Author Archives: Paul Knepper

https://newbooksnetwork.com/mountaintop When the 1997 college football season began, the once-mighty Michigan Wolverines were dismissed nationally as a relic of a bygone era. Michigan had posted four straight four-loss seasons and started out No. 14 in the polls for the third straight year, its worst preseason rankings since 1985. Michigan was led by an accidental third-yearContinue reading “Podcast with Mark Snyder about his book Mountaintop: The Inside Story of Michigan’s 1997 National Title Climb”

https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-one-hundred-most-important-players-in-baseball-history Baseball lore and history is filled with many valuable players, and not all of them are the Hall of Famers you know. In The One Hundred Most Important Players in Baseball History (Artemesia Publishing, 2023) Lincoln A. Mitchell highlights the one hundred players who have had the biggest impact on baseball, popular culture, and history throughContinue reading “Podcast with Lincoln Mitchell about his book The One Hundred Most Important Players in Baseball History”

https://newbooksnetwork.com/earl-cureton-and-jake-uitti-earl-the-twirl-my-life-in-basketball-mcfarland-2023 Earl “The Twirl” Cureton was never a star player in the NBA, but then again, few people will ever be a celebrity athlete.  Earl’s story, instead, is about a life on the fringes of the league during its “Golden Era” of the ’80s and ’90s. A teammate of Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Michael Jordan, CharlesContinue reading “Podcast with Earl Cureton about his book Earl the Twirl: My Life in Basketball”

https://newbooksnetwork.com/baseballs-endangered-species Scouting has been called pro baseball’s personalized way of renewing itself from year to year and a pathway to the game’s past. It takes a very special person to be a baseball scout: normal family life is out of the question because travel is a constant companion. Yet for those with the genuine callingContinue reading “Podcast with Lee Lowenfish about his book Baseball’s Endangered Species: Inside the Craft of Scouting By Those Who Lived It.”

https://newbooksnetwork.com/roy-white-from-compton-to-the-bronx Roy White played on the New York Yankees from 1965 through the 1979 season. Roy grew up on the tough streets of Compton and created a successful all-star baseball career playing alongside such greats as Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, Thurman Munson, Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, and many others. Today Roy White sitsContinue reading “Podcast with Paul Semendinger, co-author of Roy White: From Compton to the Bronx”

https://newbooksnetwork.com/black-ball Against a backdrop of ongoing resistance to racial desegregation and strident calls for Black Power, the NBA in the 1970s embodied the nation’s imagined descent into disorder. A new generation of Black players entered the league then, among them Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Spencer Haywood, and the press and public were quick to blame this cohort forContinue reading “Podcast with Theresa Runstedtler about her book Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation That Saved the Soul of the NBA”

https://newbooksnetwork.com/spies-on-the-sidelines Spies on the Sidelines: The High-Stakes World of NFL Espionage details the collection techniques that NFL teams utilize to gather information on their opponents in order to gain a game-day advantage, as well as the countermeasures used to defend against them. The book spans the entire history of the league and contains anecdotes from everyContinue reading “Podcast with Kevin Bryant about his book Spies on the Sidelines: The High-Stakes World of NFL Espionage”

https://newbooksnetwork.com/figure-it-out-my-thirty-two-year-journey-while-revolutionizing-pro-footballs-special-teams Simply put, Mike Westhoff is the greatest special teams coach in National Football League history. Sharp-witted, creative, and intensely focused, Westhoff spent 32 years working alongside and learning from some of the legends of the sport—including Don Shula, Dan Marino, Bear Bryant, and Woody Hayes—while revolutionizing the most misunderstood phase of the game. OverContinue reading “Podcast with legendary special teams coach Mike Westhoff about his book Figure It Out”

https://newbooksnetwork.com/lost-in-the-game For players, coaches, writers, and fans, basketball is a science and an art, a religious sacrament, a source of entertainment, and a way of interacting with the world. In Lost in the Game Thomas Beller entwines these threads with his lifetime’s experience as a player and journalist, roaming NBA locker rooms and city parks as aContinue reading “Podcast with Thomas Beller author of Lost in the Game”

https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-nba-in-black-and-white A memoir of hard lessons learned in the racially segregated and sometimes outright racist NBA of the early ‘60s by celebrated NBA player and the first Black Coach of the Year, Ray Scott. Introduced by Earl “the Pearl” Monroe. “There’s a basic insecurity with Black guys my size,” Scott writes. “We can’t hide andContinue reading “Podcast with Ray Scott, author of The NBA In Black and White”