We've all been hearing rumors about sacking America's beloved game of football—and it's time someone spoke out against the witch hunt. In The War on Football: Saving America's Game, Dan Flynn debunks the haters and tells us why America needs football.

During World War I, American army camps, navy stations and marine barracks formed football's first true all-star teams, competing against each other and top colleges while raising millions of dollars for the war effort. More than fifty college football hall-of-famers, dozens of future generals, and two Medal of Honor winners would play for, coach, or promote military teams during the war, including Dwight Eisenhower, Walter Camp, and George Halas. In War Football: World War I and the Birth of the NFL, Chris Serb recounts a fascinating chapter of military and sports history. He details three of the best but long-forgotten seasons of American football, when college amateurs mixed with blue-collar pros on the field of play. These games showed investors a lucrative market for teams of post-collegiate stars and made players realize that their football careers didn’t have to end after college. Soon the barriers to professionalism began to fall, and within two years of the Armistice the National Football League was born. War Football explores for the first time this lost chapter of sports history and makes a direct connection between World War I and the founding of the NFL. Seven future Hall-of-Famers led the charge of more than 200 military veterans who played in, coached for, and shaped the character of the young league. Football fans, sports historians, and military historians alike will find this book a fascinating read.

More than any other sport, professional football contributed fighting men to the battles of World War II, and the 22 or so players or former players that lost their lives are among the riveting stories told in this tribute to football's war heroes that spans many decades and military conflicts. The National Football League counts three Congressional Medal of Honor recipients among its honors, along with numerous Silver Stars, Distinguished Flying Crosses, and Purple Hearts. When Football Went to War offers a ground-breaking look at football—college and professional football alike—and many of the wartime heroes who came off the field of play to fight for their country. Detailed biographies of those who gave their lives are supplemented by many other stories of wartime heroism, from World War I through to Pat Tillman's tragic death in the Global War on Terrorism. Football has become the most popular sport in America and this heartfelt book honors the many sacrifices of NFL athletes over the years in service of their country.

On December 11, 1941, All-American football player Dave Schreiner wrote to his parents, "I'm not going to sit here snug as a bug, playing football, when others are giving their lives for their country. ... If everyone tried to stay out of it, what a fine country we'd have!" Schreiner didn't stay out of it. Neither did his Wisconsin Badger teammates, including friend and co-captain Mark "Had" Hoskins and standouts "Crazylegs" Hirsch and Pat Harder. After that legendary 1942 season, the Badgers scattered to serve, fight, and even die around the world. This fully revised edition of the popular hardcover includes follow-up research and updates about many of the '42 Badgers, plus a new foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author David Maraniss. Readers and reviewers agree: Terry Frei's heart-wrenching story of Schreiner and his band of brothers is much more than one team's tale. It's an All-American story.

Part diary and part reportage, The Soccer War is a remarkable chronicle of war in the late twentieth century. Between 1958 and 1980, working primarily for the Polish Press Agency, Kapuscinski covered twenty-seven revolutions and coups in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Here, with characteristic cogency and emotional immediacy, he recounts the stories behind his official press dispatches—searing firsthand accounts of the frightening, grotesque, and comically absurd aspects of life during war. The Soccer War is a singular work of journalism.

A behind-the-scenes account of the on- and off-field competition between the New York Giants, the Washington Redskins, the Philadelphia Eagles, and the Dallas Cowboys, citing such influences as personality conflicts and sports fans.

In late November 1941, two college football teams—Willamette University and San Jose State—set sail for Honolulu for a series of games with the University of Hawaii. Instead of a festive few weeks of football and fun, the players found themselves caught up in the first days of the United States’ war with Japan. For two weeks after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, the young men were recruited to dig and man trenches, string barbed wire, guard hotels, and join patrols as martial law took hold in Honolulu. They arrived home on Christmas Day after a dangerous journey back across the Pacific. Almost all of the players would go on to fight in the war. This is a different kind of war story, blending battle and gridiron—along with a strong dose of human interest, of college-aged young men unexpectedly caught up in the world war. This is a story of war and football, of Pearl Harbor and the first moments of the U.S. in World War II. It is a story of the very first days of World War II as experienced by a group of young men who witnessed it firsthand—and would soon be fighting it (indeed, who were already fighting it). This is a story of heroism, courage, self-sacrifice, and duty in the maelstrom of war.