From the best-selling author of The Painted House, Skipping Christmas, and The Firm comes a nostalgic novel about high school football in a small Texas town, a place in which football has become a religion. High school all-American Neely Crenshaw was probably the best quarterback ever to play for the legendary Messina Spartans. Fifteen years have gone by since those glory days, and Neely has come home to Messina to bury Coach Eddie Rake, the man who...

Derrick Anderson, a retiring quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, promised his dying son that he would win a Super Bowl for him. His hope may rest on upcoming star Aaron Hill, who is beginning to find the glitz and glamour of life at the top meaningless. To complicate things, there's a young foster child named Cory who believes that Aaron is his dad and is determined to get his point across, and sparks fly between Aaron and Megan, Cory's foster...

Arlo Brodie loves being at the heart of the action on the football field, and while his dad cheers him on, his mother quotes head injury statistics and refuses to watch, but Arlo's winning plays, the cheering crowds, and the adrenaline rush are enough to convince him that everything is OK--in spite of the pain, the pounding, the dizziness, and the confusion.

Miles Manning isn't the most handsome kid in class, and he's not the smartest either. But he's really good at one thing--football. This year, his team is favored to win the conference and go to State. Everyone's pushing him to be bigger, stronger, and faster--from his coaches to his dad to his best friend. Now Miles faces a tough decision: Is he willing to do what it takes to be the best?

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...

Matt Rydeck, co-captain of his high school football team, endures a traumatic season as he witnesses the rape of a rookie player by teammates and grapples with his own use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Three minutes and forty-three seconds of intensive warfare with Iraqi insurgents - caught on tape by an embedded Fox news crew-has transformed the eight surviving men of Bravo Squad into America's most sought-after heroes. Now they are on a media-intensive nationwide tour to reinvigorate public support for the war. On this rainy Thanksgiving Day, the Bravos are guests of a Dallas football team, slated to be part of the halftime show. Among the Bravos...

Super Bowl-winning coach and #1 New York Times best selling author Tony Dungy reveals lessons on achieving significance that he has learned from his remarkable parents, his athletic and coaching career, his mentors, and his journey with God. A particular focus of the book: what it means to be a man of significance in a culture that is offering young men few positive role models.

A football tackle gone wrong puts a boy in the hospital and leaves star linebacker Reggie Scott feeling confused, guilty and alone.

Groomed by his father to be a star player, football is the only thing that has ever really mattered to Mick Johnson, who works hard for a spot on the varsity team his freshman year, then tries to hold onto his edge by using steroids, despite the consequences to his health and social life.