Jeff Benedict – författare

'Inspiring . . . An absorbing chronicle of talent, character, pluck, and luck' Wall Street JournalTHE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The first definitive biography of basketball legend LeBron James, by the acclaimed author of Tiger Woods.LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of the twenty-first century and vying with Michael Jordan as the greatest of all time. The reigning king of the game, LeBron wears the crown like he was born with it. Yet his ascent has been anything but effortless and predetermined. As a child, he was a scared and lonely little boy living a nomadic existence in Akron, Ohio. Destitute and fatherless, one year he missed almost 100 days of school. Desperate, his mother placed him with a family that gave him stability and put a basketball in his hands. Bringing home Cleveland's first NBA championship was the culmination of a stellar multi-championship, multi-MVP, gold medal-decorated career -- Le Bron is the NBA's all-time leading scorer and the first active NBA player to become a billionaire. Today LeBron also produces Hollywood films and television shows, has more than 100 million followers on socia media, engages in political activism, has taken outspoken stances on racism and social injustice, and transforms lives through his visionary philanthropy. In LeBron, Jeff Benedict, the most celebrated sports biographer of our time, paints a vivid picture of LeBron's epic origin story and his meteoric rise to sports superstardom. He goes behind the scenes of LeBron's grappling with his seismic celebrity, including appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated as a high school junior. Based on three years of exhaustive research and more than 250 interviews, LeBron is a gripping, inspiring, and unprecedented portrait of one of the world's most captivating figures.

A Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year NCAA football is big business. Every Saturday millions of people file into massive stadiums or tune in on television as "athlete-students" give everything they''ve got to make their team a success. Billions of dollars now flow into the game. But what is the true cost? The players have no share in the oceans of money. And once the lights go down, the glitter doesn''t shine so brightly. Filled with mind-blowing details of major NCAA football scandals, with stops at Ohio State, Tennessee, Texas Tech, Missouri, BYU, LSU, Texas A&M and many more, The System explores and exposes the complex, and perhaps broken, machine that churns behind the glamour of college football. With a New Afterword

Discloses the names of the convicted criminals in the NFL, the stunning severity of their crimes, & why they're still playing.

“Steve Young is a hero of mine. . . His perseverance, intelligence, and, most of all, grace under pressure, NFL-style, make this book a fascinating read.” —Tom BradyIn the most candid and compelling sports memoir since Andre Agassi’s riveting bestseller Open, former San Francisco 49er, Super Bowl champion, NFL MVP, and Hall of Famer Steve Young gives readers an unprecedented and stunning inside look at what it takes to become a super-elite professional quarterback.Steve Young produced some of the most memorable moments in NFL history. But his most impressive victories have been deeply personal ones that were won when no one was watching. His remarkably revealing memoir is the story of a Mormon boy with a 4.0 GPA, a photographic memory, and a severe case of childhood separation anxiety.As an eighth-string quarterback at Brigham Young University, it was doubtful that he would ever see any playing time. But Young became an All-American, finished second in the Heisman voting, and was the top draft choice out of college. Then, after signing the largest contract in sports history, anxiety nearly drove him to walk away from football completely.In short, Young’s quest in life was always about grit. Now, he shares the experience of being inside his helmet while he faces down his toughest adversaries, both on and off the field.“This book is gold.” —Peter King“Intense.” —San Francisco Chronicle“Young’s battles with anxiety make you forget you are reading about a Hall of Famer, and make you root for him at every turn. This is a revealing, honest, compelling book that any fan will enjoy.” —Michael Rosenberg, senior writer, Sports Illustrated

The first definitive biography of basketball legend LeBron James, by the acclaimed author of Tiger Woods.LeBron is unquestionably the greatest basketball player of the 21st century. Off the court, LeBron's political activism, outspoken stance on racism and social injustice have helped build a social media presence that includes 117 million followers on Instagram and 51 million followers on Twitter. He is an international brand worth billions of dollars. He doesn’t just have huge endorsement deals with some of the biggest corporations in the world; LeBron sits on boards of directors and has an equity stake in the companies he sponsors. He has forged a close friendship with President Barack Obama and clashed publicly with President Donald Trump.As a child, LeBron was a lost little boy living in a public housing project in Akron, Ohio. His mother, who had LeBron when she was just sixteen, would disappear for days at a time. Scared and alone, LeBron rarely attended school. He was dirt poor and fatherless. And he had never played organised basketball. Yet he would become the most successful and most popular athlete that the United States has produced this century, bringing success to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers.To tell this epic story, Benedict has done exhaustive research, digging through thousands of pages of primary source documents, articles, books and hundreds of hours of video footage. He’s also conducted hundreds of interviews with the people who were intimately involved with LeBron from the beginning of his life to the present. He shows the initial slow rise of a star that suddenly transformed into a speeding comet during his senior year of high school. It is a unique and unmissable insight into one of the world's greatest athletes.

