Teams Books

If you're a Notre Dame fan, and don't know the names, Johnny Lujack, Angelo Bertelli, Creighton Miller, George Connor, Jim Martin, Leon Hart, Emil Sitko, John Panelli, Bill Fischer, or Frank Leahy, you need this book. These players, and many others, played at a time (1940's) when you played both offence and defense. During this period, Notre Dame won 4 National Championships, produced 3 Heisman Trophy winners, 2 Outland Trophy winners, and numerous All-Americans.

Jack Connor has written a lively and entertaining book about these great players with many personal stories and insight, and he should know, he was one of them.

This book is a wonderful chronicle of the men who played for Frank Leahy and the impact that he had upon them as they progressed beyond Notre Dame. My grandfather played fullback for Leahy and I had him sign copies for my kids as a lasting momento of the experience he had while playing at Notre Dame.

Easy to follow and learn...my 7 year old loves it..she keeps it in the car with drawing paper and colored pencils..

This will be short and sweet. I was suprised and pleased at how well this book was put together. Its starts with basics of each character and shows you how it is built up, allowing you to follow easily. all the characters you see on the cover are in the book.

Review: Legends of the Dallas Cowboys

Monk, Cody. Legends of the Dallas Cowboys, Champaign, IL: Sports Publishing LLC. 2004 184p, illus. list: 24.95, ISBN 1-58261-707-4

This lavishly illustrated "coffee-table" sized book covers the greatest legends of the Cowboys, starting with Tom Landry. It includes chapters for some of the original Cowboys like GM Tex Schramm, QB Don Meredith, DT Bob Lilly, MLB Lee Roy Jordan, DB Mel Renfro, and WR Bob Hayes.

Stars from the 70s who made the Cowboys "America's Team" include QB Roger Staubach, twin safeties Cliff Harris & Charlie Waters, LB Hollywood Henderson, DE Ed Jones, DT Randy White and RB Tony Dorsett.

The book closes with the "Triplets" of the 90s, Michael Irvin, Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith. As expected of a coffee-table book, it is lavishly illustrated.

© Fred Goodwin, Feb 23, 2008

My husband was thrilled to get the book and is enjoying reading it.

I love this book. As a life long Bengals fan I can read this book over and over. It's well written and provides lots of interesting information on the clubs greatest ever players. This book should be of interest to all Bengal fans, particularly if you are a young fan or have recently began supporting the team and have never heard of great players like Bill Bergy, David Fulcher etc...It is not very expensive and is definately worth 20 dollars

Chick Ludwig does a very nice job taking you through the history of the Bengals via firsthand looks at the players. He covers the key franchise players, even if they weren't there all that long.
There is a nice summary of where they are, gametime recollections and ample pictures from his Dayton Daily News reporting trove.

Evoked a lot of great memories and filled in some of the holes from the early Bengals era for me. Stofa, Cook, Esiason, Anderson, Munoz, Ickey, Gregg, Wyche and a lot of recent history
rather forgotten. There aren't many books about the Bengals but this one definitely is worth putting on your bookshelf.

Now if Nflfilms would start bringing out some Bengals dvds of the Bengals 80/81/88 seasons. Need something to tide us over until they reach the pinnacle again.

Thanks Chick for a great book!

Vocabulary was always the hardest part for me. All the words I studied didn't really matter on the actual test. But with this 1 book, all my miseries were long gone forever!! I'm sure you won't need any other vocabulary book other than this one.

I think the final step to the top score of TOEFL is definately vocabulary power. With this book, you can easily get to that final level with the least effort. If you're through with the words in this book, I'm sure you won't need anything else.

This book teaches the value of teamwork and the results that can come from it. Great for all kids, not just Husky fans.

A fun book to read to and with kids...especially if you want them to grow up to be a Husky fan!

I own a dozen or so books about Longhorn football, but this one's my favorite. From the gorgeous photos to the insightful text, this book covers UT football history better than the others. One difference is in the large, coffee-table-sized format. Another is the unmistakable feeling that Hawthorne's "one of us." He's not afraid to use first person pronouns when talking about the Horns, and his commentary nicely captures the feelings of us orange-blooded fans (e.g., the teams we consider rivals). Thanks, Bobby, for this excellent addition to my Longhorn library!

If you LOVE football as much as I LOVE football, you absolutely must purchase LONGHORN FOOTBALL by up and coming author, Bobby Hawthorne. Hawthorne has gleaned the very best from over 113 years of outstanding Longhorn photography to create a dynamic picture that seems to come to life in your very hands. His insightful commentary only adds to the overall enjoyment of the book. I just couldn't put it down once I opened the book. I could almost hear the crackle of helmets on crisp fall afternoons as I reminisced over many of the best loved players, coaches and fans of the last 100 plus years. In short, this is the book that Darrell Royal would have wanted to be written about the greatest game in the greatest state in the union. Rick Hill

All the reactionary whining when Neil Smith was fired after 40 days by the Islanders means that no "experts" in the media bothered to read or remember this book. Neil Smith is a whiny dork who watched as Mike Keenan underminded him at every opportunity. Read this book and be happy.

A worthy summary of the Rangers cup winning season and subsequent failure. Not quite a behind the scenes look at the team but lots of interesting antecdotes the average fan (like me) would otherwise miss. Great insight into Mike Keenan and why his tactics worked for the Rangers (until game 4 vs the Devils). Also gives insight into why they don't work now. I read it in two days and would recommend it.

A very good book on a forgotten baseball warrior whose career was cut short due to his human frailities. One of many baseball players who have suffered from alcohol abuse. Mr. Fleitz has woven a very interesting biography of one of baseball's sad pasts. If you have ever heard of the legend of this Cleveland Indian, here is an opportunity to discover the real story. A must read for those interested in 19th Century baseball.

