Based on the popular football commentary on the e-zine "Slate", this is a collection of haikus, Zen poetry, historical allusions, and other conceits Easterbrook uses to creates fresh commentary on the philosophy of the game. 50 illustrations.

Gridiron football is the king of sports – it's the biggest game in the strongest and richest country in the world. In The King of Sports, Easterbrook tells the full story of how football became so deeply ingrained in American culture. Both good and bad, he examines its impact on American society. The King of Sports explores these and many other topics: * The real harm done by concussions (it's not to NFL players). * The real way in which college football players are exploited (it's not by not being paid). * The way football helps American colleges (it's not bowl revenue) and American cities (it's not Super Bowl wins). * What happens to players who are used up and thrown away (it's not pretty). * The hidden scandal of the NFL (it's worse than you think). Using his year-long exclusive insider access to the Virginia Tech football program, where Frank Beamer has compiled the most victories of any active NFL or major-college head coach while also graduating players, Easterbrook shows how one big university "does football right." Then he reports on what's wrong with football at the youth, high school, college and professional levels. Easterbrook holds up examples of coaches and programs who put the athletes first and still win; he presents solutions to these issues and many more, showing a clear path forward for the sport as a whole.

Is there anything more universally American than NFL football? Love of the NFL runs deep and broad. It is a primetime TV event on multiple national networks, subsidized by public funds and popular from Mount Rainier to Miami Beach. The 2015 Super Bowl, a thriller between the Patriots and Seahawks, was the most-watched program in the history of television, with more than a third of the country watching. Yet football is in trouble. Public anxiety over football spiked in 2014 during the heat of the Ray Rice domestic violence scandal, the ongoing concussion crisis and the league's appropriations of tax money for its own ends. The mounting problems have led some to question the ethics of watching America's beloved game. In this sharply argued, witty, observant book, Gregg Easterbrook makes a spirited case in defense of the NFL. As he shows, the league brings together Americans of all stripes, providing a rare space to talk about what matters. Indeed, the various issues we see in the league are often microcosms of the ones we see elsewhere, whether it's suspicion of the rich, or gender politics or even concern over bullying. The NFL's social, economic and legal problems are real, but they also produce some of our best and most valuable discussions of those issues. Football is a magnificent incarnation of our national character. It has many flaws, and they need fixing -- but the game's not over.

More than two million people a week rush to SI.com to read Peter King's column, Monday Morning Quarterback. There they find a potent mix of analysis, opinion, humor and inside-the-NFL locker- room information delivered as no one else can. In this book, King, the award-winning Sports Illustrated pro football writer, brings the same blend of wit and wisdom, ranging from his famous "10 Things I Think I Think" to his Top 100 player rankings; from the football clichés he hates to the coaching hires he loves; from Brett Favre's golf game to Peyton Manning's comedic skills. And all freshly flavored with King's inimitable observations on the best hotels, the worst airports, the greatest traditions-and coffee, coffee, coffee. There is no journalist better connected to the NFL's players, coaches, general managers and owners, and no writer renders the inside information as entertainingly as Peter King.

What can a spell-checker tell you about economic trends? Why is the world’s supply of ideas about to double? What did America get right in the nineteenth century that it’s getting wrong in the twenty-first? If Karl Marx were alive today, would he be hosting a show on Fox News? These are just a few of the provocative questions asked by Sonic Boom, a (mainly) optimistic look at the near future. Sonic Boom tells why the world’s economy is likely to be just fine, with prosperity increasing; why globalization will soon drive us even crazier than it does today; why “a chaotic, raucous, unpredictable, stress-inducing, free, prosperous, well-informed, and smart future is coming.” The book is rich with specific examples and advice on how to navigate your own way through the craziness that’s ahead. Forbes calls Gregg Easterbrook “the best writer on complex topics in the United States,” and Sonic Boom will show you why.

How did the man who was on the verge of retiring just two seasons earlier stay optimistic and rally the Philadelphia Eagles to an astounding Super Bowl win? Here Foles discusses the obstacles that threatened to hold him back, his rediscovery of his love for the game, and the faith that grounded him through it all.

From New York Times bestselling author and Michigan football expert John Back, an analysis of the state of college football: Why we love the game, what is at risk, and the fight to save it. In search of the sport’s old ideals amid the roaring flood of hypocrisy and greed, bestselling author John U. Bacon embedded himself in four college football programs—Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and Northwestern—and captured the oldest, biggest, most storied league, the Big Ten, at its tipping point. He sat in as coaches dissected game film, he ate dinner at training tables, and he listened in locker rooms. He talked with tailgating fans and college presidents, and he spent months in the company of the gifted young athletes who play the game. Fourth and Long reveals intimate scenes behind closed doors, from a team’s angry face-off with their athletic director to a defensive lineman acing his master’s exams in theoretical math. It captures the private moment when coach Urban Meyer earned the devotion of Ohio State’s Buckeyes on their way to a perfect season. It shows Michigan’s athletic department endangering the very traditions that distinguish the college game from all others. And it re-creates the euphoria of the Northwestern Wildcats winning their first bowl game in decades. Most unforgettably, Fourth and Long finds what the national media missed in the ugly aftermath of Penn State’s tragic scandal: the unheralded story of players who joined forces with Coach Bill O’Brien to save the university’s treasured program—and with it, a piece of the game’s soul. This is the work of a writer in love with an old game—a game he sees at the precipice. Bacon’s deep knowledge of sports history and his sensitivity to the tribal subcultures of the college game power this elegy to a beloved and endangered American institution.