A Simon & Schuster audiobook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every listener.

The Founder of JetBlue. The former CEO of Dell Computers. The CEO of Deloitte & Touche. The former Dean of the Harvard Business School - and now a US Presidential candidate in Mitt Romney. They all have one thing in common. They are devout Mormons who work long hours but always spend their Sundays exclusively with their families, and always put their spouses and children first. How do they do it? Critically acclaimed author and investigative journalist Jeff Benedict (a Mormon himself) examines these highly successful business execs and discovers how their beliefs have influenced them, and enabled them to achieve incredible success.With original interviews and unparalleled access, Benedict shares what truly drives these individuals, and the invaluable life lessons from which anyone can benefit.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018WINNER OF THE TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR 2019THE FULL STORY BEHIND THE RISE, FALL AND RISE AGAIN OF TIGER WOODS'A rattling read... Superbly written' Daily Mail‘Arguably the most serious attempt ever made to get behind golf’s great enigma' Guardian'Exhilarating, depressing, tawdry and moving... perfectly pitched biography' New York TimesBased on three years of extensive research and reporting, two of today’s most acclaimed investigative journalists, Jeff Benedict of Sports Illustrated and eleven-time Emmy Award winner Armen Keteyian, deliver the first major biography of Tiger Woods - sweeping in scope and packed with groundbreaking, behind-the-scenes details of the Shakespearean rise and epic fall of a global icon.In 2009, Tiger Woods was the most famous athlete on the planet, a transcendent star of almost unfathomable fame and fortune living what appeared to be the perfect life - married to a Swedish beauty and the father of two young children. Winner of fourteen major golf championships and seventy-nine PGA Tour events, Woods was the first billion-dollar athlete, earning more than $100 million a year in endorsements from the likes of Nike, Gillette, AT&T and Gatorade.But it was all a carefully crafted illusion. As it turned out, Woods had been living a double life for years - one that exploded in the aftermath of a late-night crash that exposed his serial infidelity and sent his personal and professional life off a cliff. In Tiger Woods, Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian dig deep behind the headlines to produce a richly reported answer to the question that has mystified millions of sports fans for nearly a decade: who is Tiger Woods?Drawing on more than four hundred interviews with people from every corner of Woods’s life - friends, family members, teachers, romantic partners, swing coaches, business associates, Tour pros and members of Woods’s inner circle - Benedict and Keteyian construct a captivating psychological profile of an African-American child programmed by an attention-grabbing father and the original Tiger Mom to be the 'chosen one', to change not just the game of golf, but the world as well. But at what cost?Benedict and Keteyian provide the startling answers in a biography, updated for this edition, destined to make headlines and linger in the minds of readers for years to come.

“A confident and substantial book...It has torque and velocity...It makes a sweet sound, like a well-struck golf ball. I found it exhilarating, depressing, tawdry, and moving in almost equal measure. It’s a big American story.” —The New York Times Based on years of reporting and interviews with more than 250 people from every corner of Tiger Woods’s life—many of whom have never spoken about him on the record before—a sweeping, revelatory, and defining biography of an American icon.In 2009, Tiger Woods was the most famous athlete on the planet, a transcendent star of almost unfathomable fame and fortune living what appeared to be the perfect life. Married to a Swedish beauty and the father of two young children, he was the winner of fourteen major golf championships and earning more than $100 million annually. But it was all a carefully crafted illusion. As it turned out, Woods had been living a double life for years—one that unraveled in the aftermath of a Thanksgiving-night car crash that exposed his serial infidelity and sent his personal and professional lives over a cliff. Still, the world has always wondered: Who is Tiger Woods, really? In Tiger Woods, Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, the team behind the New York Times bestseller The System, look deep behind the headlines to produce a richly reported answer to that question. To find out, they conducted hundreds of interviews with people from every facet of Woods’s life—friends, family members, teachers, romantic partners, coaches, business associates, physicians, Tour pros, and members of Woods’s inner circle. From those interviews, and extensive, carefully sourced research, they have uncovered new, intimate, and surprising details about the man behind the myth. We read an inside account of Tiger’s relationship with his first love, Dina Gravell, and their excruciating breakup at the hands of his parents. We learn that Tiger’s longtime sports agency, International Management Group (IMG), made $50,000 annual payments to Tiger’s father, Earl Woods, as a “talent scout”—years before Tiger was their client. We discover startling new details about Earl, who died in 2006 and to this day lies in an unmarked grave. We come along as Tiger plunges into the Las Vegas and New York nightclub worlds alongside fellow superstars Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley. We are whisked behind the scenes during the National Enquirer’s globetrotting hunt to expose Tiger’s infidelity, and we get a rare look inside his subsequent sex-addiction treatment at the Pine Grove facility in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. But the portrait of Woods that emerges in Tiger Woods is far more rewarding than revelations alone. By tracing his life from its origins as the mixed-race son of an attention-seeking father and the original Tiger Mom—who programmed him to be “the chosen one,” tasked with changing not just the game of golf but the world as well—the authors provide a wealth of new insight into the human being trapped inside his parents’ creation. Most of all, we are reminded, time and time again, of Woods’s singular greatness and the exhilaration we felt watching an athletic genius dominate his sport for nearly twenty years. But at what cost? Benedict and Keteyian provide the answers in an extraordinary biography that is destined to become the defining book about an authentic American legend—and to linger in the minds of readers for years to come.

