Books by Mike Freeman

He was a giant among men, a symbol of a different era in sports . . .The NFL in the 1970s was a ruthless league, rife with concussions, broken bones, unmatched egos, and frequent racial strife. In the midst of this madness, commanding the Oakland Raiders (perhaps the baddest team of them all) was quarterback Ken Stabler?aka Snake?an unassuming and lethal threat as a player. On the field, he was cool and con-fident, but off of it he was a legendary woman chaser and babe magnet, carrying a larger-than-life persona at odds with the performance-drenched focus that characterized the rest of the NFL. Yet the Stabler that would eventually emerge was more than a playboy. No quarterback was tougher or more uniquely talented; his accuracy, particularly with deep throws, was as good as any quarterback's the league had ever seen; he'd won 100 games faster than any quarterback in history, as well as a Super Bowl, and most of all, he helped redefine the Raiders from losers to champions. In Snake, Bleacher Report columnist Mike Freeman details Stabler's childhood in racially segregated Alabama, his emergence as a rare high school talent, his raucous college days under the legendary Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama, and his famed career as a quarterback for the Raiders and, later, the Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints. Freeman expands his story by offering a rare, personal look at Stabler after his football days?including his warm affection as a husband, father, and grandfather?and even describes how Stabler's death, and subsequent Hall of Fame induction, paved the way for greater CTE awareness, as a 2016 autopsy revealed Stabler had been suffering from the disease. This work examines the complete Stabler portrait: the good, the bad, and the unbelievable. Poignant, blunt, and eye-opening, Snake is a towering biography about a man who forever left his mark on football, the quarterback who studied his playbook by the light of a jukebox.

The definitive biography of Bobby Bowden, one of the greatest college football coaches of all time, and his enduring legacyHe is a giant among coaches, a Hall of Famer, and arguably the greatest Division I college football coach in history. Following a tumultuous but successful tenure at West Virginia University, Bowden accepted the head coaching post at Florida State University, a failing program in danger of being terminated. What Bowden accomplished at FSU is nothing short of miraculous: twenty-one bowl wins and two national championships. A brilliant tactician, he helped usher the pro-passing game into college football. An unrivaled recruiter, he produced thirty-one consensus all-Americans over the course of his tenure. Along the way he had to deal with devastating family tragedies, scandals, and the rise and fall of his own three sons' coaching careers. Based on six years of research and interviews, Bowden by award-winning journalist and author Mike Freeman examines the remarkable life of Bobby Bowden and a stellar career that spanned six decades. It is the story of the making of a legend; a towering biography of a man who has left his indelible mark on the game of college football.

He intimidated people on and off the football field. He was brutal yet brilliant, narcissistic yet magnanimous, relentless yet unyielding. Most of all, he was the greatest football player of all time. He was Jim Brown.Jim Brown was an astonishing physical specimen with tremendous skills and intelligence. An athlete who played a number of sports at Syracuse University, he ultimately discovered that it was the violence of football that appealed to him most. The idea of physically dominating other men, surviving ferocious battles on the field against opponents who would just as soon call him a nigger as try to gouge out his eyes fueled an astonishing, record-making NFL career that led to the Hall of Fame. He battled his defenses, sometimes his teammates, and often the Cleveland Browns' legendary head coach Paul Brown.But Jim Brown had ambitions greater than football. He used his athletic brilliance to launch a movie career, becoming Hollywood's first black action hero, culminating in a scandalous love scene with America's sweetheart Raquel Welch. He leveraged his popularity into helping the NFL's black players and becoming a civil rights activist. Never shy about expressing his opinions, Brown would become the subject of FBI investigations and surveillance throughout parts of his life.Then there were the women. The patient wife who was essentially a single mother and who endured public humiliation. The girlfriends he ran through and the scandalous accusations of violence made by some of them.A complex and fascinating story, Jim Brown is a towering biography of a living legend.

Offers an understanding of the principles of geometrical and physical optics, useful for students engaged in the study of the visual sciences. This text explains these difficult concepts in order to apply them to the practical and clinical aspects of vision, suitable for the non-physicist.