Most Popular Books by Michael MacCambridge

It’s difficult to imagine today—when the Super Bowl has virtually become a national holiday and the National Football League is the country’s dominant sports entity—but pro football was once a ramshackle afterthought on the margins of the American sports landscape. In the span of a single generation in postwar America, the game charted an extraordinary rise in popularity, becoming a smartly managed, keenly marketed sports entertainment colossus whose action is ideally suited to television and whose sensibilities perfectly fit the modern age. America’s Game traces pro football’s grand transformation, from the World War II years, when the NFL was fighting for its very existence, to the turbulent 1980s and 1990s, when labor disputes and off-field scandals shook the game to its core, and up to the sport’s present-day preeminence. A thoroughly entertaining account of the entire universe of professional football, from locker room to boardroom, from playing field to press box, this is an essential book for any fan of America’s favorite sport.

“Indispensable history.” –Sally Jenkins, bestselling author of The Right Call A captivating chronicle of the pivotal decade in American sports, when the games invaded prime time, and sports moved from the margins to the mainstream of American culture. Every decade brings change, but as Michael MacCambridge chronicles in THE BIG TIME, no decade in American sports history featured such convulsive cultural shifts as the 1970s. So many things happened during the decade—the move of sports into prime-time television, the beginning of athletes’ gaining a sense of autonomy for their own careers, integration becoming—at least within sports—more of the rule than the exception, and the social revolution that brought females more decisively into sports, as athletes, coaches, executives, and spectators. More than politicians, musicians or actors, the decade in America was defined by its most exemplary athletes. The sweeping changes in the decade could be seen in the collective experience of Billie Jean King and Muhammad Ali, Henry Aaron and Julius Erving, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Joe Greene, Jack Nicklaus and Chris Evert, among others, who redefined the role of athletes and athletics in American culture. The Seventies witnessed the emergence of spectator sports as an ever-expanding mainstream phenomenon, as well as dramatic changes in the way athletes were paid, portrayed, and packaged. In tracing the epic narrative of how American sports was transformed in the Seventies, a larger story emerges: of how America itself changed, and how spectator sports moved decisively on a trajectory toward what it has become today, the last truly “big tent” in American culture.

"I can''t separate what part of pro football is business and what part is personal with me," he said. "I just know that it is very important that I succeed." He had loved games as a young boy, had played them as a young man, and now, as a naive but determined 27-year-old in the summer of 1959, Lamar Hunt announced that he was going to launch a new football league. What he couldn''t possibly have known on that day was that the forces of the entrenched National Football League would soon be arrayed against him. The league would place its own team in his hometown of Dallas, in direct competition with his team, and would attempt to undermine the new league, trying on repeated occasions before that first season to prevent the new American Football League from ever starting. And what the NFL couldn''t have known, but would soon find out, was that Hunt, the mild-mannered, bespectacled son of legendary oilman H. L. Hunt, had an indomitable will, and patience beyond his years. Resolute and innovative, he successfully launched the AFL and, seven years later, helped broker a merger deal, which created the need for a championship game between the two leagues. Then he came up with the name of the game--the Super Bowl. Never before, and not since, has anyone with so many resources spent so much time watching, participating in, and being captivated by the absorbing ritual of sports and the suspended state of play. His accomplishments would put him in the company of the other giants of American sports--Charles C. "Cash and Carry" Pyle, Abe Saperstein, George Halas, Branch Rickey, Red Auerbach, Pete Rozelle. Each was present at a revolution. But Hunt, significantly, was present at a number of revolutions. And he was the catalyst for each one. Before his death in 2006, Hunt revolutionized three different sports--pro football, tennis, and soccer--winding up in the Hall of Fame of each. Written by award-winning author Michael MacCambridge, Lamar Hunt: A Life In Sports is the definitive and official biography of one of the 20th century''s most important and beloved sporting figures; the soft-spoken, strong-willed man whose audacious challenge to the NFL transformed the landscape of American sports, but only served as an opening act to his epic sporting journey. Drawing on 50 years of Hunt''s personal papers and more than 200 interviews, author Michael MacCambridge provides an intimate, original portrait of the man forever captivated by these serious pursuits we call games.

