12 Books Like Instant Replay

From a kid playing backyard games with family (girls included), I grew up as football itself grew from a brawling, often ponderous grind into an explosive, even balletic, spectacle—and the most popular sport in the U.S. Family fate also placed me at Long Beach Poly High, which has sent more players to the NFL than any other, and where I played. Thirty years later, as a sportswriter and author, fate again put the first-ever championship game in my sights—months before anyone realized it—and I spent a year following 177 kids around the country, their coaches, and their families. 

From a kid playing backyard games with family (girls included), I grew up as football itself grew from a brawling, often ponderous grind into an explosive, even balletic, spectacle—and the most popular sport in the U.S. Family fate also placed me at Long Beach Poly High, which has sent more players to the NFL than any other, and where I played. Thirty years later, as a sportswriter and author, fate again put the first-ever championship game in my sights—months before anyone realized it—and I spent a year following 177 kids around the country, their coaches, and their families. 

From a kid playing backyard games with family (girls included), I grew up as football itself grew from a brawling, often ponderous grind into an explosive, even balletic, spectacle—and the most popular sport in the U.S. Family fate also placed me at Long Beach Poly High, which has sent more players to the NFL than any other, and where I played. Thirty years later, as a sportswriter and author, fate again put the first-ever championship game in my sights—months before anyone realized it—and I spent a year following 177 kids around the country, their coaches, and their families. 

From a kid playing backyard games with family (girls included), I grew up as football itself grew from a brawling, often ponderous grind into an explosive, even balletic, spectacle—and the most popular sport in the U.S. Family fate also placed me at Long Beach Poly High, which has sent more players to the NFL than any other, and where I played. Thirty years later, as a sportswriter and author, fate again put the first-ever championship game in my sights—months before anyone realized it—and I spent a year following 177 kids around the country, their coaches, and their families. 

I’ve worked in sports media since graduating college, first as a reporter at Sports Illustrated, then as an editor at ESPN The Magazine and eventually becoming editor-in-chief of the magazine as well as espn.com. I’ve also written several books, including The Odds, which was my immersion into the world of sports betting. Like the books on my list, the experience of writing The Odds scratched every itch: It was about sports, it featured intense and passionate characters and it revealed a secret world with massive influence. The Odds led to a career in betting media, including creating the sports betting beat at ESPN and, eventually, launching The Action Network, a sports betting media network.

I am passionate about writing. In my childhood in a rural Montana town, I read all the books in the school library. I also kept diaries, wrote poetry, and when I moved to California at age 16, wrote essays that my High School English teachers read aloud to the class. I switched to academic writing when studying for a master’s degree in social welfare and obtaining a doctorate degree in multicultural education. Since retiring as a school administrator, I have written about my travels in 105 countries. My writing has appeared in numerous print and online publications. My second memoir tells of the struggles and triumphs of a bicultural marriage. 

I’ve written about, taught, and litigated wrongful conviction cases for decades. As Director and Co-Founder of the California Innocence Project, I was able to walk 40 innocent people out of prison. I’m proud to have been part of a small group of lawyers who started innocence organizations in the 1990s. That small group has now turned into a global movement. Free the innocents! 

As a sports reporter since 1990, my never-ending passion for reading and studying the best sports journalism is captured in these five books. The art of column writing, while capturing the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and the intricacies of every game under the sun, is celebrated in these books by David Halberstam, Paul Zimmerman, Red Smith, Dave Anderson, and Dave Kindred. My voracious reading of sports columns plus magazine profiles, online essays, and thousands of books, has given me a great appreciation for authors who capture the essence of competition and reveal the biggest and smallest examples of themes unique to teams and eras, iconoclasts and forgotten figures.

I grew up in Green Bay and my dad was the official scorer for the Packers, so I was immersed in pro football history even as a child. During my careers as a newspaper feature writer and editor and as an advertising copywriter, I also became a sports historian. My magnum opus was “The Encyclopedia of North American Sports History,” 650,000 words. But my favorite by far is my biography of Johnny Blood. I was 12 or 13 when I decided I wanted to write it, 33 when I began working on it, 38 when I finished it, and 78 when it was finally published.

I have been a professional business writer with a keen interest in baseball, football, basketball, and hockey since the early 1960s. My life was literally changed on January 12, 1969, when the New York Jets shocked me and the world with their upset victory in Super Bowl III. For over 40 succeeding years, I was beyond curious about the under-publicized players on that Jets team (aside from Joe Namath) and what they experienced and felt that day and season. I’m especially proud that the VP of Public Relations for that Jet team read and praised my book for bringing exposure to all “the other guys.”