Alabama Fans Understand. The Crimson Tide football team is part of who we are. It isn’t so much that we want the team to win.We need them to win. When they lose, we lose. When they taste victory, we taste it with them. When we talk about the program, we don’t say “they.” We say “we.” It’s an Alabama thing. In his book, ‘Bama Football Myths, bestselling author Jacob M. Carter (The RipTide) statistically defends why he believes the University of Alabama offers the greatest college football program of all time. Commonly heard opinions such as “they don’t play anybody” or “the refs favor them” are put to rest. If you’re an Alabama football fan, this book was written for you.

Alabama Fans Understand The Crimson Tide football team is part of who we are. It isn't so much that we want the team to win. We need them to win. When they lose, we lose. When they taste victory, we taste it with them. When we talk about the program, we don't say "they." We say "we." It's an Alabama thing. In his new book, 'Bama Football Myths, bestselling author Jacob M. Carter (The RipTide) statistically defends why he believes the University of Alabama offers the greatest college football program of all time. Commonly heard opinions such as "they don't play anybody" or "the refs favor them" are put to rest. If you're an Alabama football fan, this book was written for you.

The extraordinary story of how Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and Joe Namath, his star quarterback at the University of Alabama, led the Crimson Tide to victory and transformed football into a truly national pastime. During the bloodiest years of the civil rights movement, Bear Bryant and Joe Namath-two of the most iconic and controversial figures in American sports-changed the game of college football forever. Brilliantly and urgently drawn, this is the gripping account of how these two very different men-Bryant a legendary coach in the South who was facing a pair of ethics scandals that threatened his career, and Namath a cocky Northerner from a steel mill town in Pennsylvania-led the Crimson Tide to a national championship. To Bryant and Namath, the game was everything. But no one could ignore the changes sweeping the nation between 1961 and 1965-from the Freedom Rides to the integration of colleges across the South and the assassination of President Kennedy. Against this explosive backdrop, Bryant and Namath changed the meaning of football. Their final contest together, the 1965 Orange Bowl, was the first football game broadcast nationally, in color, during prime time, signaling a new era for the sport and the nation. Award-winning biographer Randy Roberts and sports historian Ed Krzemienski showcase the moment when two thoroughly American traditions-football and Dixie-collided. A compelling story of race and politics, honor and the will to win, Rising Tide captures a singular time in America. More than a history of college football, this is the story of the struggle and triumph of a nation in transition and the legacy of two of the greatest heroes the sport has ever seen.

With 15 national championships and a tradition of national achievement that dates back to the 1920s, the University of Alabama has secured its spot as one of the most successful athletic institutions in the history of American sports. Dating back to the days when university president Dr. George H. “Mike” Denny decided football would be the university’s ticket to national prominence, Alabama has produced some of the most legendary teams and players in the history of the game. Many of those legends have long since passed, but standouts such as Johnny Mack Brown, Dixie Howell, Don Huston, Pat Trammell, and Derrick Thomas remain alive and well in the hearts and minds of loyal Crimson Tide fans. The legends of Tide stars such as Joe Namath, Ken Stabler, Harry Gilmer, Johnny Musso, John Hannah, and Ozzie Newsome continue to grow with time. None of those legends stands taller than Paul “Bear” Bryant, the former Crimson Tide player who returned to Alabama as head coach in 1958 and built a dynasty that rivaled any in sports, pro, or college football. From Wallace Wade to Heisman Trophy–winner Mark Ingram, current coach Nick Saban, and all points in between, Legends of Alabama Football chronicles the coaches, players, and events that placed Crimson Tide football on the national sports landscape.

A Texas sports legend, Dave Campbell started his annual fall football preview magazine, Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, in 1960. Widely referred to as “the bible” by coaches, fans, and sportswriters, the magazine’s July arrival in supermarkets, convenience stores, and sporting goods suppliers across Texas is a yearly event eagerly awaited by thousands of high school and college football players and their families, friends, and fans. In Dave Campbell’s Favorite Texas College Football Stories, Campbell has gathered columns and articles about those college contests he considers the all-time greatest over the course of his career, from 1953 and continuing through 2016. Accounts of storied players, classic rivalries, revered coaches, and unforgettable games are illustrated with historic photographs of athletes, teams, and on-the-field action. Readers will relish this guided tour of Texas collegiate football history, presented by a writer who is a walking trove of Lone Star sports lore. Dave Campbell’s Favorite Texas College Football Stories, which also features full-color reproductions of more than five decades of magazine covers, is sure to become a collector’s item for Texas football fans of all ages. Seasoned enthusiasts will delight in reliving their favorite pigskin memories, and younger readers will enjoy experiencing this press-box view of the state’s gridiron greats.