Today''s National Football League is more successful, more exciting, and more popular than ever. But the game in the twenty-first century is also ruled by a constant quest for more money. Super Bowl-winning head coach Brian Billick''s More Than a Game examines how the relentless competition off the field affects the game on the field, and what it means for the future of America''s most popular sport. One of the NFL''s most successful leaders, Billick coached the Baltimore Ravens from 1999 to 2007, leading his team to victory in Super Bowl XXXV in 2001. With nearly two decades in the league, and now a Fox game analyst and NFL Network contributor, Billick has experienced the league''s enormous pressure to win as well as seen what happens to those who don''t. Following the 2007 season, he took a step back from the coaching life and decided to spend a season examining the game he loved so much from other perspectives. Collaborating with Michael MacCambridge (whose book America''s Game is regarded as the definitive modern history of the NFL), he delved into the NFL from every possible angle, spending time with people at every level of the game. More Than a Game explains how the spectacle that dominates fall weekends in America works, and why it has served all of football''s interest groups -- owners players, and fans alike -- so well over the years. We get a glimpse of the changing profile and increased influence of the league''s owners. We come to better understand the pressure that players are under to perform for their team and for themselves and their future contracts. We see the challenge facing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who must balance the concerns of owners, players, sponsors, the league''s television network "partners," and the fans, whose devotion and dollars make the entire enterprise possible. Along the way, we see how the financial forces are exerting themselves on every level, working their way into the essence of the game itself. Billick takes the measure of new offensive and defensive strategies, explains refined scouting and team-building methods, and focuses on the elusive quest for the franchise quarterback that can make or break careers. Packed with the privileged knowledge that comes from a true NFL insider, More Than a Game is more than a look inside the complex system that is pro football. It''s an attempt to understand why the game is so compelling, and what it will take to keep it that way. Complete with important developments in the 2009 off-season, the book stands as an absolute must-read for NFL fans.

Chuck Noll won four Super Bowls and presided over one of the greatest football dynasties in history, the Pittsburgh Steelers of the ''70s. Later inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, his achievements as a competitor and a coach are the stuff of legend. But Noll always remained an intensely private and introspective man, never revealing much of himself as a person or as a coach, not even to the players and fans who revered him. Chuck Noll did not need a dramatic public profile to be the catalyst for one of the greatest transformations in sports history. In the nearly four decades before he was hired, the Pittsburgh Steelers were the least successful team in professional football, never winning so much as a division title. After Noll''s arrival, his quiet but steely leadership quickly remolded the team into the most accomplished in the history of professional football. And what he built endured well beyond his time with the Steelers—who have remained one of America''s great NFL teams, accumulating a total of six Super Bowls, eight AFC championships, and dozens of division titles and playoff berths. In this penetrating biography, based on deep research and hundreds of interviews, Michael MacCambridge takes the measure of the man, painting an intimate portrait of one of the most important figures in American football history. He traces Noll''s journey from a Depression-era childhood in Cleveland, where he first played the game in a fully integrated neighborhood league led by an African-American coach and then seriously pursued the sport through high school and college. Eventually, Noll played both defensive and offensive positions professionally for the Browns, before discovering that his true calling was coaching. MacCambridge reveals that Noll secretly struggled with and overcame epilepsy to build the career that earned him his place as "the Emperor" of Pittsburgh during the Steelers'' dynastic run in the 1970s, while in his final years, he battled Alzheimer''s in the shelter of his caring and protective family. Noll''s impact went well beyond one football team. When he arrived, the city of steel was facing a deep crisis, as the dramatic decline of Pittsburgh''s lifeblood industry traumatized an entire generation. "Losing," Noll said on his first day on the job, "has nothing to do with geography." Through his calm, confident leadership of the Steelers and the success they achieved, the people of Pittsburgh came to believe that winning was possible, and their recovery of confidence owed a lot to the Steeler''s new coach. The famous urban renaissance that followed can only be understood by grasping what Noll and his team meant to the people of the city. The man Pittsburghers could never fully know helped them see themselves better. Chuck Noll: His Life''s Work tells the story of a private man in a very public job. It explores the family ties that built his character, the challenges that defined his course, and the love story that shaped his life. By understanding the man himself, we can at last clearly see Noll''s profound influence on the city, players, coaches, and game he loved. They are all, in a real sense, heirs to the football team Chuck Noll built.

