Athletics Books

Bob Seebohar is an experienced professional who not only teaches optimal health, but lives it every day. His reasoned and balanced instruction reflects both his work with the top athletes in the country as well as his personal passion for achieving the best state of fitness possible. I found the information in this book highly relevant even as a wanna-be athlete who only competes with the treadmill. Learning more about food and supplements has helped me fuel my workouts and maintain my weight--important goals for anyone!

This book is awesome. A friend of mine recommended it to me and it is a brilliant concept. The author is very knowledgeable and very experienced. I highly recommend this read if you are a serious athlete.

I am here reviewing C. M. Bowra's translation of "The Odes of Pindar" for the Penguin Classics, not Richmond Lattimore's version from the University of Chicago Press, my review of which has been appearing under this heading as well. Fortunately, I rank Bowra's work as highly as Lattimore's, so I won't have to quibble over how many stars should be assigned. Lattimore's translation is, at the moment, out of print; one hopes that Penguin will keep Bowra's available. I will refer to a third translation, as well.

Pindar was one of the most famous poets of ancient Greece, and besides fragments (which are all that survive of most of his rivals) we have four reasonably intact books out of a much larger collection. As it happens, the four books contain celebrations of victors at major Games (Olympic and three others, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean), and are otherwise unlike what moderns think of as typical poetry. They are also densely allusive, and in a Greek which is generally acknowledged to be as difficult to follow as it is beautiful. My own command of Greek is too small to judge, but Bowra is one of several modern translators who have managed to persuade me to read him for pleasure, rather just than for his allusions to myths and heroic legend.

Bowra, who also wrote a major work on Pindar, provides useful annotations to a very attractive translation. He also decided to arrange the poems according to their likely dates, or at least the dates assigned to them by ancient scholars who had list of victors in the various games. There are inherent problems with this, since some of the Odes actually relate to victories in other Games, and some were certainly performed at delayed celebrations. On the whole, however, it does give some sense of Pindar as a developing poet, and of the Victory Ode as a form continuing to grow during his career.

The real drawback is the need to consult a table of references to find any given poem. This can be a real annoyance for a student if Bowra is the only translation you have on hand, and you really want to check a statement supported by a reference to, say, Olympian 3, lines 7 to 10. In most translations, you can just follow the page headings.

Bowra's critical writings on Pindar are now considered obsolete -- at least for the moment His translation remains worth reading, and compares well with Lattimore's, and with Richard Stoneman's recent expanded edition, with excellent critical material, of G.S. Conway's translation of the Odes, which first appeared a few years after Bowra's.

This last was Issued as "Odes: and Selected Fragments," in the Everyman Paperback Classics series, and I have reviewed it, with a more extended discussion of Pindar and related critical disputes. I am glad to have all three; it would be nice if all of them were all in print simultaneously. A fourth alternative, with a translation facing the Greek texts, is the Loeb Classical Library edition, re-edited in two volumes by William H. Race (1997), which is probably a bit too intimidating for the merely curious reader.

The late Richmond Lattimore was a poet and a classical scholar. He held, in the opinion of many, an outstanding place among American translators of the classical literature. In the role of a scholar of Greek, he published late in life of series of translations from the New Testament, eventually collected in one volume; it is dedicated to the sense of the Greek text, without theological commitments. In a combined role he was responsible for a long series of distinguished translations, alone and with collaborators, or as an editor.

He appeared as all three in the University of Chicago Press "Greek Tragedies," and as translator-poet of the "The Iliad," "The Odyssey", Hesiod (Theogony, Works and Days, and Shield of Heracles), and, in the case at hand, the large-scale lyrics of Pindar (c. 518-438 BC). Originally published by the University of Chicago Press in 1947, and reprinted in paperback in that form, it was reissued in a revised translation in 1976, a few years after C.M. Bowra's British translation had appeared as a Penguin Classic. The Odes are songs for public performance in honor of athletes and other victors (owners of horses and chariot teams) at the major Games of classical Greece in the years around the Persian Wars.

Although Lattimore's Homeric translations are quite well known, and seem to remain continuously in print, his version of Pindar seems to have suffered from the relative obscurity of this magnificent, but difficult, poet, who has almost always found more favor with classical scholars than the public. Given the difficulties in translating his rich, densely allusive, and often terribly obscure poems celebrating long-forgotten athletic contests, this is not surprising.

