For more than twenty-five years, The Best American Sports Writing has curated the year''s finest sports journalism. Continuing the tradition in a long line of notable guest editors is Rick Telander, acclaimed journalist, author, and champion of the written word. His choices are defined by one shared thread: effort, on the part of athletes and writers alike. The physical strength it takes to play professional hockey and football, or for a forty-two-year-old writer to learn how to dunk in six months. The mental and emotional toughness needed to turn around a losing team, or to speak out about a coach. The careful striving to make everything seem effortless. This edition encompasses it all.The Best American Sports Writing 2016 includes Don Van Natta Jr. and Seth Wickersham,  L. Jon Wertheim and Ken Rodriguez,  Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru, Brett Popplewell, Alexandra Starr, Wright Thompson and othersRICK TELANDER is a Chicago Sun-Times senior sports columnist and the Basketball Evangelist for Slam magazine. He has also written for Sports Illustrated and ESPN: The Magazine, and has been featured seven times in The Best American Sports Writing. He is the author of eight books, including Heaven Is a Playground and From Red Ink to Roses.GLENN STOUT, series editor of The Best American Sports Writing since its inception, is the author of Young Woman and the Sea and Fenway 1912.

With 42 original poems by author Rick Telander and an equal number of full-page, full-color illustrations from 42 different artists from four countries, Sweet Dreams is a beautiful, easy-to-read poetry collection in the fashion of Robert Louis Stevenson’s century-old classic, A Child’s Garden of Verses.  Started when Telander was sick in a bed many years ago and had begun writing the poems in his head, this bookis a work of caring for young boys and girls who must make that ordinary yet complex and sometimes frightening transition from waking reality to the land of Nod.   Sweet Dreams will amuse, delight, intrigue, and above all soothe any child before sleep.  This bookis a gift to all children, the way the best illustrated words can be.

Heaven Is a Playground was the first book on the uniquely American phenomenon of urban basketball. Rick Telander, a photojournalist and former high school basketball player, spent part of the summer of 1973 and all of the summer of 1974 in Brooklyn living the playground life with his subjects at Foster Park in Flatbush. He slept on the floor of a park regular’s apartment, observing, questioning, traveling, playing with, and eventually coaching a ragtag group of local teenagers whose hopes of better lives were often fanatically attached to the transcendent game itself. Telander introduces us to Fly Williams, a playground legend with incredible leaping ability and self-destructive tendencies that threatened to keep him earthbound. Another standout was Albert King, a fifteen-year-old phenom whose shy, quiet demeanor masked an otherworldly talent that eventually took him to the NBA. This edition also includes Telander’s perspectives on the arrival of an NBA team in Brooklyn. Heaven Is a Playground is one of a kind—a funny, sad, ultimately inspiring book about Americans and the roots of the sport that they love.

More than thirty years ago, acclaimed author and Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist Rick Telander was drafted out of Northwestern University by a Kansas City Chiefs team filled with future Pro Football Hall of Famers and coached by the legendary Hank Stram. In 2004, Telander found the tattered, spiral-bound journal he kept while in that training camp and, after rereading the entries he kept until being cut from the team, was amazed and moved by the life lessons he took away from that once-in-a-lifetime experience and how they can be applied to people’s lives today.In Like a Rose, Rick Telander reproduces his training-camp journal, following each entry with his views today on how those unique events and the heartbreak of not being able to fulfill his NFL dream helped propel him into a life as one of the country’s most highly respected and well-known sportswriters. Telander, whose other books include Heaven Is a Playground, ranked as the fifteenth best sports book of all-time by Sports Illustrated, hopes to show how a game some see as being violent can instead offer lessons that people from any walk of life can understand. He also promises to explain the poignancy behind the enigmatic title, Like a Rose.

