WNBA Books

In the book, How Do You Know He's Real, you'll get an inside look into the spiritual lives of 34 celebrities. Hagberg has compiled testimonies ranging from Kirk Cameron to Rudy Sarzo (former bass player for Ozzy Osbourne). Each story is remarkably different and it's amazing to read how God has worked in the lives of each of these well-known people.

The author has collected very readable stories telling how celebrities have become Christians, and they share their low points and their joys here. This is a welcome peek into the lives of well known people who typically are more secretive.
Ricky Skaggs, Kirk Cameron, Gloria Gaynor, Bethel Johnson (34 people in all) tell about their struggles and their early days as new Christians.
Billy Ray Cyrus tells of singing in his grandpa's Pentecostal church when he was 4, and includes the touching lyrics to the song he wrote "The other side."
Jackie (Jacklyn) Zeman, star of General Hospital, advises that when you are at a crossroads "cry out to God and ask for His guidance."
Al Kasha's story resonated with me; this Academy Award winning songwriter overcame agoraphobia, and talks about how Hollywood is a tough place for a Jew who came to Christ, and how he started a Hollywood Bible study group.
There are stories here for anyone to enjoy and find spirit lifting.

(Hagberg has written a companion book with the same title, subtitled God Unplugged)

How Do You Know He's Real? is a collection of celebrity essays about God acting in their lives. The contributors include athletes, musicians, and actors. Their stories often follow a familiar pattern of fame leading to drugs and alcohol before hitting bottom and being turned around by an encounter with God. That's not to say the accounts are all stock and cliched, but rather that God meets each person in their need--and for celebrities that need will be similar. And many of the tales include growing up in stable Christian homes, but still needing to make personal decisions about God and Christ and how that decision impacted their careers.

The stories are collected alphabetically but Hagberg has provided a topic finder so a reader battling discouragement or frustration can find offerings from Billy Ray Cyrus, Nancy Stafford, Zorro, Gary Burghoff or John Schneider.

Each essay begins with a picture and short biography of the contributor, listing their accomplishments. Following the selection is God's Road Map, a few sentences about the issues raised by the author, with Bible verses for teaching and encouragement.

The essays themselves are as varied as the contributors. Some of them read as if they were written to be given as speeches. Several sound like the writer could be sitting at your kitchen table, chatting over the coffee pot. All of them are honest and share from their heart how God has acted in their life and how they know He's real.

Reading the accounts of God acting in both miraculous and mundane ways reminds us that no matter what a person does for a living, each of us are created beings who need a loving Savior and merciful God.

Armchair Interviews says: Up close and personal stories from celebrities.

I received this book as a gift and once I started, I couldn't put it down. Ms Hagberg has captured the beliefs of these well known and respected celebrities, sports figures, and musicians. I'm anxiously awaiting the next book in the series and can't wait to give copies of this one to all my friends. Order 2!

This is a book that you will no doubt want to share with everyone you know! (I certainly am!) It was so hard to put the book down - but worth it - just to extend the time and joy of reading it! GREAT content! GREAT author! I can't wait to read the next books in the series!

This is an excellent book for all those WNBA fans out there-it describes the league's inagural season in outstanding fashion. It also gives hope to all those kids out there who dream of becoming professional basketball players.

I THINK THIS BOOK SHOWED HOW MUCH WE REALLY NEEDED THE WNBA.THE BOOK TELLS IN A WAY THAT LITTLE GIRLS CAN STILL DREAM BIG....AND THAT IT CAN COME TRUE.

This is an great book, greatest book made about the WNBA thats for sure. I really dont enjoy reading books much but just by reading this book made me want to read alot of other books. This book tells you about the WNBA all you need to know and want to know, this book has it. It starts out with how it all started to making it work to the rules to what they want for the future of the WNBA. It also tell you a little about some players. Also it tells you some of the greatest woman players that ever thouched the ball. GREATEST BOOK EVER MADE ABOUT THE WNBA!

This is a really wonderful pictorial book about the WNBA!! It has many worderful color photos. I also has photos you probably couldn't get anywhere else!!! It includes sketches for the uniforms, many publicity photos and a wonderful text!!!It truly is a Celebration of the WNBA!!!!!!!

After decades of attempting to promote women's sports, the first successful women's professional basketball league was launched in 1997.

Spurned on in part by the successful performance of the women's basketball team at the 1996 summer games, the WNBA was explicitly positioned as the fulfillment of Title IX and something that everybody (women and men) should become a supporter of.

The Women's National Basketball Association succeeded because it had media visibility, could generate money to do additional promotion of the teams, and WNBA teams received separate names from their male counterparts. This reinforced the idea that these women are professional athletes.

I have been a devoted fan ever since that historic first season. I especially loved that my Comets were the first league champions (a title which they held until recently). Because so many other people had placed bets on New York (which at least in the 1970's was an epicenter for women's rights) having Houston lead the way in professional women's sports was a nice surprise.

There has been some reshuffling of the teams (Utah, Cleveland, and Miami's teams have transferred cities or folded all together). However this league is surpassing the expectations of people who assumed that the WNBA would not last. We have shown the doubters that women's professional basketball is here to stay in America.

Although there are salary (the players in this league are paid low for professional athlete standards) and financial issues (the WNBA has yet to make a profit as defined in business terms) the WNBA scores lots of points in my book.

