The Teammates: A Portrait of Friendship

Tom Clavin, Thomas Clavin

One for the Ages: Jack Nicklaus and the 1986 Masters

The Masters tournament has provided some of golf's most memorable finishes--none more so than the improbable triumph by Jack Nicklaus in 1986. Twenty-five years later, many regard it as the most exciting Masters ever. Nicklaus, 46, was 160th on the PGA Tour money list. His last win in a major championship had been six years earlier. Many of his rivals on the tour thought he was well on his way to being washed up. But for Nicklaus, the Masters was an opportunity for redemption. The somewhat tarnished Golden Bear, with his eldest son, Jackie, as his caddy, hung on for the first three rounds. Then it was Sunday. Ballesteros, Norman, Kite, Watson, and others were ahead of him. During the afternoon, he charged. One for the Ages is the pulse-pounding story of the most glorious moment in Jack Nicklaus's career. It is also a celebration of the Masters, arguably the most prestigious tournament in golf, and its world-class players, who clashed during a golden weekend in Augusta until only one man, with his son at his side, was left standing.

Steve Bisheff

John Wooden: An American Treasure

Even today, 33 years after retiring from coaching basketball at UCLA, John Wooden remains America's coach. JOHN WOODEN: AN AMERICAN TREASURE is the definitive book on his extraordinary life, from his early years as a small-town legend from Martinsville, Indiana, and an All-American guard at Purdue to his legendary years at UCLA and the fruitful years following his retirement. In the year of the 44th anniversary from his first national championship at UCLA, and more than 35 years after his autobiography, JOHN WOODEN: AN AMERICAN TREASURE reveals why this kind, endearing, and unbelievably intelligent coaching legend, even at age 98, remains one of the more fascinating, extraordinary, yet humble men of this, or any, generation. Ultimately he has become America's Teacher as much as its most celebrated coach.

John Ed Bradley

It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium

"A lyrical memoir . . . about his teammates, his coaches, his parents and the magnetic power of football in Louisiana."--NPR "The best sports book of the year."--Sports Illustrated Inspired by a classic essay about a visit to a dying coach, It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium explores in gorgeous detail the inescapable pull of college football--the cocky smiles behind the face masks, the two-a-day drills, the emotionally charged bus rides to the stadium, the curfew checks, the film-study sessions, the locker room antics, and the yawning void left in one's soul the moment the final whistle sounds. To understand why it's so painful to give up the game, you must first understand the intimacy of the huddle. "It ends for everybody," writes John Ed Bradley, "and then it starts all over again, in ways you never anticipated. Marty Dufresne sits in his wheelchair listening to the Tiger fight song . . . Ramsey Darder endures prison by playing the games over in his head . . . Big Ed Stanton never took up the game of golf, and yet he rides the streets of Bayou Vista in a cart nearly identical to Coach Mac's, recalling the one time the old man invited him for a ride." Far more than a memoir, It ...