In celebration of 150 years of college football and 100 years of the National Football League, Assouline presents Football: The Impossible Collection—The 100 Most Legendary Moments in History. This is the first book to offer a comprehensive view of both college and professional football, a curated selection of 100 historic firsts, unforgettable upsets and routs, amazing plays and unusual happenings, such as when a college marching band prematurely took the field, interrupting the incredible final touchdown of a rivalry game.

"It''s All Part of the Game" dramatically recounts how, against the odds, "Sports Illustrated" grew from a misbegotten enterprise into a cultural institution. From halting editorial beginnings, "Sports Illustrated" has evolved into a journalistically tough and visually spectacular magazine that remains one of the truly influential voices in journalism. photo insert.

For those obsessed with Premier League soccer, following your favorite team is a true collective experience, where it is easy to feel as one with thousands of others. It is also an individual one, in which the emotions you feel are your emotions, the experiences you feel are your experiences, and nobody else can perfectly understand. Over the course of the 2019-20 season, two longtime Liverpool FC followers wrote to each other about those emotions and experiences. American writer Michael MacCambridge, living in Austin, Texas, is a devoted Liverpool follower. Five thousand miles away, his friend Neil Atkinson, Liverpool resident and a longtime season ticket holder, is the host of the popular podcast The Anfield Wrap. Each week throughout the historic season, Atkinson and MacCambridge exchanged letters, contemplating Liverpool''s progress, comparing and contrasting their different perspectives on the club and the sport, meditating on the manner in which their shared obsession for Liverpool works its way into nearly every corner of their personal lives, and discussing the differences between how the game is consumed in the United States and the United Kingdom and the role modern media plays in shaping our views of sport. Their collaboration was both timely and serendipitous, as Liverpool marched toward its first ever Premier League title and its first league title in thirty years, with a charismatic manager and the most entertaining team in the sport. In March, of course, the soccer story was overtaken by the larger story of the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc throughout the world, including sports events. In the course of their correspondence, Red Letters provides a real-time account of the pandemic that threatened the very existence of the season that Liverpool followers had been waiting more than a generation to experience. Red Letters provides a different way to examine the culture of a worldwide sport and development of a soccer season--game by game, in real time, with hopes and expectations tested and altered as the season progresses to Liverpool''s Premier League championship, with insight from two avid supporters.

"It was a summer of convulsive cultural currents, of a country awash in contradictions and conflict, of the massive collective effort of the moon landing and the massive social expression of Woodstock. Against that backdrop, on a sweltering July day on the campus of William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, the 1969 season of the Kansas City Chiefs began in earnest. For the Chiefs and their driven, prideful, innovative coach Hank Stram, it was a last chance to excel in the only universe they''d ever known. The ''69 season would mark the last year that the American Football League and the National Football League would operate as separate entities, and the final installment of the original AFL vs. NFL Super Bowl format. The six-month season would prove to be an epic journey for the Chiefs, their fans, and the city itself. Through the writing of author Michael MacCambridge, and the crisp, vivid photography of Rod Hanna, ''69 Chiefs: a team, a season, and the birth of modern Kansas City provides an intimate portrait of one of the most important (and overlooked) teams in pro football history, and one of the great champions of the Super Bowl era. With dozens of new interviews, MacCambridge traces the narrative arc of the Chiefs'' unforgettable season, with vivid support from the pictures of Hanna, many which have never seen before. The account follows the Chiefs from the devastating ending to the 1968 season, through Stram''s intense offseason efforts to prepare his team for the 1969 campaign, and the early-season injury to the team leader, quarterback Len Dawson, which threatened the Chiefs'' championship aspirations. The story concludes with the Chiefs'' memorable playoff games in New York and Oakland, the dramatic buildup in New Orleans to Super Bowl IV, and the Super Bowl itself, which forever changed the perception of the Chiefs, the AFL, and Kansas City. The book''s eloquent epilogue finds four of the great players on that team gathered together again, nearly fifty years later, reflecting on their signal achievement. A riveting piece of sports and cultural history, ''69 Chiefs is required reading for young and old Chiefs fans alike, an evocative photographic record of a great team, and a unique time capsule of an important chapter in the history of Kansas City"--Jacket.

