Basketball legend Pete Maravich is remembered in this collection of of memorials written by his fellow players, coaches, friends, fans, and relatives, who remember not only a great athlete, but a man who turned away from heavy drinking and turned toward God and became a born-again Christian.

Heir to a Dream follows the life of Pete Maravich after his retirement from the NBA in 1980 when he was still a top scorer. His faith experience several years later--which literally turned his life around--is chronicled. 8-page photograph insert.

Basketball.

Details the life and professional career of NBA guard Pete Maravich, and discusses his family, education, playing in the NCAA at Louisiana State University, his embracement of Christianity, and more until his death at the age of forty.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum delivers the untold story of the greatest team ever assembled: the 1992 U.S. Olympic Men’s Basketball Team. As a writer for Sports Illustrated, McCallum enjoyed a courtside seat for the most exciting basketball spectacle on earth, covering the Dream Team from its inception to the gold medal ceremony in Barcelona. Drawing on fresh interviews with the players, McCallum provides the definitive account of the Dream Team phenomenon. He offers a behind-the-scenes look at the controversial selection process. He takes us inside the team’s Olympic suites for late-night card games and bull sessions where superstars like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird debated the finer points of basketball. And he narrates a riveting account of the legendary intrasquad scrimmage that pitted the Dream Teamers against one another in what may have been the greatest pickup game in history. In the twenty years since the Dream Team first captivated the world, its mystique has only grown. Dream Team vividly re-creates the moment when a once-in-a-millennium group of athletes came together and changed the future of sports—one perfectly executed fast break at a time. With a new Afterword by the author. “The absolute definitive work on the subject, a perfectly wonderful once-you-pick-it-up-you-won’t-be-able-to-put-it-down book.”—The Boston Globe “An Olympic hoops dream.”—Newsday “What makes this volume a must-read for nostalgic hoopsters are the robust portraits of the outsize personalities of the participants, all of whom were remarkably open with McCallum, both then and now.”—Booklist (starred review)

College basketball and its annual March Madness extravaganza have emerged over the last three decades as one of the most popular sporting phenomena in America. Perhaps no one personifies the excitement of this tournament better than Jim Valvano, whose heavily underdog North Carolina State Wolfpack achieved the pinnacle of success in college basketball in 1983 with an unlikely run through the NCAA Tournament, culminating in an incredible one-point victory over Houston's heavily favored Phi Slamma Jamma squad in the championship game. While that Cinderella story was Valvano's only national championship, he quickly came to symbolize the exuberance and excellence of the exciting world of college basketball. Valvano transcended his sport, touching millions as he emerged as one of the most charismatic and, ultimately, courageous figures in American life who touched millions. Diagnosed with bone cancer, he joined ESPN to comment on college basketball games. Later he received the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage at ESPN's first ESPY Awards, where he announced that he was starting the V Foundation for Cancer Research. Shortly after receiving the award, he died at the age of forty-seven. In I Remember Jim Valvano, he is remembered by former players, fellow coaches, a variety of other basketball experts, close associates, and many others as one of college basketball's great movers and shakers, a man with a heart as big as his popularity. Valvano's life is the classic story of courage and determination as borne out in his memorable line: Don't give up. Don't ever give up"". ""

In between Babe Ruth and Michael Jordan there was Joe Namath, one of the few sports heroes to transcend the game he played. Novelist and former sports-columnist Mark Kriegel’s bestselling biography of the iconic quarterback details his journey from steel-town pool halls to the upper reaches of American celebrity—and beyond. The first of his kind, Namath enabled a nation to see sports as show biz. For an entire generation he became a spectacle of booze and broads, a guy who made bachelorhood seem an almost sacred calling, but it was his audacious “guarantee” of victory in Super Bowl III that ensured his legend. This unforgettable portrait brings readers from the gridiron to the go-go nightclubs as Kriegel uncovers the truth behind Broadway Joe and why his legend has meant so much to so many.

