Irrepressible individualist and iconoclast Pat Tillman walked away from his $3.6 million NFL contract in May 2002 to enlist in the United States Army. Deeply troubled by 9/11, he felt a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Two years later, he died on a desolate hillside in Afghanistan. Though obvious to most on the scene that a ranger in Tillman's own platoon had fired the fatal shots, the Army aggressively maneuvered...

Drawing on 720 original interviews, a New York Times best-selling sportswriter captures as never before the elusive truth about the greatest athlete of all time who took the world by storm from the mid-1980s into the early 1990s--and then, almost overnight, disappeared.

"One man's odyssey into the brutal hive of the National Football League. This is not a celebrity tell-all of professional sports. Slow Getting Up is a survivor's real-time account of playing six seasons (twice as long as the average NFL career) for the San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos. As an unsigned free agent who rose through the practice squad to the starting lineup, Nate Jackson is the talented embodiment of the everyday freak athlete...

"Terry Crews spent decades cultivating his bodybuilder physique and bravado. On the outside, he seemed invincible: he escaped his abusive father, went pro in the NFL, and broke into the glamorous world of Hollywood. But his fixation with appearing outwardly tough eventually turned into an exhausting performance in which repressing his emotions let them get the better of him-leading him into addiction and threatening the most important relationships...

Warrick Dunn was only eighteen when his mother, a Baton Rouge police officer, was shot and killed. Yet somehow he managed to enroll at Florida State University and help his team to a national championship during his freshman year—while also caring for his five brothers and sisters. Despite his modest size, Dunn went on to a storied NFL career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Atlanta Falcons, becoming one of only twenty-three running

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Tiki and Ronde Barber tryout for the Hidden Valley Eagles football team when they enter junior high.

Steve Young produced some of the most memorable moments in NFL history. The Run--his electrifying 49-yard game-winning touchdown against Minnesota. The Catch II--his last-second touchdown strike against Green Bay. Then there were his record-setting six touchdown passes in Super Bowl XXIX. But Young's most impressive victories were personal ones that were won off the field when no one was watching. QB is a remarkably revealing memoir of an athletically...

Explores how the rivalry between quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Tom Brady has shaped their careers and the NFL overall, sharing insights into their opinions about each other and the factors that shaped them as men and athletes.