One of baseball's most tragic figures is the nineteenth-century outfielder, Louis Sockalexis, who rose to national fame in a few short months and fell just as quickly due to what David Fleitz calls "the pernicious effects of alcohol."

The handsome, likable Sockalexis was the best college athlete in the nation for two years, quickly attracting attention for his dazzling speed and powerful throwing arm. He was recruited by Cleveland in 1897. The first recognized Native American to play in the major leagues, Sockalexis had to endure taunting war whoops from the crowds and endless gibes from the press, even as he won over the fans who saw him play.

David Fleitz' compassionate, concise account is very readable and well-illustrated, covering Sockalexis' brilliant rise and tragic fall from the majors. With his talents, he could have been one of the greatest players of all time but caved in to pressure and high living.

If the Cleveland Indians really want to honor their first Indian, they could dump Chief Wahoo and award scholarships to promising Indian students. Or better yet, rename their park Sockalexis Stadium!

I can't recommend this book enough for Indiana fans, especially those like me with no memory of the 1953 championship. It was incredibly well-researched, with great information about the state of the game at the time (coming off the point-shaving scandals at CCNY, LIU, and Kentucky), the opposing teams and coaches, the individual players on the team, and the play-by-play action of each of the games. The play-by-play was especially exciting for me, because I went into the book without knowing which games we'd won and lost, so I didn't know the outcomes until the final whistle sounded. It is full of quotes by the players, coaches, and the press articles of the time. Buy it and read it - you won't be disappointed.

Here's a few anecdotes to whet your appetite:

- Indiana lost 3 games that season, and each of them were lost on the last-second shots.

- Branch McCracken told his players at the beginning of each season to avoid "drinking, smoking, and gambling." This worried the players, because they knew these were three of Bobby Leonard's favorite things.

- The Minnesota coach was Ozzie Cowles, who went to Minnesota from Michigan, where he led Michigan to their first ever NCAA tournament appearance. After returning from the NCAA tournament, here's what Cowles had to say: "We'd been gone for a week, but no one seemed to notice. A couple of days after we got back, Fritz Crisler [UM AD and head football coach] stuck his head in my office and asked me where I'd been. That was when I decided that Michigan was no place to coach basketball."

- Because of the draft for the Korean War, there was an exemption that allowed freshmen to play in 1951-52, which allowed Don Schlundt to play as a freshman. He was a sophomore in 52-53, and (answering my trivia question below) he broke the all-time B10 scoring record a bit more than halfway through his sophomore season. Remarkable.

- Though IU beat Kansas in the championship game, it was that Kansas team that really changed college basketball in the years that followed. Kansas had lost Clyde Lovelette the year before and weren't considered contenders. But they changed the way they played defense and adopted Iba's Oklahoma A&M pressure defense that Iba played in the final few minutes of the game when down by less than 6 points. This was a pressure defense that played passing lanes and guarded players without the ball (and new concept). That year's Kansas team decided to play that way for the entire game and almost road their defense to the title.

- Kentucky was banned from playing the entire 52-53 season because of recruiting violations and point-shaving. Kentucky chose not to penalize Rupp, though. At all.

The book starts by laying an excellent historical foundation prior to the '53 seaon. The GI Bill, growth in big state universities, increased emphasis on college sports and the invention of the point spread all led to corruption that threatened the legitimacy of college athletics in the early post WWII years. Hiner goes into fascinating details involving Godfather-like characters with names like Sollazzo to illustrate how the great New York City basketball colleges were brought down by gambling scandals.

Game fixing struck not only the east coast but migrated out to the heartland. Hiner discusses the corruption that forced Kentucky to give up its 1953 SEC season.

The next chapters involve the individual players and how they ended up coming to IU.

There was Leonard, the deadend runt from the railroad tracks of Terre Haute who grew from 5'4" as a sophomore to 6'3 in high school. Rangey Charlie Kraak, whom Branch McCracken snagged from Illinois' Harry Combes' backyard. Dick Farley , the poor kid from a huge family in southern Indiana (Winslow). Burke Scott, the gym rat from Tell City who never really quite believed that McCracken wanted him, and had to decommit from Western Kentucky to attend Indiana. And Don Schlundt, the "rich kid" from South Bend. Schlundt was rich because his family could afford to give him a basketball, which was a rare possession in those days. As a young kid Schlundt was so fat, dumpy and lacking in skills that he needed that basketball so that other kids would play with him.

The following chapters deal with Branch McCracken. Starting with him as a boyhood neighbor of John Wooden to Branch's excellent playing career as a high schooler, collegian and pro. Terrific background on the things that shaped McCracken's philosophies on coaching. Through every phase of his playing career, McCracken loved the running game and couldn't wait to implement as a coach.

To use the running game effectively, McCracken was a stickler for conditioning and Hiner does a good job of describing all the things he did to keep his players in shape, including having them spied on if necessary.

The rest of the book effectively weaves the games of the great '53 IU seaon with wonderful personal stories involving players, coaches, family and friends. The details on the games themselves are very thorough and greatly appreciated by an IU basketball historical nut like me. But since I knew a lot of those details, I liked the personal stories even more. I loved reading about what a scoundrel Bobby Leonard was, and it was all McCraken could do to keep him in line. There are a lot of other nice gems, but one that sticks out is how a few college kids, with no money or a plan to speak of, get themselves to the champioship game in Kansas City and end up storming the court in victory.

If you have much interest at all in the tradition of Indiana University basketball, then you'll enjoy this book.