After spending time as a professor in upstate New York, Robert Ward decided to give journalism a try. What followed were two decades of assignments for New Times, GQ, SPORT, Rolling Stone, and other publications, covering the biggest stars of the sporting, music, art, and film worlds. This collection includes Ward's celebrated story on Reggie Jackson that nearly tore the New York Yankees apart (and was later brought to life in an ESPN miniseries "The Bronx Is Burning"); a profile of the "outlaw" country music movement of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker, and David Allan Coe; and an insightful feature on Hustler publisher Larry Flynt as a young pornographer that almost cost Ward his life. Also included are essays about the former premier of Vietnam Nguyen Cao Ky trying to adjust to life in California; an aging Lee Marvin dealing with the survivor's guilt from his time in World War II; and profiles of LeRoy Neiman, Robert Mitchum, and a variety of fringe characters on the American scene.

A vibrant, unconventional, highly opinionated guide to the triumphs, joys, struggles, and heartbreaks of the modern era of the game, for every obsessive basketball fan who loves to hate hot takes The Joy of Basketball celebrates the meteoric rise of basketball over the last quarter century by ignoring the bland, traditionalist binary of wins or losses. Instead, the book's focus is on everything else. Using text, charts, and illustrations that upend conventional jock wisdom, the book details the most incredible players in history, draft flops, long-limbed oddballs, superteams, the international talent wave, brawls, scandals, the rapid evolution of contemporary gameplay, coaching, fashion, crime, positional erosion, tragic tales, memes, and the sacred Kardashian Blessing. Bouncing between witty graphics and keen sociopolitical observations, The Joy of Basketball is a subversive sports manifesto camouflaged as a colorful reference book for your coffee table.

“A terrific memoir by a man worthy of one.” — Sports Illustrated An honest, unflinching self-portrait of the basketball legend whose classy public image as a superstar and a gentleman masked his personal failings and painful losses, which he describes here—from his own point of view—for the very first time. For most of his life, Julius Erving has been two men in one. There is Julius, the bright, inquisitive son of a Long Island domestic worker who has always wanted to be respected for more than just his athletic ability, and there is Dr. J, the cool, acrobatic showman whose flamboyant dunks sent him to the Hall of Fame and turned the act of jamming a basketball through a hoop into an art form. In many ways, Erving’s life has been about the push and pull of Julius and The Doctor. It is Dr. J who has stories to tell of the wild days and nights of the ABA in the 1970s, and of being the seminal figure who transformed basketball from an earthbound and rigid game into the creative, free-flowing aerial display it is today. He has a long list of signature plays - he’s famous for winning the first dunk contest in 1976 with a jam on which he lifted off from the foul line, and he made a miraculous layup against the Lakers on which he soared behind the backboard before reaching back in to flip the ball in on the other side, with one hand. He inspired a generation of dunkers, including Michael Jordan, to express their improvisational talents. But Julius wasn’t always as graceful and in control as Dr. J. Erving had a pristine image throughout his career and early retirement, but he was far from a perfect man. Here he gives detailed accounts of some of the personal problems he faced -- or created -- behind the scenes, including the adulterous affair with sports writer Samantha Stephenson, which led to the birth of his daughter, professional tennis player Alexandra Stephenson. Though his marriage survived that infidelity, the death of Erving’s 20-year-old son Cory in 2000 in a tragic accident proved too much for the union to bear. Erving paints a raw, heartbreaking picture of the dissolution of his marriage, as his wife Turquoise began to blame him for his refusal to be paralyzed by grief for as long as she was. Their intense arguments came to a head when Erving stepped out of the shower one day to find his wife holding a lamp in one hand and a vase in the other, ready for a physical confrontation. “I knew somebody was going to get hurt, and it wasn’t going to be me,” he says. He packed a suitcase and he and Turquoise never lived under the same roof again. Erving’s story is a tale of the nearly perfect player and the imperfect man, and how he has come to terms with both of them. It will appeal to readers on a sports level and on a human one.