Lattimore manages to give exceptionally clear translations, without masking the difficulties in following Pindar's lines of thought. His commentary is pretty sparse (as usual), which at least spares most of it from becoming outdated as approaches to Pindar shift. As in most translations (but not Bowra's) the Epinician (Victory) poems are presented in their traditional order, in sets according to the Games (Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian) with which ancient scholars associated them (not always correctly).

Another translation of the Odes, by G.S. Conway, has been reprinted in Everyman Paperback Classics as "The Odes: and Selected Fragments," with an excellent introduction, expanded notes, and translations of additional texts, some fairly substantial, by Richard Stoneman. Stoneman provides a good account of trends in Pindar studies; I have discussed some of the issues he raises in my review of that volume.

A fourth alternative, with a translation facing the Greek texts, is the Loeb Classical Library edition, re-edited in two volumes by William H. Race (1997), which is probably a bit too intimidating for the merely curious reader.

It should be noted that this and several other translations of Pindaros (the full Greek form) have been appearing on the listings as the work of "Peter Pindar". (Or formerly were, when this review was first written, and for quite a while after I reported it to Amazon.) This was a pseudonym for John Wolcot, an eighteenth century physician and author from Cornwall, and seems to have been used by others as well. Its only connection with the Greek poet is the borrowing of his name.

This book is quite good. The pictures are great and the information is done corretly. If your a fan of gymnastics I think you should get this book.

This book is quite good. The pictures are great and the information is done corretly. If your a fan of gymnastics I think you should get this book.

This book was about the terrible season in 2005 when the Volunteers never made it to a bowl game. It was a season that was expected to end with a birth in one of the BCS bowl games with a strong possibility of playing for the national championship. At the beginning of the season, the Vols were ranked 3rd in most magazines. The book was originally started to document the victorious season, but ended up discussing the downfallof the powerhouse. The book is an interesting read as it details a inside look into the malfunctions with the team. There was a controversy about the quarterback, there was discipline problems with the players, and maybe too much confidence which lead to a lack of focus on practice. It is a great read for a true Vol fan, it is not about the high but a low in the program. Hopefully, this season will hold a bright future as the team completes for another national title. Mostly I want to see the Tide lose, too bad Sonny, Dale, Bobby, and Leon, there will be tears this year on October 25 I believe. So far, the Vols recruiting is strong this year and there are a ton of play-makers returning too. The starting quarterback looks to be strong as well.

Courageous Reporting

Often sports teams expecting great things want it chronicled for prosperity. The University of Tennessee wanted just such a tome when they asked Mr. Epps, a sports reporter in Chattanooga, to write a book about the widely anticipated Vols run to the NCAA football championship before the 2005 season began. But, things went terribly wrong. The team finished under .500 and even lost to Vanderbilt - usually an automatic win. Thus a season full of promise turned into a disaster - totally unexpected and accepted by the highly competitive and charged "Vol Nation."

Now faced with writing about a losing campaign, rather than the highlights of a championship season, Mr. Epps could have taken the easy way out and offered up a litany of excuses for the Vols sub-par season. To his credit, he did not.

Harking back to an earlier axiom of sports reporting, long before Mr. Epps tapped on a keyboard (after all he is only in his 20s), and not always practiced today by his veteran colleagues, Mr. Epps "Called it as he saw it." He took head coach Fullmer to task for rotten decision making, and wasn't afraid to chronicle the misdeeds and lack of effort of the players.

While Mr. Epps may have suffered the slings and arrows afterwards from the mighty Vols alumni - he is not a Tennessee grad - he can look at himself in the mirror and know he wrote an honest account of a very trying season.

I look forward to reading more straightforward, honest reporting by Mr. Epps.

Award-winning columnist Bill Reynolds presents Our Game: The Story of New England Basketball, a history of basketball in its birthplace of New England. From the inception of the sport over a hundred years ago to its popularity in the modern day, from small gyms to city playgrounds, rugged field houses, and gigantic arenas, Our Game chronicles how the sport captured people's hearts and minds, shines brief spotlights on legendary players, and evolved so greatly since its humble beginnings. Black-and-white photographs and an index round out this engaging chronicle, accessible to basketball fans of all backgrounds.

New England basketball IS basketball: where it started; where it spread; and where it remains beloved. This perfectly written and lively chronicle by the reknowned sports writer Bill Reynolds is a tribute to the men and women, boys and girls, and phenomenal coaches who gave us the game as we know it today.