It occurs to me that Chamique Holdsclaw might be the Dan Gable of her generation. When Gable was an All-American wrestler at the University of Iowa the only match he ever lost was the NCAA finals as a senior. True, Holdsclaw lost more than one game when she was an All-American basketball player at the University of Tennessee, but after winning NCAA championships her first three years the Lady Vols lost to Duke in the Regional Final her senior year. Add to that the four consecutive state championships and one national title she won at Christ the King High School in NYC and you have a most impressive record before she became a pro.

But if you have to look to one achievement that really stands out, it has to be the fact that Holdsclaw was the first women's collegiate basketball player to win the Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete; the only other men to do the same were Bill Bradley and Bill Walton, which is pretty good company. Kristi Nelson provides key stats from Holdsclaw's career, but the focus is more on her work ethic and how she grew as a basketball player. Young students will find it instructive that one of the greatest women ever to play basketball had problems to which they can relate. There is also a strong sense of Holdsclaw's family throughout the book. Consequently, you get a real sense of her as a person and not just as a superstar athlete.

This book is illustrated with mostly black & white photographs from throughout her playing career, including a full-color photo insert, all of Holdsclaw as a Washington Mystic in the WNBA. However, you will not find career stats total in the back of this excellent juvenile biography.

this book was one of the best books i have read in a long time. Even though it was only 80 pages it took me through Chamique's days playing at Christ The King High School, through her days playing in the WNBA for the Mystics. I love to watch her play and i recomend this book to everyone!

This book was produced in the earliest WNBA days and features many players that no longer play the game, including Debbie Black and Teresa Weatherspoon. The stickers are great, and it is a fun flash back for the WNBA fan who has everything! Don't buy it though, if you are looking for stickers of players who started after 1999. Really!

This is a very insightful book in describing the challenges, obsticles and long road Van Chancellor has faced in advancing the world of women's professional sports. It is a must read for any WNBA fan and especially those of the Houston Comets.

This is a great book! Tamika Whitmore will most likely be Most Improved Player of the Year for 2002 and she is just an awesome player and person. This is definitely a must have for any Liberty fan.

i t was very good. I like how it had the page on each player's favorites and such. It had a little too much information. I also liked the statistics on the end of the year. The first part with the coparisons of the WNBA andNBA.

A thoroughly enjoyable and motivating read. This is a remarkable collection of exclusive interviews with the best American sports coaches of the last 40 years. The author has packed a voluminous amount of wisdom, inspiration and facts into what amounts to a road map to a good life. "How to Succeed in the Game of Life" is a brilliant compilation of advice that offers inspiration at every turn.

Game of Life is an insightful book on the thoughts of many of the world's best known coaches. It provides a biography on each of the 34 coaches (which I recommend reading first to gain a better appreciation of the field and achievements of each coach) and asks them a number of questions that can relate to both on the field and life in general. I have gathered a number of relavant quotes that I will use both personally and professionally. A highly recommended read for sporting buffs and managers.

After buying a copy of this book for both myself and my father I was thoroughly impressed. The book was both an easy read yet very informative. I gave a copy of the book to my father, who is not one to read a book, and he was so taken back by how interesting he felt the content was. He picked up the book in the morning and had it finished by mid afternoon. He must have called me 15 times to tell me how inspiring he felt it was and how he was amazed at "all the tricks it taught an old dog"...He thought he had heard all there was to hear about inspirational quotes. We were both pleasantly surprised with how well written the book was. Both my dad and I would highly recommend this book with two thumbs up.

Having read only excerpts, I was shocked to read that Tony Dungy was hired as head coach by the Indianapolis Colts in 2002 by owner Robert Irsay. Irsay had been dead for five years (longer than that mentally). Hopefully the rest of the book does not contain such shoddy information.

This book went through various questions about succeeding in life and listed all the responses from each coach. It was interesting but somewhat repetitive in that many said basically the same thing. I enjoyed reading this book because it had a lot of good advice from a lot of successful coaches. The advice I remember most is to work harder than anyone else, never quit, always be honest, do your best, failure is opportunity for a comeback, and be passionate about what you do. All of them agreed that making a lot of money does not mean you are successful, but money can be a by-product of being successful. The last chapter included short summaries about each coach. My favorite chapter was the one of their favorite quotes.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in philosophy, or who is looking for some advice or inspiration about success.

Karen Arelttaz Zemek, author of "My Funny Dad, Harry"

All it needed was a little proofreading :) , but the content and style were da bomb. Can't wait for her novel!

Well worth the shipping wait! If you enjoy Fran's straight-forward, witty columns then you will love this book. It was insightful and entertaining. Part autobiography, part documentary, and part commentary. A WNBA book like this was long overdue. I've recommended it to all the women's basketball fans I know.

I ordered "Summer Madness" a couple of weeks ago and read it the night it hit the doorstep. As a former player who won an NCAA championship with the Texas Longhorns (for which she was named MVP) and a WNBA title with perennial champions, the Houston Comets, Harris writes from personal experience with the greats of the game. As a sports commentator, Harris is an entertaining writer with unvarnished opinions (which she gleefully shares) on the WNBA and its big-name players.

Which team was so cheap it rationed sweat socks? Would you like to know a little more about the enigmatic four-time Championship MVP Cynthia Cooper? Be warned that "Summer Madness" is more akin to a Fran Harris autobiography than an objective examination of the league, but that lends the book a straightforward charm. An entertaining mix of thoughtful essay, personal memoir and dishy gossip, "Summer Madness" is a must-read for anyone who follows the WNBA.

There is a photo section, an enlightening forward written by WNBA star Tina Thompson, and plenty of stuff not already published in Harris' columns. There also are several laugh-out-loud passages (don't read it in your cubicle at work) and a very touching remembrance of Kim Perrott, Harris' Houston Comet teammate.