Enter to win over $250 in sports books for the new year!

We’ve got the ultimate prize pack for the sports fans out there who loves to read about the history of the games they follow (and even some they don’t). 13 books… over $250 in value… are up for grabs today, beginning with these two choice titles below… Happy New Year to you!

Since 1890, the Army-Navy football game has been an iconic rivalry game that provides bragging rights for the men in trenches or on boat decks around the world. It is one of the rare sporting events that transcend the arena in which it’s played. It is the essence of sport, and in 1963, it was played two weeks after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

The events leading up to this iconic game — “to those immortal Saturdays of autumn 1963, when the Navy team left its mark on both the campus of the Naval Academy and the sport of college football itself” — are chronicled in the new book THE PRESIDENT’S TEAM: The 1963 Army-Navy Game & the Assassination of JFK, by Michael Connelly. The book is a masterpiece of both sports and historical non-fiction.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy—Navy hero, husband, father, and 35th President of the United States—was a Navy man through and through. Although he went to college at Harvard, he was extremely proud of his service and loyal to his friends still in the Navy. In turn, the Navy football squad—the 44 men from across the country who represented the U.S. Naval Academy on the gridiron—was his team. JFK kept a close eye on his beloved Midshipmen, and in 1963 — as Kennedy dealt with the Soviets, Cubans, social unrest in the South, and a coming presidential election — Navy was being hailed as a “Team of Destiny.” The president and the team would be eternally and inextricably linked together.

A GAME PLAN FOR LIFE: The Power of Mentoring, by John Wooden and Don Yaeger is Wooden’s tribute to those men and women whose lives, philosophies, and faith all shaped his own. Whether they be those who mentored him on a personal level—his father, his coaches and his wife, Nellie—or those who mentored him with greater ideals and achievements during difficult circumstances—Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa, Wooden culls life lessons from the words, teachings and actions of those who made an impact on him.

In his 27 years at UCLA, Wooden coached an elite roster of All-American and Hall-of-Fame basketball players and their accomplishments on the court are still the gold standard for team play in sports. From 1964-1975, Coach Wooden’s Bruins dominated NCAA basketball with 335 wins, ten national champions and four undefeated seasons. These teams included basketball greats like Jamaal Wilkes, Henry Bibby, Marques Johnson, Walt Hazzard, Larry Farmer and Gail Goodrich. The second half of of the book is for those who have had there their lives enhanced with John Wooden as their mentor. The two most prominent players of the Wooden era, Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton, lend their voices and memories to the book, as does one of his lesser-know UCLA players—bench-warmer Andy Hill.

Other people whom Wooden mentored add their thoughts in chapters, including the extraordinary coaches Roy Williams and Dale Brown, Wooden’s great-granddaughter Cori Nicholson, and Bob Vigars, a Canadian special education teacher, basketball coach and Wooden admirer whom the coach has never met in person. The change in point-of-view expands the work to an all-encompassing study on the methods to becoming a wise mentor and the results of having one.

Also included in this prize pack:
Hard Work: My Life On and Off the Court by UNC Coach Roy Willams
That First Season by John Eisenberg
The Beckham Experiment by Grant Wahl
On The Line by Serena Williams
The Great Book of Cleveland Sports Lists
The Great Book of Denver Sports Lists
The Great Book of Detroit Sports Lists
The Great Book of Philadelphia Sports Lists
The Great Book of Washington, DC Sports Lists
The Great Book of Los Angeles Sports Lists
The Great Book of Seattle Sports Lists

To enter just leave a comment telling us why you think you, the great sports fan that you are, deserve these books. We’ll pick the best, most creative answer to win this great prize.

The drawing will be held on Sunday, December 27. Good luck and happy holidays!

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