For tens of millions of people across this country, autumn Saturdays mean one thing and one thing only: college football. And to the truly devoted--the good folks of Ann Arbor and Baton Rouge and Austin--the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia is, in the words of Sports illustrated reviewer Chuck Hirschberg, their Bible. Now the faithful can look forward to another heaping helping of college football nirvana: three new reference books--each more than 450 pages long--tracing the complete history of the Big Ten Conference, the Big 12 Conference, and the Southeastern Conference. Inside each you will find the same exhaustive research, the same smart analyses, the same attention to detail that made the original book a must-own. You will also find a wealth of new information. We''ve updated and expanded the team profiles to include new entries on Best Backfield and Best Defense. We''ve added two new pages of statistics for each program and lists of first-round draft choices, all-conference teams, and members of the pro football and college football Halls of Fame.And we''ve commissioned new essays on the storied history of each conference--the people, places, and moments that make each unique. From legendary coach Bear Bryant to the Florida Gators'' Fun ''n'' Gun offense to the unforgettable Rose Bowl showdown between Texas and USC, it''s all here, behind a handsome paperback cover and conveniently priced at $21.95. Yet one more reason to thank the lord for Saturdays.

For tens of millions of people across this country, autumn Saturdays mean one thing and one thing only: college football. And to the truly devoted--the good folks of Ann Arbor and Baton Rouge and Austin--the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia is, in the words of Sports illustrated reviewer Chuck Hirschberg, their Bible. Now the faithful can look forward to another heaping helping of college football nirvana: three new reference books--each more than 450 pages long--tracing the complete history of the Big Ten Conference, the Big 12 Conference, and the Southeastern Conference. Inside each you will find the same exhaustive research, the same smart analyses, the same attention to detail that made the original book a must-own. You will also find a wealth of new information. We''ve updated and expanded the team profiles to include new entries on Best Backfield and Best Defense. We''ve added two new pages of statistics for each program and lists of first-round draft choices, all-conference teams, and members of the pro football and college football Halls of Fame.And we''ve commissioned new essays on the storied history of each conference--the people, places, and moments that make each unique. From legendary coach Bear Bryant to the Florida Gators'' Fun ''n'' Gun offense to the unforgettable Rose Bowl showdown between Texas and USC, it''s all here, behind a handsome paperback cover and conveniently priced at $21.95. Yet one more reason to thank the lord for Saturdays.

For tens of millions of people across this country, autumn Saturdays mean one thing and one thing only: college football. And to the truly devoted--the good folks of Ann Arbor and Baton Rouge and Austin--the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia is, in the words of Sports illustrated reviewer Chuck Hirschberg, their Bible. Now the faithful can look forward to another heaping helping of college football nirvana: three new reference books--each more than 450 pages long--tracing the complete history of the Big Ten Conference, the Big 12 Conference, and the Southeastern Conference. Inside each you will find the same exhaustive research, the same smart analyses, the same attention to detail that made the original book a must-own. You will also find a wealth of new information. We''ve updated and expanded the team profiles to include new entries on Best Backfield and Best Defense. We''ve added two new pages of statistics for each program and lists of first-round draft choices, all-conference teams, and members of the pro football and college football Halls of Fame.And we''ve commissioned new essays on the storied history of each conference--the people, places, and moments that make each unique. From legendary coach Bear Bryant to the Florida Gators'' Fun ''n'' Gun offense to the unforgettable Rose Bowl showdown between Texas and USC, it''s all here, behind a handsome paperback cover and conveniently priced at $21.95. Yet one more reason to thank the lord for Saturdays.