The ’85 Bears: We Were the Greatest is Coach Mike Ditka’s memoir of a season Chicago will never forget and opponents would rather erase from their minds. Packed with unforgettable behind-the-scenes stories and exhilarating moments including the dominating win over the Patriots in Super Bowl XX, Walter Payton phoning Ditka’s office pretending to be a woman named Yolanda, Jim McMahon’s enduring regard for the healing power of acupuncture, and how a rookie named William Perry turned into a phenomenon known as “The Refrigerator.” The team was filled with a cast of characters who were wildly entertaining off the field, but feared on the field. Their dominance was unstoppable and at their peak they looked like the greatest team in NFL history—and quite possibly were. Taking fans along for an insider’s retelling of this historic season “Da Coach” is packed with stories, recaps and statistics for every regular and postseason game, and top-notch photography that captures the team’s remarkable success, making it a must-have treasure for Bears fans of all ages.

The ultimate record of a great franchise''s greatest season as told by none other than Da Coach himself In Ditka''s own words, this 30th anniversary volume of The ''85 Bears is packed with special features that make it the ultimate must-have treasure for every Bears fan. This updated edition features the authors'' reflections on the incredible championship season as well as recaps and statistics for every regular- and post-season game, bringing the entire 1985 campaign to life. Interviews with fan favorites—from the Fridge to Buddy Ryan—as well as special commentary from Gary Fencik offer extra insight into the team''s Super Bowl run. Capping off a truly memorable volume is a bonus audio CD that features an exclusive interview with Mike Ditka, providing even more memories from a truly golden era of Chicago football.

The ultimate record of a great franchise''s greatest season as told by none other than Da Coach himself  In Ditka''s own words, this 30th anniversary volume of The ''85 Bears is packed with special features that make it the ultimate must-have treasure for every Bears fan. This updated edition features the authors'' reflections on the incredible championship season as well as recaps and statistics for every regular- and post-season game bring the entire 1985 campaign to life. Interviews with fan favorites—from the Fridge to Buddy Ryan—as well as special commentary from Gary Fencik offer extra insight into the team''s Super Bowl run. Capping off a truly memorable volume is a bonus audio CD that features an exclusive interview with Mike Ditka, providing even more memories from a truly golden era of Chicago football.

A detailed expose on the corruption in college football by acclaimed sportswriter Rick Telander, with a foreword by Rick Reilly! In 1989, when Rick Telander first published The Hundred Yard Lie, he proposed that big-time college football should be professionalized. In doing so, Telander was ahead of his time, for the problems that he outlined more than thirty years ago are still relevant today—and in some cases are more severe. In The College Football Problem, a newly revised edition of the 1989 book, Telander reveals that more than thirty years later there still exists the dominance of multimillionaire coaches whose only goal is winning regardless of cost to athletes; the presence of wealthy boosters, board members, and athletic department bigshots who have little regard for the academic side of universities; and, of course, the exploited players themselves—many of whom are impoverished minorities—who too often leave school without degrees or real world working skills but with physical injuries and mental betrayals that often will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Many of these concerns have come to a head in California, where in the Fall of 2019 the governor passed the Fair Pay to Play Act, whereby college athletes can hire  agents to help them with business deals.With a new foreword by Rick Reilly, this book frames these longtime issues in a new light and offers solutions from Telander in an attempt to put an end to the corruption once and for all.

Now in paperback!Heaven Is a Playground was the first book on the uniquely American phenomenon of urban basketball. Rick Telander, a photojournalist and former high school basketball player, spent part of the summer of 1973 and all of the summer of 1974 in Brooklyn living the playground life with his subjects at Foster Park in Flatbush. He slept on the floor of a park regular’s apartment, observing, questioning, traveling, playing with, and eventually coaching a ragtag group of local teenagers whose hopes of better lives were often fanatically attached to the transcendent game itself. Telander introduces us to Fly Williams, a playground legend with incredible leaping ability and self-destructive tendencies that threatened to keep him earthbound. Another standout was Albert King, a fifteen-year-old phenom whose shy, quiet demeanor masked an otherworldly talent that eventually took him to the NBA. This edition also includes Telander’s perspectives on the arrival of an NBA team in Brooklyn. Heaven Is a Playground is one of a kind—a funny, sad, ultimately inspiring book about Americans and the roots of the sport that they love.