Extraordinary stories of people who have survived life’s most heart-wrenching tragedies and whose Christian faith has remained unshakable.

New York Times bestselling author Jeff Benedict has seen both good and bad in his career as a journalist. Some of the best are the extraordinary people he has met who have made deliberate choices to live happier lives despite the extreme hardship that each of them have faced. Although life will knock us down from time to time, this book is an important reminder that we all can make a choice to get back up, brush ourselves off, and keep pressing forward.

“Each of us will find ourselves at the intersection of happiness and despair. And when that day comes, there are choices we can make that will help us turn and walk down the street called Happiness,” says the author. From choosing to forgive to choosing to serve others to choosing to pray, the seven true stories that Jeff shares illustrate the power within each of us to choose to live a happier, more abundant life.

Stories include

a husband who lost his wife when a young boy inadvertently pulled the trigger of a loaded shotgun;a waitress who nearly drowned after being swept away in a raging flood;a father who lost his one-year-old son to a rare disease;a woman lost at sea during a harrowing storm;a man who was brutally beaten but who chose to forgive his attacker;a mother whose home was demolished by a tornado, whose husband was diagnosed with cancer, and whose nine-year-old son has undergone nearly one hundred surgeries; anda father trying to raise his family in a neighborhood often targeted by gang members.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Now a 10-part docuseries on Apple TV+ From the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Tiger Woods comes the definitive inside story of the New England Patriots—the greatest sports dynasty of the 21st century.It’s easy to forget that the New England Patriots were once the laughingstock of the NFL, a nearly bankrupt team that had never won a championship and was on the brink of moving to St. Louis. Everything changed in 1994, when Robert Kraft acquired the franchise and soon brought on board head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. Since then, the Patriots have become a juggernaut, making ten trips to the Super Bowl, winning six of them, and emerging as one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world. How was the Patriots dynasty built? And how did it last for two decades? In The Dynasty, acclaimed journalist Jeff Benedict provides richly reported answers in a sweeping account based on exclusive interviews with more than two hundred insiders—including team executives, coaches, players, players’ wives, team doctors, lawyers, and more—as well as never-before-seen recordings, documents, and electronic communications. Through his exhaustive research, Benedict uncovers surprising new details about the inner workings of a team notorious for its secrecy. He puts us in the room as Robert Kraft outmaneuvers a legion of lawyers and investors to buy the team. We listen in on the phone call when the greatest trade ever made—Bill Belichick for a first-round draft choice—is negotiated. And we look over the shoulder of forty-year-old Tom Brady as a surgeon operates on his throwing hand on the eve of the AFC Championship Game in 2018. But the portrait that emerges in The Dynasty is more rewarding than new details alone. By tracing the team’s epic run through the perspectives of Kraft, Belichick, and Brady—each of whom was interviewed for the book—the author provides a wealth of new insight into the complex human beings most responsible for the Patriots’ success. The result is an intimate portrait that captures the human drama of the dynasty’s three key characters while also revealing the secrets behind their success. “The Dynasty is…[a] masterpiece…It’s a relationship book, it’s a football book, it’s a business book…you’ll just eat up these stories” (Colin Cowherd).

