Chip Hilton and his fellow sophomore stars of State's football team are riding high after their opening victory. State's hopes are suddenly shattered when Chip and his sophomore pals are all suspended for breaking curfew. There's a very good reason why Chip breaks curfew. Chip and his friends decide making the neighborhood a decent place is more important even than playing in State's big game.

While continuing to lead State's football team to victory, Chip finds time to help an underprivileged boy working with him at the drugstore.

There was no time to process the irony of the moment, no time for bitterness, no time for resentment, no time for shame, guilt, grudges. No time for condemnation, no time for looking back – for either of us. Good thing, because it was creepy. Exactly one year ago, the Niagara X-Men were 2 points away from killing their losing streak and beating the Buffalo State JV team. Now, they faced the challenge of holding on to the same 2 points, at the exact same spot on the field as last year, as the clock wound down on the silent scoreboard. Gino Arcaro’s continuing David and Goliath series about his Canadian club football team playing in the United States mixes football realities with life lessons… all for the benefit of demonstrating that one should never underestimate the power of the underdog. This story has all the elements of a miracle comeback. Plenty of highs, lows, higher highs, lower lows, faith, hope, and love. Anyone can relate to the underdog, but you have to get open to see – open mind, open eyes, open heart. Let Arcaro entertain you with his unique brand of blunt humour as you sit on the edge of your seat cheering the underdog in his attempt to escape from 4th & Hell.

In 1939, the Oregon Webfoots, coached by the visionary Howard Hobson, stormed through the first NCAA basketball tournament, which was viewed as a risky coast-to-coast undertaking and perhaps only a one-year experiment. Seventy-five years later, following the tournament’s evolution into a national obsession, the first champions are still celebrated as “The Tall Firs.” They indeed had astounding height along the front line, but with a pair of racehorse guards who had grown up across the street from each other in a historic Oregon fishing town, they also played a revolutionarily fast-paced game. Author Terry Frei’s track record as a narrative historian in such books as the acclaimed Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming, plus a personal connection as an Oregon native whose father coached football at the University of Oregon for seventeen seasons, makes him uniquely qualified to tell this story of the first tournament and the first champions, in the context of their times. Plus, Frei long has been a fan of Clair Bee, the Long Island University coach who later in life wrote the Chip Hilton Sports Series books, mesmerizing young readers who didn’t know the backstory told here. In 1939, the Bee-coached LIU Blackbirds won the NCAA tournament’s rival, the national invitation tournament in New York—then in only its second year, and still under the conflict-of-interest sponsorship of the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association. Frei assesses both tournaments and, given the myths advanced for many years, his conclusions in many cases are surprising. Both events unfolded in a turbulent month when it was becoming increasingly apparent that Hitler's belligerence would draw Europe and perhaps the world into another war . . . soon. Amid heated debates over the extent to which America should become involved in Europe's affairs this time, the men playing in both tournaments wondered if they might be called on to serve and fight. Of course, as some of the Webfoots would demonstrate in especially notable fashion, the answer was yes. It was a March before the Madness.

This history of American sports fiction traces depictions of baseball, basketball and football in works for all age levels from early dime novels through the 1960s. Chapters cover dime novel heroes Frank and Dick Merriwell; the explosion of sports novels before World War II and its influence on the authors who later wrote for baby boom readers; how sports novels persisted during the Great Depression; the rise and decline of sports pulps; why sports comics failed; postwar heroes Chip Hilton and Bronc Burnett; the lack of sports fiction for females; Duane Decker's Blue Sox books; and the classic John R. Tunis novels. Appendices list sports pulp titles and comic books featuring sports fiction.

Includes Part 1, Number 1 & 2: Books and Pamphlets, Including Serials and Contributions to Periodicals (January - December)

4th Down and Forever is a fictional novel that follows the Columbus Capitals football team through their regular season in the current time. The Capitals are torn between playing their veteran QB Adam St. John and the new Phenom first-round pick Ricky Crane. The story centers on their competition for the job of starting quarterback but something happens that gives them a chance to be much than a leader on the field but also in life. Take the journey with them as they discover what it means to be a teammate in a much more important game which lasts forever.