Tato kniha vypovídá o skutečném životním osudu, o skutečném utrpení, lásce, naději, vůli a touze žít, vítězit nad nemocí, soupeři i nad nedůvěrou okolí. Je to otevřená výpověď muže, který poznal, jak tenká je hranice uctíváním slavných a ponížením smrtelně nemocných, jak pofidérní jsou hodnoty jako peníze či sportovní vavříny tváří v tvář smrti.
Pětinásobný vítěz Tour de France se vrací s inspirativním vyprávěním o svých osobních i profesních vítězstvích a prohrách a svěřuje se s vlastní niternou zkušeností: teprve když málem zemřel, naučil se skutečně žít. Kniha navazuje na poutavé vyprávění Návrat do života a popisuje úvahy muže, který překonal všechna negativní očekávání diagnózy rakovina a vrátil se vítězně do života i cyklistického sedla.
They had no business being there. They were up against million-dollar horses owned by patricians, oilmen, Arab sheiks, and Hollywood producers. They were ten regular guys, and all they wanted was to win a race. Instead, they won the hearts of America. In 2003, a three-year-old with the unlikely name of Funny Cide became "the people's horse," the unheralded New York-bred gelding who-in a time of war and economic jitters-inspired a nation by knocking off the champions and their millionaire owners and sweeping to the brink of the Triple Crown. Trained by a journeyman who'd spent over 30 years looking for "the one," ridden by a jockey fighting to come back after years of injuries and hard knocks, and owned by a band of high school buddies from Sackets Harbor, N.Y., Funny Cide became a hero and media sensation. Now, Sally Jenkins, award-winning co-author of Lance Armstrong's #1 bestseller It's Not About the Bike, tells the inside story of the Funny Cide team's ups and downs against overwhelming odds, illness, and even scandal, to capture the imagination of millions. It's a new American classic for the underdog in all of us.
Legendary University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith tells the full story of his fabled career, and shares the life lessons taught and learned over forty years of unparalleled success as a coach and mentor. For almost forty years, Dean Smith coached the University of North Carolina men's basketball program with unsurpassed success- on the court and in shaping young men's lives. In his long-awaited memoir, he reflects on the great games, teams, players, strategies, and rivalries that defined his career, and explains the philosophy that guided him. There's a lot more to life than basketball- though some may beg to differ- but there's a lot more to basketball than basketball, and this is a book about basketball filled with wisdom about life. Dean Smith insisted that the fundamentals of good basketball were the fundamentals of character- passion, discipline, focus, selflessness, and responsibility- and he strove to unite his teams in pursuit of those values. To read this book is to understand why Dean Smith changed the lives of the players he coached, from Michael Jordan, who calls him his second father and who never played a single NBA game without wearing a pair of UNC basketball shorts under his uniform, to the last man on the bench of his least talented team. We all wish we had a coach like Dean Smith in our lives, and now we will have that chance. From the Hardcover edition.