The amazing and blessed life of popular ESPN reporter and correspondent for College GameDay, Marty Smith, whose mission in this thoughtful and funny memoir is to return fans to the true soul of sports in this country. You know Marty right? The guy during College GameDay hanging off the back of a pickup truck while zooming around the Clemson athletic facilities. The guy who visits Nick Saban's lake house and somehow gets Coach to jump in the lake. The guy who sits down with Dale Jr. at Daytona to talk through tears about his miraculous return to racing. The guy who interviews Tiger Woods, Tim Tebow, Peyton Manning and Jimmie Johnson -- the guy who gets paid to live the fantasy of every sports fan in America. Never Settle is the funny but oh, it's true story of how Marty got here, and a revealing look at his journey. Never Settle includes all the best stories and behind-the-scenes moments from Marty's wild life, covering topics including: college football, racing, fathers and sons, how sports can bring us together, and how it all goes back to growing up on a farm and playing high school ball in Pearisburg, Virginia.

New York Times bestselling author Yaeger tells the electrifying story of the game that broke down the last racial division in college football.

The traditions of Alabama football are as timeless as any in American sports. This exciting series draws together the insights from nearly 100 former players, coaches, and fans, who tell their personal stories about what being a part of this legendary football program means to them.

What is it about sports that turns otherwise sane people into raving lunatics? Why does winning compel people to tear down goal posts, and losing, to drown themselves in bad keg beer? In short, why do fans care? In search of answers, Warren St. John seeks out the roving community of RVers who follow the Alabama Crimson Tide from game to game. A movable feast of Weber grills and Igloo coolers, these are hard-core football fans who arrive on Wednesday for Saturday’s game: The Reeses, who skipped their own daughter’s wedding because it coincided with a Bama game; Ray Pradat, the Episcopal minister who watches the games on a television beside his altar while performing weddings; and John Ed, the wheeling and dealing ticket scalper whose access to good seats gives him power on par with the governor. In no time at all, St. John buys an RV (a $5,500 beater named The Hawg) and joins the caravan for a full football season, chronicling the world of the extreme fan and learning that in the shadow of the stadium, it can all begin to seem strangely normal. Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer is not only a hilarious travel story, but a cultural anthropology of fans that goes a long way toward demystifying the universal urge to take sides and to win.

A lively chronicle of how the 2020 Crimson Tide became Nick Saban’s “ultimate team.” Was Alabama’s Crimson Tide in 2020 the greatest team of all time? The squad went 13-0 in a pandemic year, scored a combined 107 points against SEC powerhouses LSU and Florida, crushed Ohio State in a National Championship Game 52-24 in a contest that wasn’t even that close, and followed it up with another top-rated signing class. Nick Saban called his boys the “ultimate team,” but it wasn’t just because they kicked the ever-living hell out of everyone on the football field. It was because the team leveraged a power and influence born of Southern pride to push back against a hateful legacy of racism that a populist president was exploiting to divide the nation. At a time when Americans needed real leaders in the face of so much hate, the sports world answered the call and fought back for the soul of the country. In the summer of 2020, the Tide players left their training facility and, led by their celebrated coach, marched to a campus doorway made infamous sixty years earlier by another political demagogue and showed what people can accomplish when they fight together for a just cause in the name of unity. The most powerful force in a state crazy for college football had chosen to make a stand and replace George Wallace’s “Segregation forever!” with a different message, written by one of the players: “All lives can’t matter until Black lives matter.” ​ There have been some great football teams through the years, and they all deserve respect. But here’s what we know for sure: They all would have been appreciative of what this Alabama team represented, and proud of what it accomplished. The Crimson Tide in 2020 captured something special that moved it beyond the conversation of best ever, and into the place reserved for most important of all time.