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the #1 bestselling author of The Dynasty and Tiger Woods—the “definitive…fantastic” (Sports Illustrated) biography of basketball superstar LeBron James, based on three years of exhaustive research and more than 250 interviews.LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of the twenty-first century, and he’s in the conversation with Michael Jordan as the greatest of all time. The reigning king of the game and the first active NBA player to become a billionaire, LeBron wears the crown like he was born with it. Yet his ascent has been anything but effortless and predetermined—the truth is vastly more interesting than that. What makes LeBron’s story so compelling is how he won his destiny despite overwhelmingly long odds, in a drama worthy of a Dickens novel. As a child, he was a scared and lonely little boy living a nomadic existence in Akron, Ohio. His mother, who had LeBron when she was sixteen, would sometimes leave him on his own. Destitute and fatherless, he missed close to one hundred days of school in the fourth grade. Desperate, his mother placed him with a family that gave him stability and put a basketball in his hands. “An absorbing chronicle of talent, character, pluck, and luck” (Wall Street Journal) LeBron tells the full, riveting saga of how a child adrift found the will to become a titan. Jeff Benedict, the most celebrated sports biographer of our time, paints a vivid picture of LeBron’s epic origin story, showing the gradual rise of a star who, surrounded by a tight-knit group of teenage friends and adult mentors, accelerated into a speeding comet during high school. Today LeBron produces Hollywood films and television shows, has a social media presence that includes more than one hundred million followers, engages in political activism, takes outspoken stances on racism and social injustice, and transforms lives through his visionary philanthropy. He went from a lost boy in Akron to a beloved hero who uses his fortune to educate underprivileged children and lift up needy families—and brought home Cleveland’s first NBA championship. But LeBron is more than just the origin story of a GOAT or a recap of his multi-championship, multi-MVP, gold medal–decorated career on the court. Benedict delves into LeBron’s relationship with fame and power: how he has cultivated it, harnessed it, suffered from it, and leveraged it. In these pages, we watch his evolution from a player who avoided politics and was widely criticized for not joining his teammates in protesting China’s role in the Darfur genocide to becoming an athlete who partnered with President Obama; campaigned for Hillary Clinton; became an advocate against gun violence, racism, and voter suppression; and openly clashed with President Trump, empowering other athletes to speak out against social injustice. To capture LeBron’s extraordinary life, Benedict conducted hundreds of interviews with the people who were involved with LeBron at different stages of his life. He also obtained thousands of pages of primary source documents and mined hundreds of hours of video footage. Destined to be the authoritative account of LeBron’s life, LeBron is a “masterful…propulsive” (Los Angeles Times) and unprecedented portrait of one of the world’s most captivating figures.

NOW A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY From Jeff Benedict, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Tiger Woods and The Dynasty, Poisoned chronicles the events surrounding the worst food-poisoning epidemic in US history: the deadly Jack in the Box E. coli infections in 1993.On December 24, 1992, six-year-old Lauren Rudolph was hospitalized with excruciating stomach pain. Less than a week later she was dead. Doctors were baffled: How could a healthy child become so sick so quickly? After a frenzied investigation, public-health officials announced that the cause was E. coli O157:H7, and the source was hamburger meat served at a Jack in the Box restaurant. During this unprecedented crisis, four children died and over seven hundred others became gravely ill. In Poisoned, award-winning investigative journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author Jeff Benedict delivers a jarringly candid narrative of the fast-moving disaster, drawing on access to confidential documents and exclusive interviews with the real-life characters at the center of the drama—the families whose children were infected, the Jack in the Box executives forced to answer for the tragedy, the physicians and scientists who identified E. coli as the culprit, and the legal teams on both sides of the historic lawsuits that ensued. Fast Food Nation meets A Civil Action in this riveting account of how we learned the hard way to truly watch what we eat.

*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER*From the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Tiger Woods comes the definitive inside story of the New England Patriots—the greatest sports dynasty of the 21st century. It’s easy to forget that the New England Patriots were once the laughingstock of the NFL, a nearly bankrupt team that had never won a championship and was on the brink of moving to St. Louis. Everything changed in 1994, when Robert Kraft acquired the franchise and soon brought on board head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. Since then, the Patriots have become a juggernaut, making ten trips to the Super Bowl, winning six of them, and emerging as one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world. How was the Patriots dynasty built? And how did it last for two decades? In The Dynasty, acclaimed journalist Jeff Benedict provides richly reported answers in a sweeping account based on exclusive interviews with more than two hundred insiders—including team executives, coaches, players, players’ wives, team doctors, lawyers, and more—as well as never-before-seen recordings, documents, and electronic communications. Through his exhaustive research, Benedict uncovers surprising new details about the inner workings of a team notorious for its secrecy. He puts us in the room as Robert Kraft outmaneuvers a legion of lawyers and investors to buy the team. We listen in on the phone call when the greatest trade ever made—Bill Belichick for a first-round draft choice—is negotiated. And we look over the shoulder of forty-year-old Tom Brady as a surgeon operates on his throwing hand on the eve of the AFC Championship Game in 2018. But the portrait that emerges in The Dynasty is more rewarding than new details alone. By tracing the team’s epic run through the perspectives of Kraft, Belichick, and Brady—each of whom was interviewed for the book—the author provides a wealth of new insight into the complex human beings most responsible for the Patriots’ success. The result is an intimate portrait that captures the human drama of the dynasty’s three key characters while also revealing the secrets behind their success. “The Dynasty is…[a] masterpiece…It’s a relationship book, it’s a football book, it’s a business book…you’ll just eat up these stories” (Colin Cowherd).

