Our Friendship Isn't One Big Thing It's A Million Little Things Happy 16th Birthday: 16th Birthday Gift Journal / Notebook / Diary / Great for Teens Floral Flower Theme (6 x 9 - 110 Blank Lined Pages)

Writers from Grantland Rice to Roy Blount Jr. tackle our most popular pastime: Football has redefined Sunday in America. Ideally suited to the video age, it combines athletic grace with warlike violence in a game that plays out against a backdrop of glitzy entertainment. But, cautions John Schulian in his introduction to this landmark collection, “what the roaring crowds and TV cameras see may not amount to half of what you can get from writers with an eye for detail, an ear for the vernacular, and a gift for asking the right questions.” Since football’s meteoric rise in the mid-twentieth century, the best writers on the sport have sought to go beyond the spectacle and reveal the complexity, the contradictions, and the deeper humanity at the heart of the game. Here is an unparalleled collection of their finest work: Jimmy Breslin lauds the professionalism of Y. A. Tittle, dignified even in defeat; George Plimpton takes a few perilous snaps as the Detroit Lions’ “last-string quarterback”; Hunter S. Thompson rants unforgettably against the pointless excess of Super Bowl week; Richard Price brings Bronx swagger to Bear Bryant’s Alabama; Jennifer Allen recalls life at home after her father was unceremoniously fired as the Rams’ head coach; Bryan Curtis shows us Texas youth football in the post–Friday Night Lights era.?This is a must-have collection for every fan of football and great American sportswriting.