Being a runner, I love reading about runners, and their stories. Paula Radcliffe comes across in this book with frank honesty. She doesn't sugarcoat it, and tells it straight. She comes across confident, but human, like just another person. Granted, she is an elite athlete that has accomplished much in her life, but unlike some autobiographies, she doesn't sit there and tell you how great she is.

I learned a lot about Radcliffe herself in the book, along with a lot of interesting things about running, injuries, dealing with injuries, the triumph of her victories, the agony of her defeats, her drive to always give it her all, and that she is quite funny at times throughout the book.

Also, for those of you that don't know, she is asthmatic and if you know someone that has asthma and struggles with it, get them a copy of this book. It will inspire them.

This book really starts in Chapter 4 for the running enthusiast. The first three chapters provide an insight into Paula Radcliffe's childhood. The final 17 chapters provide indepth descriptions of the motivation, injury, pain, perseverance and acheivement of a deicated runner. I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the emotional, psychological and physical characteristics of a serious and successful athlete.

Having been a student of Logsdon some years ago it was wounderful to get a revised edition of Physical education unit plans. I particulary liked the assessment tables and the new music suggestions. If you want to feel assure that you're giving your students a well rounded progressive based curriculum that the students enjoy, this is it.

Having been a student of Logsdon some years ago it was wounderful to get a revised edition of Physical education unit plans. I particulary liked the assessment tables and the new music suggestions. If you want to feel assure that you're giving your students a well rounded progressive based curriculum that the students enjoy, this is it.

Pindar's world, and the circumstances of his writing, are so foreign to ours that it's hard to expect any translation to bring over the features of his Victory Odes into English. Nisetich himself is the first to clue you into this, with a thorough apparatus of explication, history, metrical analysis, and gloss that prepares you for exactly what not to expect from Pindar--business-as-usual "my heart sings" lyricism that Pindar, writing for pay for elaborate choral events, had little time for. Instead, the sudden shifts in reference, narrative gaps, and apparently oddball approach to commemoration (whole victory odes where the victor's not mentioned; the hero celebrated negatively only by the qualities he lacks) are explained as features of an archaic world-view that was already antique by Euripides's time. The translations are direct and adequate, broken up like modern free verse, and framed with ode-by-ode intros that make this book a helpful combination of poetry and archaeology.

Pindar, arguably the greatest lyric poet of ancient Greece, presents the translator with a difficulty--how to retain the often grandiose beauty of Pindar's Greek (and perhaps even show something of the form of Pindar's odes) while not departing far into the land of the unreadable.

This translation is the only one that does it. These are renditions that are literal, and yet can be read out loud and impress the ear with a beauty that can only be called Pindaric. And every ode is laid out on the page in a fashion that, without clutter, conveys the structure of the ancient Greek song-and-dance performance that these choral odes originally were.

Moreover, this edition provides you with an ideally informative and insightful introduction. The only thing wrong with it is the high price--though you do get a superbly made, sewn-binding, oversize paperback for your money.

One final note--whether your interest is specifically in ancient Greek poetry, or in poetry period, you should also check out Holderlin's "Hymns and Fragments" (ISBN 0691014124), which are informed by the spirit of Pindar and early Greek religious feeling like nothing else written by a modern human being.

My book is called Pitchers Duel by Coach Clair Bee. This book is about an high school all star player who learns that there are bullies who can bring people down. There were bullies that didn't like the coach and wanted to suspend Chip to make their team lose state. The bullies poured things on the coach who is Rockwell and Chip wanted to save him, so he got into a fight and got suspended. Then once the suspension was over, the bullies had to think of another plan to set on Chip. So they forged Chip's contract that he got to prevent him to play in the playoffs. Chip went to the police to prove that he didn't sign it. Finally, he came back in the championship game to play the 10th inning through the 19th. They lost that game and then Rockwell retired.
There are a lot of reasons why someone else should read this book. One reason is that this story teaches you how to prevent bullies. Another reason why someone else should read this book is that there are a lot of different series about Chip Hilton. The last reason why someone else should read this book is that you can learn about all different sports like baseball football and basketball. Some people that might want to read this book are people who like baseball. Other people are maybe people who love reading sports books. Finally, people who would want to read this book are " all about sports ". This was one of my favorite books i have ever read.

This Chip Hilton book was so good to read that I didn't want to finish the last page. I'm glad there are lots of other titles to read by Coach Bee.

This book should be standard reading for all fitness instructors and personal trainers. In fact it's good reading for any service industry. Well written and easy to follow.

I highly encourage everybody to buy this book. Very well written, by extremely informed experts. You will not be disappointed here! Fantastic book!