A historic look at the fabled 1983–84 Boston Celtics and an unforgettable season. Ronald Reagan declares the Soviet Union an Evil Empire. The Apple Macintosh personal computer makes its debut. Michael Jackson’s Thriller album dominates the pop charts. And Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics capture the NBA championship over Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the Los Angeles Lakers. It was 1984, and for the NBA and the nation, the year was full of milestone moments. In Dynasty Restored: How Larry Bird and the 1984 Boston Celtics Conquered the NBA and Changed Basketball, Thomas J. Whalen explores this fascinating and dramatic season. The NBA had been struggling, seen as a minor sports league and suffering from poor attendance, lagging television ratings, and embarrassing drug scandals. The Celtics were beset by locker room turmoil, disruptive coaching, ownership changes, and underperforming stars. But Whalen reveals how that all changed when Bird and his fellow “Big Three” frontcourt teammates Kevin McHale and Robert Parish, along with newcomer Dennis Johnson, banded together to lift the venerable franchise to its fifteenth world championship and helped to transform the league into a global entertainment brand. Dynasty Restored offers insight into the personal barriers Larry Bird had to overcome to achieve NBA stardom, discusses the personal tensions that existed on the team between Bird and McHale, and gives a probing analysis of the unique pressures Black Celtics players faced in a post-Boston Busing Crisis environment. And it shows how this singular season turbocharged the Celtics and the professional game to unprecedented heights.

Uncaged celebrates the three-peat Indiana state champion Lawrence North Wildcats, led by legendary coach Jack Keefer and All-Americans Greg Oden and Mike Conley.

This is the ultimate insider's look at the personalities of the players and coaches who contributed to Celtics Pride. The late Johnny Most describes in vivid detail his firsthand accounts of the greatest Celtics moments in history! A referee once said that Johnny Most could cause a riot at a High Mass with his emotional, pro-Celtic descriptions. He turned shoving matches into bloodbaths and minor fouls into vicious muggings. As Danny Ainge, Boston's recently appointed director of basketball operations commented, I always believed we had thirteen guys on the active roster-twelve wore uniforms--and the thirteenth, Johnny Most, was the voice of the celtics!

Bill Russell was not the first African American to play professional basketball, but he was its first black superstar. From the moment he stepped onto the court of the Boston Garden in 1956, Russell began to transform the sport in a fundamental way, making him, more than any of his contemporaries, the Jackie Robinson of basketball. In King of the Court, Aram Goudsouzian provides a vivid and engrossing chronicle of the life and career of this brilliant champion and courageous racial pioneer. Russell’s leaping, wide-ranging defense altered the game’s texture. His teams provided models of racial integration in the 1950s and 1960s, and, in 1966, he became the first black coach of any major professional team sport. Yet, like no athlete before him, Russell challenged the politics of sport. Instead of displaying appreciative deference, he decried racist institutions, embraced his African roots, and challenged the nonviolent tenets of the civil rights movement. This beautifully written book—sophisticated, nuanced, and insightful—reveals a singular individual who expressed the dreams of Martin Luther King Jr. while echoing the warnings of Malcolm X.

On a fateful day in 1957, the country saw the Boston Celtics and the St. Louis Hawks face off in one of the most dramatic NBA games in history. But the score at the final buzzer told only part of the story. Celtics rookie Bill Russell, traded by the Hawks because of his race, emerged as a new sports hero. Boston's coach Red Auerbach went on to become the ultimate winner and builder of championship teams. And the city of Boston and its beloved Celtics had their first NBA championship-and the makings of a dynasty.

Chronicles the 2004-2005 season of the New England Patriots culminating in their defeat of the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville, Florida.

Unlike other books on Jackie Robinson, this book not only profiles his amazing life, but also offers valuable lessons drawn from his experiences that can directly apply to practical, everyday improvements and personal success.

The New York Times Bestseller Out of the greatest dynasty in American professional sports history, an intimate story of race, mortality, and regret About to turn ninety, Bob Cousy, the Hall of Fame Boston Celtics captain who led the team to its first six championships on an unparalleled run, has much to look back on in contentment. But he has one last piece of unfinished business. The last pass he hopes to throw is to close the circle with his great partner on those Celtic teams, fellow Hall of Famer Bill Russell, now 84. These teammates were basketball's Ruth and Gehrig, and Cooz, as everyone calls him, was famously ahead of his time as an NBA player in terms of race and civil rights. But as the decades passed, Cousy blamed himself for not having done enough, for not having understood the depth of prejudice Russell faced as an African-American star in a city with a fraught history regarding race. Cousy wishes he had defended Russell publicly, and that he had told him privately that he had his back. At this late hour, he confided to acclaimed historian Gary Pomerantz over the course of many interviews, he would like to make amends. At the heart of the story THE LAST PASS tells is the relationship between these two iconic athletes. The book is also in a way Bob Cousy's last testament on his complex and fascinating life. As a sports story alone it has few parallels: An poor kid whose immigrant French parents suffered a dysfunctional marriage, the young Cousy escaped to the New York City playgrounds, where he became an urban legend known as the Houdini of the Hardwood. The legend exploded nationally in 1950, his first year as a Celtic: he would be an all-star all 13 of his NBA seasons. But even as Cousy's on-court imagination and daring brought new attention to the pro game, the Celtics struggled until Coach Red Auerbach landed Russell in 1956. Cooz and Russ fit beautifully together on the court, and the Celtics dynasty was born. To Boston's white sportswriters it was Cousy's team, not Russell's, and as the civil rights movement took flight, and Russell became more publicly involved in it, there were some ugly repercussions in the community, more hurtful to Russell than Cousy feels he understood at the time. THE LAST PASS situates the Celtics dynasty against the full dramatic canvas of American life in the 50s and 60s. It is an enthralling portrait of the heart of this legendary team that throws open a window onto the wider world at a time of wrenching social change. Ultimately it is a book about the legacy of a life: what matters to us in the end, long after the arena lights have been turned off and we are alone with our memories. On August 22, 2019, Bob Cousy was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

A comprehensive introduction to the workings of the business, Sportscasters/Sportscasting: Principles and Practices explains all of the information essential to anyone looking to begin a career in sports media, and includes numerous appendices containing acronyms and biographic information about over 200 sportscasters, and a complete Instructor's Manual.