A fascinating and insightful look at the legends, facts, and fiction behind your favorite sports teams' names.

Drawing insight from nearly 100 former players, coaches, and others directly tied to this storied and revered school, fans will read firsthand accounts about what being a part of the legendary football program means. The ultimate compendium of everything that is special about the University of Notre Dame and Fighting Irish football, this book includes the memories of everyone from John Lujack, Joe Montana, and Aaron Taylor, as well as other Fighting Irish greats. Some highlights include the 100 most important moments in Notre Dame football history, beloved landmarks and hang outs from the Notre Dame campus and South Bend area, the greatest players in the history of the program, and of course, the championship seasons. Fans will relish these retellings of the moments, games, and teams by the dozens of former players, coaches, and fans that are best qualified to share them.

From the acclaimed author of Shake Down the Thunder, Murray Sperber's Onward to Victory is a brilliant, detailed, and engrossing work of social history for not only sports fans, but anyone interested in the development of modern American culture. With the 1940 release of the classic film Knute Rockne, All American, the myth of the hero scholar-athlete was born, and with it came the age of big-time college sports in America. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, including press accounts, letters and diaries, historical papers, and interviews with many who were there, Murray Sperber recounts how the myths created by Hollywood studios were embellished and codified by a hungry press, infiltrating the collective unconscious with epic stories of players, coaches, and teams. As college sports became a mainstay of popular entertainment, they also were fertile ground for near-fatal scandal, ultimately giving rise to the modern NCAA. Sperber vividly re-creates the world of postwar America, with its all-powerful radiomen, its lurid press, its growing prosperity, and, of course, the infancy of television

Did you know that the Notre Dame Fighting Irish are an independent football team? This means that they are not part of a conference and can play any teams they choose. Learn more about this college team’s history, traditions, uniforms, team records, coaches, and legendary players in Notre Dame Fighting Irish, part of the Inside College Football series.

Jeffrey A. Kroessler's comprehensive and entertaining time line stretches from the pastoral entertainments of the Dutch to the corporate captivity of professional sports. He chronicles events ranging from the truly heroic to the heartbreaking, from moments of municipal greatness to inescapable social change. Through it all he plants the world of sport at the very center of New York's story. Fully illustrated, The Greater New York Sports Chronology covers the spectacle of blood sports like bullbaiting to the birth of baseball, the now-forgotten six-day pedestrian contests, and today's New York City Marathon. Alongside great moments like the Mets' "amazin'" World Series win in 1969, Joe Louis's historic bouts with Max Schmeling, Jackie Robinson's breaking of baseball's color line, and Secretariat's remarkable Triple Crown win at Belmont, we encounter the point-shaving scandals of college basketball and the corrupting influence of organized crime in professional boxing. Beyond immortals like Lou Gehrig and Joe Namath, we also find such once well known figures as Joe Lapchick, Marty Glickman, Gertrude Ederle, and Toots Shor. Year by year, this chronology recounts chess matches, America's Cup races, dog shows, golf tournaments, polo matches, tennis games, and more. Kroessler describes the historic venues, boxing arenas, gyms, stadiums, ballparks, and racetracks that have come and gone, yet made New York the undisputed capital of American sport. Witnessing it all, of course, are the greatest fans in the world.

As mid-19th century America erupted in violence with the invasion of Mexico and the outbreak of the Civil War, Irish immigrants joined the fray in large numbers, on both sides. They sometimes were disruptive elements. In Mexico, a body of Irish artillerymen defected to the other side. During the Civil War, Patrick Cleburne stirred controversy in the Confederacy when he proposed enlisting slaves in exchange for their freedom. The New York draft riots, a violent insurrection by a predominantly Irish mob, raged for three days before Federal troops restored order. Despite turmoil and contention, the Irish soldiers who fought in the Union army contributed significantly to the preservation of the United States. This collection of essays examines the involvement of Irish men and women in America's conflicts from 1840 to 1865.

Boxing was phenomenally popular in 18th and 19th century Britain. Aristocrats attended matches and patronized boxers, and the most important fights drew tens of thousands of spectators. Promoters of the sport claimed that it showcased the timeless and authentic ideal of English manhood--a rock of stability in changing times. Yet many of the best fighters of the era were Irish, Jewish or black. This history focuses on how boxers, journalists, politicians, pub owners and others used national, religious and racial identities to promote pugilism and its pure English pedigree, even as ethnic minorities won distinction in the sport, putting the diversity of the Empire on display.

Former ESPN basketball commentator Digger Phelps is regarded as one of the most charismatic and opinionated analysts in the profession. And he was the same personality during his twenty years as the head coach at the University of Notre Dame. In this book, first published in 2004, Phelps teams up with Tim Bourret and recalls the most successful period in Notre Dame basketball history. In his twenty seasons, seventeen of Phelps’s teams advanced to postseason play, including fourteen NCAA Tournament teams. In the book, Phelps recalls his initial expression of interest in Notre Dame through a 1965 letter he wrote to football coach Ara Parseghian. It recounts the scenes of his seven wins over number one-ranked teams, including the landmark game in 1974 when the Irish ended UCLA’s eighty-eight-game winning streak. Two chapters concentrate on the coach’s former Notre Dame players, concluding with the selection of his All-Digger teams. He also recalls the twenty Hall of Fame coaches he competed against, including Bobby Knight, Al McGuire, Ray Meyer, and John Wooden. Tales from the Notre Dame Fighting Irish Locker Room also contains a chapter entitled “Domers,” which documents Phelps’s relationships with Notre Dame coaches, administrators, and student-athletes, including Father Theodore Hesburgh, the man who made Notre Dame what it is today. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

On November 16, 1957, an unranked Notre Dame football team squared off against the No. 2 Oklahoma Sooners. It was supposed to be an easy Sooners win. But despite being 19-point underdogs, the Fighting Irish, guided by their young and tenacious coach Terry Brennan, maneuvered their way to a 7–0 upset, ending the Sooners’ NCAA-record 47-game winning streak. Though the Odds Be Great or Small chronicles the story of legendary coach Terry Brennan, from his days as a player at Notre Dame under Frank Leahy, to his selection as the head coach in 1954, to the high-intensity comeback season of 1957 in which Notre Dame finished in the top 10 overall. This book provides the social, cultural, and athletic context to understand college football before and after 1957—a year that changed how the game was played at Notre Dame for decades. The 1957 season remains one of the most important seasons in Notre Dame football’s storied history. In Though the Odds Be Great or Small, Coach Brennan shares his version of what happened in the trenches and on the sidelines during a time when a college football game had the power to keep an entire country on the edge of its seat.