Sports Memoirs


Athletes, journalists, entrepreneurs and family members share their stories about their lives in sports.


The Mamba Mentality

Kobe Bryant

The Mamba Mentality: How I Play is Kobe Bryant’s personal perspective of his life and career on the basketball court and his exceptional, insightful style of playing the game—a fitting legacy from the late Los Angeles Laker superstar. In the wake

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Spinning the Globe

Ben Green

Before Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Julius Erving, or Michael Jordan––before Magic Johnson and Showtime––the Harlem Globetrotters revolutionized basketball and spread the game around the world. In Spinning the Globe, author Ben Green tells

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All the Way

Joe Namath

The NFL icon who first brought show business to sports shares his life lessons on fame, fatherhood, and football. Three days before the 1969 Super Bowl, Joe Namath promised the nation that he would lead the New York Jets to an 18-point underdog victo

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A Sporting Chance

Lori Alexander

Telling the inspiring story behind the creation of the Paralympics, this biography combines archival photos, full-color illustrations, and a riveting narrative to honor the life of Ludwig Guttmann, whose work profoundly changed lives.

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She Persisted in Sports

Chelsea Clinton

Throughout history, women have been told that they couldn't achieve their dreams, no matter how hard they tried. Women athletes have faced their own unique set of challenges, across countless sports and levels of play. In this third She Persiste

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The Divine Miss Marble

Robert Weintraub

Who was Alice Marble? In her public life, she was the biggest tennis star of the pre-war era, a household name like Joe DiMaggio and Joe Louis. She was famous for overcoming serious illness to win the biggest tournaments, including Wimbledon. She was

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Ultramarathon Man

Dean Karnazes

Ultrarunning legend Dean Karnazes has run 262 miles-the equivalent of ten marathons-without rest. He has run over mountains, across Death Valley, and to the South Pole-and is probably the first person to eat an entire pizza while running. With an ins

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The Driver

Alexander Roy

On his deathbed, Alex Roy's father dropped tantalizing hints about the notorious Cannonball Run of the 1970s, the utterly illegal high-speed nonstop race from New York to L.A. that was nothing at all like the one portrayed in the Burt Reynolds m

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A Son of the Game

James Dodson

A Son of the Game is the story of how acclaimed golf writer James Dodson, feeling directionless at midlife, leaves his home in Maine to revisit Pinehurst, North Carolina—where his father first taught him the game that would shape his life. Once he

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Quiet Strength

Tony Dungy, Nathan Whitaker

A biography of the coach of the Indianapolis Colts and the first African American football coach to lead his team to a Superbowl victory concentrates on his religious life as well as his career in football.

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Lay the Favorite

Beth Raymer

Documents the author's high-stakes adventures in the world of sports betting, tracing how she arrived in Vegas hoping to become a cocktail waitress only to be seduced by the adrenaline-fueled gambler's lifestyle and its surfeit of illusory

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The Big Fight

Sugar Ray Leonard, Michael Arkush

In this unflinching and inspiring autobiography, the boxing legend faces his single greatest competitor: himself. Sugar Ray Leonard's brutally honest and uplifting memoir reveals in intimate detail for the first time the complex man behind the b

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Solo

Hope Solo

"My family doesn't do happy endings. We do sad endings or frustrating endings or no endings at all. We are hardwired to expect the next interruption or disappearance or broken promise." Hope Solo is the face of the modern female athlet

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Imperfect

Jim Abbott, Tim Brown

Born without a right hand, Jim Abbott as a boy dreamed of being a great athlete. Raised in Flint, Michigan, by parents who saw in his condition not a disability but an extraordinary opportunity, Jim became a high school athlete and an ace pitcher for

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You Can't Make This Up

Al Michaels, L. Jon Wertheim

In this highly entertaining and insightful memoir, one of television’s most respected broadcasters interweaves the story of his life and career with lively firsthand tales of some of the most thrilling events and fascinating figures in modern sport

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My Corner of the Ring

Jesselyn Silva

In this Lean-In style inspirational memoir, twelve-year-old Jesselyn Silva offers a ringside seat to girl power and what it takes to win in the ring and in life: punch by punch. My Corner of the Ring shows kids what it means to be true to yourself an

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Shoe Dog

Phil Knight

Fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed fifty dollars from his father and launched a company with one simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost running shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his car in 1963, Knight gross

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At Home with Muhammad Ali

Hana Ali

Muhammad Ali’s daughter captures the legendary heavyweight boxing champion, Olympic Gold medalist, activist, and philanthropist as never before in this candid and intimate family memoir, based on personal recordings he kept throughout his adult lif

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