For more than twenty-five years, The Best American Sports Writing has curated the year''s finest sports journalism. Continuing the tradition in a long line of notable guest editors is Rick Telander, acclaimed journalist, author, and champion of the written word. His choices are defined by one shared thread: effort, on the part of athletes and writers alike. The physical strength it takes to play professional hockey and football, or for a forty-two-year-old writer to learn how to dunk in six months. The mental and emotional toughness needed to turn around a losing team, or to speak out about a coach. The careful striving to make everything seem effortless. This edition encompasses it all.The Best American Sports Writing 2016 includes Don Van Natta Jr. and Seth Wickersham,  L. Jon Wertheim and Ken Rodriguez,  Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru, Brett Popplewell, Alexandra Starr, Wright Thompson and othersRICK TELANDER is a Chicago Sun-Times senior sports columnist and the Basketball Evangelist for Slam magazine. He has also written for Sports Illustrated and ESPN: The Magazine, and has been featured seven times in The Best American Sports Writing. He is the author of eight books, including Heaven Is a Playground and From Red Ink to Roses.GLENN STOUT, series editor of The Best American Sports Writing since its inception, is the author of Young Woman and the Sea and Fenway 1912.

With 42 original poems by author Rick Telander and an equal number of full-page, full-color illustrations from 42 different artists from four countries, Sweet Dreams is a beautiful, easy-to-read poetry collection in the fashion of Robert Louis Stevenson’s century-old classic, A Child’s Garden of Verses.  Started when Telander was sick in a bed many years ago and had begun writing the poems in his head, this bookis a work of caring for young boys and girls who must make that ordinary yet complex and sometimes frightening transition from waking reality to the land of Nod.   Sweet Dreams will amuse, delight, intrigue, and above all soothe any child before sleep.  This bookis a gift to all children, the way the best illustrated words can be.

Heaven Is a Playground was the first book on the uniquely American phenomenon of urban basketball. Rick Telander, a photojournalist and former high school basketball player, spent part of the summer of 1973 and all of the summer of 1974 in Brooklyn living the playground life with his subjects at Foster Park in Flatbush. He slept on the floor of a park regular’s apartment, observing, questioning, traveling, playing with, and eventually coaching a ragtag group of local teenagers whose hopes of better lives were often fanatically attached to the transcendent game itself. Telander introduces us to Fly Williams, a playground legend with incredible leaping ability and self-destructive tendencies that threatened to keep him earthbound. Another standout was Albert King, a fifteen-year-old phenom whose shy, quiet demeanor masked an otherworldly talent that eventually took him to the NBA. This edition also includes Telander’s perspectives on the arrival of an NBA team in Brooklyn. Heaven Is a Playground is one of a kind—a funny, sad, ultimately inspiring book about Americans and the roots of the sport that they love.

More than thirty years ago, acclaimed author and Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist Rick Telander was drafted out of Northwestern University by a Kansas City Chiefs team filled with future Pro Football Hall of Famers and coached by the legendary Hank Stram. In 2004, Telander found the tattered, spiral-bound journal he kept while in that training camp and, after rereading the entries he kept until being cut from the team, was amazed and moved by the life lessons he took away from that once-in-a-lifetime experience and how they can be applied to people’s lives today.In Like a Rose, Rick Telander reproduces his training-camp journal, following each entry with his views today on how those unique events and the heartbreak of not being able to fulfill his NFL dream helped propel him into a life as one of the country’s most highly respected and well-known sportswriters. Telander, whose other books include Heaven Is a Playground, ranked as the fifteenth best sports book of all-time by Sports Illustrated, hopes to show how a game some see as being violent can instead offer lessons that people from any walk of life can understand. He also promises to explain the poignancy behind the enigmatic title, Like a Rose.

