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🧲 Books like this

Next Man Up: A Year Behind the Lines in Today's NFL

John Feinstein · back to the book

What’s in it

Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.

24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football

Jeff Benedict, Armen Keteyian · 432 pages

A revelatory account based on the authors' unprecedented access to the NCAA's highest-level programs throughout the 2012 season describes its high-powered system of billion-dollar television deals, high-priced coaches, football "hostessing," castoff athlete-students and paid test takers.

SportsInvestigative JournalismAthleteNonfiction
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SportsInvestigative JournalismAthleteNonfiction
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The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams

Darcy Frey · 231 pages

It ought to be just a game, but basketball on the playgrounds of Coney Island is much more than that - for many young men it represents their only hope of escape from a life of crime, poverty, and despair. It is their last shot. This is the story of a small group of high school boys who have given their young lives to basketball, as neighborhood stars and as team members of the Abraham Lincoln Hig

SportsInvestigative JournalismAthleteNonfiction
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The Breaks of the Game

David Halberstam · 400 pages

The story of one season with the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team touches on many aspects of professional sports: stars, salaries, the media, fans, ethics, drugs, and racial tension.

SportsInvestigative JournalismAthleteNonfiction
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The Fight

Norman Mailer · 247 pages

In 1974 in Kinshasa, Zaïre, two African American boxers were paid five million dollars apiece to fight each other. One was Muhammad Ali, the aging but irrepressible “professor of boxing.” The other was George Foreman, who was as taciturn as Ali was voluble. Observing them was Norman Mailer, a commentator of unparalleled energy, acumen, and audacity. Whether he is analyzing the fighters’ moves, int

SportsInvestigative JournalismAthleteNonfiction
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Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine

George Dohrmann · 435 pages

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist George Dohrmann's remarkable debut offers an up-close and unforgettable narrative that reveals the gritty reality hiding behind the romanticized hoop dreams of America's basketball prodigies.

SportsInvestigative JournalismAthleteNonfiction
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League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth

Mark Fainaru-Wada, Steve Fainaru · 419 pages

Both ESPN investigative reporters, the authors reveal how the NFL, over a period of nearly two decades, sought to cover up and deny mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage. This narrative moves between the NFL trenches, America's research labs and the boardrooms where the NFL went to war against science; it examines how the league used its power and resources to attac

SportsAthleteInvestigative JournalismNonfiction
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Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

Michael Lewis · 318 pages

"This delightfully written, lesson-laden book deserves a place of its own in the Baseball Hall of Fame." ―Forbes Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball. In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis follows the low-budget Oakland A's, visionary general manager Billy Beane, and the strange brotherhood of amateur basebal

SportsAthleteInvestigative JournalismNonfiction
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Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Christopher McDougall · 287 pages

Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world's greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we tho

SportsAthleteInvestigative JournalismNonfiction
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Michael Jordan: The Life

Roland Lazenby · 708 pages

Traces the life of one of the most legendary basketball players in the history of the sport, drawing upon interviews with Jordan's friends, family, and teammates, and following his career from college to the NBA.

SportsAthleteInvestigative JournalismNonfiction
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Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong

David Walsh · 426 pages

Traces the journalist's efforts to uncover the truth behind cycling's biggest star.

SportsInvestigative JournalismNonfictionSports History
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In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle

Madeleine Blais · 266 pages

SportsInvestigative JournalismNonfictionSports History
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Open

Andre Agassi, J.R. Moehringer

SportsAthleteNonfictionSports History
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Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success

Phil Jackson, Hugh Delehanty · 384 pages

SportsAthleteNonfictionSports History
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SportsInvestigative JournalismNonfictionSports History
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Pelé: The Autobiography

Pele · 368 pages

SportsAthleteNonfictionSports History
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Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

H.G. Bissinger · 367 pages

Return once again to the timeless account of the Permian Panthers of Odessa--the winningest high-school football team in Texas history. Odessa is not known to be a town big on dreams, but the Panthers help keep the hopes and dreams of this small, dusty town going. Socially and racially divided, its fragile economy follows the treacherous boom-bust path of the oil business. In bad times, the unempl

SportsAthleteNonfictionSports History
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SportsAthleteNonfictionSports History
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SportsAthleteNonfictionSports History
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Shooting Stars

LeBron James, H.G. Bissinger · 258 pages

From the ultimate team— basketball superstar LeBron James and Buzz Bissinger, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August—a poignant, thrilling tale of the power of teamwork to transform young lives, including James's own.The Shooting Stars were a bunch of kids—LeBron James and his best friends—from Akron, Ohio, who first met on a youth basketball team of the sa

SportsAthleteNonfictionSports History
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The Last Season: A Team In Search of Its Soul

Phil Jackson, Michael Arkush · 304 pages

SportsAthleteNonfictionSports History
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Secretariat: The Making of a Champion

William Nack · 362 pages

SportsAthleteNonfictionSports History
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David Beckham: My Side

David Beckham, Tom Watt · 544 pages

This is Beckham's fascinating life story in his own words. His rise through the ranks at the biggest club side in the world. His complex relationship with United boss Alex Ferguson. The England story, from being vilified by the nation before returning as the prodigal son to eventually captaining his country. His acrimonious falling-out with his manager and departure from Old Trafford in June 2003.

SportsAthleteNonfictionSports History

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