Seit 20 Jahren gehören die New England Patriots zu den erfolgreichsten Teams der American-Football-Liga NFL und zu den wertvollsten Sport-Franchises der Welt. Zehn Mal standen sie im Super Bowl, sechs Mal gewannen sie ihn. Dank Superstars wie Quarterback Tom Brady oder dem Deutschen Sebastian Vollmer sind sie auch hierzulande äußerst populär und eines der Teams, die im Herbst 2023 ein NFL-Spiel in Deutschland austragen werden. Bestsellerautor Jeff Benedict hat mit über zweihundert Insidern gesprochen, darunter Teammanager, Trainer, Spieler, ihre Frauen, Ärzte und Anwälte. Er führte Interviews mit den Schlüsselfiguren Tom Brady, Erfolgscoach Bill Belichick und Clubbesitzer Robert Kraft. Durch seine gründliche Recherche bietet Benedict eine Fülle neuer und überraschender Einblicke in eine Organisation, die für ihre Geheimhaltung berüchtigt ist. Das Ergebnis ist ein fesselndes und aufschlussreiches Porträt, gespickt mit menschlichen Dramen und Enthüllungen.

LeBron James ist nicht nur der unbestrittene Superstar der US-Profiliga NBA, sondern auch erfolgreicher Unternehmer und Werbeikone. Er ist bekannt für sein politisches Engagement gegen Rassismus und soziale Ungerechtigkeit, ist eng mit Barack Obama befreundet und hat sich mehrfach öffentlich mit Donald Trump angelegt. In den sozialen Medien folgen ihm unfassbare 160 Millionen Menschen.James wuchs arm und ohne Vater in einer Sozialbausiedlung auf. Seine Mutter, die ihn mit 16 Jahren zur Welt brachte, verschwand immer wieder für mehrere Tage. Erst in der Highschool begann er, organisiert Basketball zu spielen. Im College gelang der Durchbruch, heute gilt er als der beste Spieler der Welt.Bestsellerautor Jeff Benedict hat unzählige Quellen durchforstet und Hunderte von Interviews mit LeBrons engsten Weggefährten geführt. Das Ergebnis ist ein einzigartiges Porträt eines der größten Sportler der Welt.

Tiger Woods cuenta la trepidante historia, llena de claroscuros, de la ascensión, caída y renacimiento del mejor golfista de todos los tiempos.En 2009, Tiger Woods era probablemente el deportista más famoso del mundo; una estrella de fama y fortuna inconmensurables que gozaba de lo que, en apariencia, era una vida idílica, casado con una bella mujer, dos hijos y el mejor swing del circuito. Con un palmarés que incluía catorce majors y setenta y nueve torneos del PGA Tour, Woods tenía unos ingresos anuales de más de cien millones de dólares y era la cara de multinacionales como Nike, Gillette, AT&T o Gatorade. Pero todo pendía de un hilo. Tras un aparatoso accidente de madrugada, cuando se estampó con su todoterreno contra un árbol y quedó inconsciente tras huir precipitadamente de su mansión, se destapó un historial de infidelidades que hicieron que la cuidada imagen del deportista perfecto se desmoronara.Los periodistas Jeff Benedict, de Sports Illustrated, y Armen Keteyian, once veces ganador de un Emmy, trazan un fascinante relato del que posiblemente sea el mayor deportista individual de la historia moderna a partir de más de cuatrocientas entrevistas con personas cercanas a Woods y más de tres años de investigación. El resultado es un monumental retrato psicológico del niño prodigio que, espoleado por unos padres que lo sometieron a una férrea disciplina castrense y que afirmaban que era "el Elegido", se convirtió muy pronto en la gran promesa del golf —con precoces apariciones en televisión con tan solo dos años—, pero, como contrapartida, desarrolló una enfermiza relación con su entorno y conductas compulsivas y adictivas que propiciarían una caída en desgracia de proporciones shakesperianas.