Publisher's Synopsis
Sports are more than competition. They're about people who have lives away from it and after it, whose personal struggles, successes and failures we seldom hear about. In these pages you will discover Ara Parseghian: from Notre Dame coach to life and death in the family. Steve Howe: from the California fast lane to a drug-drenched baseball career; Georgetown's John Thompson: his way or no way; Silky Sullivan: from trailing the field to the Kentucky Derby. World-class sailor Webb Chiles: alone in the Atlantic without a boat; DePaul basketball coach coach Joey Meyer; a life in his father's shadow; Gene Stallings: Alabama's football coach and his special son; Bill Walsh: from the 49ers sideline into the booth; Roger Maris: a baseball career defined by an asterisk. Glen Edwards: from Pittsburgh's Steel Curtain to one of his own; Dock Ellis: a pitcher who loved the lows as well as the highs; Pete Maravich: the basketball legacy of the Pistol; Evel Knievel: the definitive daredevil; Leila Pallardy: the destructiveness of gymnastics; Mickey Hatcher: always good for a laugh; Sandy Amoros: after the catch; Jennifer Capriati: the evolution of a tennis phenom. Plus: Watching baseball on the radio; Teeing off in an explosion of color; The America's Cup and the mystery of 42 meters; Life in the Last League; Daybreak at the racetrack; Olympic thunder out of the South Pacific, and more. This book is not meant to be read as you would a novel. Each chapter should be absorbed and savored on its own, each a moment in history of passion, pleasure or pain and its aftermath.