Does Jameis Winston Think He Is—Joe Namath?
A story about the other famous shoplifting quarterback, excerpted from the book Rising Tide: Bear Bryant, Joe Namath and Dixie's Last Quarter....

Missing A Beat: Library Of America's Story Of The Week
The LOA's story of the week comes from the great Seymour Krim. Check it out and then g'head and pick up the fine LOA collection, The Cool School. ...

The Eternal Martyrdom Of Lance Armstrong
The following is excerpted from Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong (HarperCollins), which is available now on Amazon....

What It Was Like Being The Only Virgin On Magic's Hypersexed Lakers
The following is excerpted from Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers Dynasty of the 1980s, which is available now on Amazon....

Pills, Bullies, And Pink Weights: Life As A Fringe Major Leaguer
From Bigger Than The Game: Restitching a Major League Life (Kensington). ...

Paper Tiger
Dig this excerpt from Stanley Woodward's classic memoir, "Paper Tiger." It concerns Red Smith and the great horse racing columnist, Joe Palmer:...

The Zen Master Goes To LA: How Phil Jackson Started A Lakers Dynasty
The following is excerpted from Lord of the Rings, the new Phil Jackson biography by Peter Richmond. The text is accompanied by footnotes from the author, who also did an interview on The Stacks last week....

Gift Guide: Great Books That We've Featured
A couple days ago, we gave you book recommendations from the Deadspin commentariat. But we've also excerpted from a good number of books this year, too. Here's a list of those in case you're still in the market for gift ideas....

11 Of America's Most Scenic And Significant Basketball Hoops
Robin Layton's new book, Hoop: The American Dream, is the fruit of a cross-country trip during which she photographed basketball hoops of every style, shape, and size. A selection of her photos is below, accompanied by her commentary. ...

My Injury File: How I Shot, Smoked, And Screwed My Way Through The NFL
Adapted from Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile (Harper)....

Why The Arguments Against NCAA Pay-For-Play Suck
NCAA president Mark Emmert, speaking Wednesday at the IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum, pooh-poohed the idea of paying collegiate athletes. "There's certainly no interest [among college presidents] in turning college sports into the professional or semi-professional," Emmert said. He added: "I th...

An Ode To One Of America's Best Dive Bars
You've probably never heard of Bowling Green unless its college basketball team, the Hilltoppers of Western Kentucky, has broken your bracket, one year or another. The city sits between Louisville and Nashville, and people drive there from all over southern Kentucky to eat, to shop, and, most of all...

What It Took To Get Ted Williams's Head Off His Body
Adapted from The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams (Little, Brown and Company). ...

"This Doctor Can Operate": Dr. J, Pistol Pete, And The Sexual Revolution
Excerpted from Dr. J: The Autobiography, available now from Harper Collins....

Dead Wrestler Of The Week: Chris Benoit
Excerpted and adapted from The Squared Circle: Life, Death, and Professional Wrestling (Gotham Books). For the Dead Wrestler of the Week archive, click here....

How To Turn A Big Mac Into A Linebacker: The 300-Pounder In The NFL
Football players are massive. But they weren't always. In a chapter from their new book, Newton's Football: The Science Behind America's Game, Allen St. John and Ainissa G Ramirez explain how we came to have so many 300-pound players, and why we don't have, say, 8-foot-tall quarterbacks. ...