The ’85 Bears: We Were the Greatest is Coach Mike Ditka’s memoir of a season Chicago will never forget and opponents would rather erase from their minds. Packed with unforgettable behind-the-scenes stories and exhilarating moments including the dominating win over the Patriots in Super Bowl XX, Walter Payton phoning Ditka’s office pretending to be a woman named Yolanda, Jim McMahon’s enduring regard for the healing power of acupuncture, and how a rookie named William Perry turned into a phenomenon known as “The Refrigerator.” The team was filled with a cast of characters who were wildly entertaining off the field, but feared on the field. Their dominance was unstoppable and at their peak they looked like the greatest team in NFL history—and quite possibly were. Taking fans along for an insider’s retelling of this historic season “Da Coach” is packed with stories, recaps and statistics for every regular and postseason game, and top-notch photography that captures the team’s remarkable success, making it a must-have treasure for Bears fans of all ages.

The ultimate record of a great franchise''s greatest season as told by none other than Da Coach himself In Ditka''s own words, this 30th anniversary volume of The ''85 Bears is packed with special features that make it the ultimate must-have treasure for every Bears fan. This updated edition features the authors'' reflections on the incredible championship season as well as recaps and statistics for every regular- and post-season game, bringing the entire 1985 campaign to life. Interviews with fan favorites—from the Fridge to Buddy Ryan—as well as special commentary from Gary Fencik offer extra insight into the team''s Super Bowl run. Capping off a truly memorable volume is a bonus audio CD that features an exclusive interview with Mike Ditka, providing even more memories from a truly golden era of Chicago football.

The ultimate record of a great franchise''s greatest season as told by none other than Da Coach himself  In Ditka''s own words, this 30th anniversary volume of The ''85 Bears is packed with special features that make it the ultimate must-have treasure for every Bears fan. This updated edition features the authors'' reflections on the incredible championship season as well as recaps and statistics for every regular- and post-season game bring the entire 1985 campaign to life. Interviews with fan favorites—from the Fridge to Buddy Ryan—as well as special commentary from Gary Fencik offer extra insight into the team''s Super Bowl run. Capping off a truly memorable volume is a bonus audio CD that features an exclusive interview with Mike Ditka, providing even more memories from a truly golden era of Chicago football.

A detailed expose on the corruption in college football by acclaimed sportswriter Rick Telander, with a foreword by Rick Reilly! In 1989, when Rick Telander first published The Hundred Yard Lie, he proposed that big-time college football should be professionalized. In doing so, Telander was ahead of his time, for the problems that he outlined more than thirty years ago are still relevant today—and in some cases are more severe. In The College Football Problem, a newly revised edition of the 1989 book, Telander reveals that more than thirty years later there still exists the dominance of multimillionaire coaches whose only goal is winning regardless of cost to athletes; the presence of wealthy boosters, board members, and athletic department bigshots who have little regard for the academic side of universities; and, of course, the exploited players themselves—many of whom are impoverished minorities—who too often leave school without degrees or real world working skills but with physical injuries and mental betrayals that often will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Many of these concerns have come to a head in California, where in the Fall of 2019 the governor passed the Fair Pay to Play Act, whereby college athletes can hire  agents to help them with business deals.With a new foreword by Rick Reilly, this book frames these longtime issues in a new light and offers solutions from Telander in an attempt to put an end to the corruption once and for all.

Now in paperback!Heaven Is a Playground was the first book on the uniquely American phenomenon of urban basketball. Rick Telander, a photojournalist and former high school basketball player, spent part of the summer of 1973 and all of the summer of 1974 in Brooklyn living the playground life with his subjects at Foster Park in Flatbush. He slept on the floor of a park regular’s apartment, observing, questioning, traveling, playing with, and eventually coaching a ragtag group of local teenagers whose hopes of better lives were often fanatically attached to the transcendent game itself. Telander introduces us to Fly Williams, a playground legend with incredible leaping ability and self-destructive tendencies that threatened to keep him earthbound. Another standout was Albert King, a fifteen-year-old phenom whose shy, quiet demeanor masked an otherworldly talent that eventually took him to the NBA. This edition also includes Telander’s perspectives on the arrival of an NBA team in Brooklyn. Heaven Is a Playground is one of a kind—a funny, sad, ultimately inspiring book about Americans and the roots of the sport that they love.