Bøger af Randy Roberts

"A rousing celebration of a moment in history when college football was more than metaphor and entertainment, it was a gritty sidebar to real war." -- Robert Lipsyte, author of An Accidental SportswriterEach year the Army and Navy football teams meet for one epic game. Across the nation, fans tune in to see who will emerge victorious. But no game will ever match the one that was played on December 2, 1944. America was in the midst of World War II: soldiers and sailors were dying around the globe, and the home front suffered through shortages. But for one day, all that was forgotten. Navy's team was ranked number two, Army's number one and on the verge of becoming national champions. Everywhere, the war stopped as soldiers listened to the broadcast. Randy Roberts has interviewed the surviving players and coaches, bringing their stories to life. For three years, military upperclassmen graduated and joined the fight. For three hours, their alma mater gave them back one unforgettable performance. "The story of Army's celebrated 1944 national championship team is a fascinating one, and its victory over Navy that year is remembered as one of college football's greatest games. But Randy Roberts's A Team for America tells an even greater story. It is a story of our country. Of a time when college football -- and this remarkable Army team -- helped rekindle hope and confidence throughout the land." -- Brigadier General Peter M. Dawkins, U.S. Army (Ret.), 1958 Heisman Trophy winner, West Point "Roberts brings a historian's thoroughness to the subject . . . A fascinating time in American collegiate sports history." -- Kirkus Reviews

The authors of the bestselling JOHN WAYNE: AMERICAN offer a groundbreaking retelling of the most legendary battle in American history, and a rich exploration of a great American myth.

When Jack Johnson defeated white heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries in 1910, it was America's notions of racial superiority that staggered under his blows. Amid riots and lynchings, the search began for the Great White Hope who could put the "uppity" new champion in his place. Here is the startling true story of the most famous--and most hated--black American of his day. "Papa Jack" takes us into a violent and sordid world. It is an astonishing tale of black defiance--and white retribution--set against the dramatic canvas of sports and spectacle in Jim Crow America.

Recounts how the Pittsburg State University took root and grew from a vocational school to a multipurpose campus with over one hundred programs of study. This book chronicles the story of the emergence of this modern university from its chrysalis.

A ';humbling, inspiring... deeply emotional' biography of the boxing legend who held the heavyweight world championship for more than eleven years (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Known as the Brown Bomber, Joe Louis defended his heavyweight title an astonishing twenty-five times. Through the 1930s, he got more column inches of newspaper coverage than President Roosevelt. At a time when the boxing ring was the only venue where black and white could meet on equal terms, Louis embodied Black America's hope for dignity and equality. And in 1938, his politically charged defeat of German boxer Max Schmeling made Louis a national hero on the world stage. Through meticulous research and first-hand interviews, acclaimed biographer Randy Roberts presents a complete portrait of Louis and his outsized impact on sport and country. Digging beneath the simplistic narratives of heroism and victimization, Roberts reveals an athlete who carefully managed his public image, and whose relationships with both the black and white communitiesincluding his relationships with mobsterswere deeply complex. ';Roberts is a fine match with his subject. He supports with powerful evidence his contention that Louis's impact was enormous and profound.' The Boston Globe

Heavyweight Champion of the World from 1919 to 1926, Jack Dempsey began his boxing career as a skinny boy of sixteen, riding the rails and participating in hastily staged saloon bouts against miners and lumberjacks. This biography charts the life and career of a man widely regarded as one of the toughest ever to enter the ring.

John Wayne remains a constant in American popular culture. Middle America grew up with him in late 1920s and 1930s, went to war with him in 1940s, matured with him in 1950s, and kept the faith with him in the 1960s and 1970s... This is a biography that reveals the changing scene in Hollywood and America from Great Depression through Vietnam War.