A wide ranging overview of the history of modern sports including material on sports organizations, the commercialisation of sports and the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

This devotional is perfect for kids who love sports and who love fun trivia facts about sports, facts about sports heroes, and stories about sports figures who overcame odds and performed the extraordinary. The devotional covers a large variety of sports, including sports both girls and boys will enjoy reading about. From the Polar Bear Club’s New Year’s Day swim to football to yo-yo records, the stories will encourage kids to read this devotion daily. The spiritual insight that connects the trivia to Scripture comes in the “What’s the Score” section. “On the Ball” presents a quick question or phrase to remember, summarizing the point of the devotion. “Coach’s Comment” is the Bible verse.

In this long-awaited book from the rising superstar of sportswriting, whose blog “The Edge of Sports” is read each week by thousands of people across the country, Dave Zirin offers a riotously entertaining chronicle of larger-than-life sporting characters and dramatic contests and what amounts to an alternative history of the United States as seen through the games its people played. Through Zirin’s eyes, sports are never mere games, but a reflection of—and spur toward—the political conflicts that shape American society. Half a century before Jackie Robinson was born, the black ballplayer Moses Fleetwood Walker brandished a revolver to keep racist fans at bay, then took his regular place in the lineup. In the midst of the Depression, when almost no black athletes were allowed on the U.S. Olympic team, athletes held a Counter Olympics where a third of the participants were African American. A People’s History of Sports in the United States is replete with surprises for seasoned sports fans, while anyone interested in history will be amazed by the connections Zirin draws between politics and pop flies. As Jeff Chang, author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, puts it, “After you read him, you’ll never see sports the same way again.”

Arranged in a year-by-year format, this is an account of the history of sporting life from Edwardian times to the media stars of today. This millennium edition features an analysis of the progress of sport and a look at what the future holds, and a special section on the Olympics.