In this compellingly argued and deeply personal book, respected sports historian Michael Oriard--who was himself a former second-team All-American at Notre Dame--explores a wide range of trends that have changed the face of big-time college football and transformed the role of the student-athlete. Oriard considers such issues as the politicizati...

No matter how close you are to them, there are certain things you just don't say. No matter how lonely you feel, there are certain people you just don't befriend. No matter how much you've fallen, there's always a guy you shouldn't give your heart to... Sadly for me, I learned the last one only after I had gotten my heart broken. They say you shouldn't look down upon anyone, or you will be put in their situation and made to experience the crisis. When I was fourteen, I had looked disdainfully at a girl who was sobbing hysterically over a guy who liked her best friend. For which, I was probably paying the price now. However, I was trying my best to fit my feet in the shoes I had been given. I was trying and I was managing just fine. What I didn't need was a troublemaker who entered my life without permission. He was the guy who claimed to be bowled over by me, the one with a broken heart. Little did he know, I had entrusted myself to Al Malik, The Owner of me and my heart. If he had to reach me, he had to do so by pleasing Allah, which wasn't possible for a guy like him. Or so I thought.

Stirring up trouble… Vintage kitchenware and cookbook collector Jaymie Leighton has been estranged from her high school best friend Kathy Cooper since they were teenagers, but she never knew what turned Kathy against her. After fireworks at a Fourth of July picnic, Jaymie discovers the body of her former friend in the park. On the ground nearby is Jaymie’s own Depression-era glass bowl, broken in two. With her fingerprints all over the bowl and a troubled history with the victim, Jaymie suddenly finds herself at the top of the list of suspects. Did the killer intend to frame her for the murder? If so, she is ready to mix it up, because solving crimes is vintage Jaymie Leighton…

In this compellingly argued and deeply personal book, respected sports historian Michael Oriard--who was himself a former second-team All-American at Notre Dame--explores a wide range of trends that have changed the face of big-time college football and transformed the role of the student-athlete. Oriard considers such issues as the politicization of football in the 1960s and the implications of the integration of college football. The heart of the book examines a handful of decisions by the NCAA in the early seventies--to make freshmen eligible to play, to lower admission standards, and, most critically, to replace four-year athletic scholarships with one-year renewable scholarships--that helped transform student-athletes into athlete-students and turned the college game into a virtual farm league for professional football. Oriard then traces the subsequent history of the sport as it has tried to grapple with the fundamental contradiction of college football as both extracurricular activity and multi-billion-dollar mass entertainment. The relentless necessity to pursue revenue, Oriard argues, undermines attempts to maintain academic standards, and it fosters a football culture in which athletes are both excessively entitled and exploited. As a former college football player, Oriard brings a unique perspective to his topic, and his sympathies are always with the players and for the game. This original and compelling study will interest everyone concerned about the future of college football.

Callum is surprised when he finds Pa has learned to use a computer, and they begin a correspondence by email. Callum is worried that he is hopeless at sport, but with Paa s encouragement, he discovers he is good at ten-pin bowling. He shows up the class bully, and makes a new friend.

Raffles: Book 2 'A capital story!' David Dickinson Raffles and Harry "Bunny" Manders are back, in this thrilling sequel to 'Raffles: The Gentleman Thief'. Raffles decides to undertake a job close to home, at the Albany. His new neighbour is Rupert Robert Fuller, a powerful - and odious - financier. In order to distract Fuller, whilst he breaks into the banker's opulent apartment, Raffles calls upon his friend - the cricketing legend C.B. Fry. Yet how much is Raffles being distracted himself Mary Flanagan, Fuller's beautiful and enigmatic maid? Has someone finally stolen the gentleman thief's heart?

Bowls is one of Britain's oldest sports, first recorded in the 13th century and played on thousands of greens spread across the nation, several of them hundreds of years old. In Bowled Over, bowls historian Hugh Hornby traces the history of the game and its central place in British culture - from Sir Francis Drake and Charles I to the pristine suburban clubs of 21st century Britain and the indoor greens of modern holiday camps. He explains how different codes of bowling have emerged since Elizabethan times in different parts of the country; for example crown green bowls in Lancashire and Yorkshire, with its undulating greens, professional competitions and gambling culture, and flat green or rink bowls in southern England and Scotland, with its measured formality and amateur ethos. Profusely illustrated with specially commissioned mapping, Bowled Over is the first study of this kind ever undertaken and in the spirit of the Played in Britain series overall brings to life a popular, yet little understood national pastime.