Sports Stories:

Punts, TKO's, & Grand Slams 

Football | Baseball | Basketball | Track & Field | Boxing | Others

FOOTBALL

• Damage by A. M. Jenkins-- Seventeen-year-old football hero Austin, trying to understand the inexplicable depression that has drained his interest in life, thinks that he has found relief in a girl who seems very special.
• Invisible by Paul Hautman--Doug and Andy are unlikely best friends--one a loner obsessed by his model trains, the other a popular student involved in football and theater--who grew up together and share a bond that nothing can sever.
• Juice by Eric Walters--Moose must decide if he should risk taking steroids to become a big star on the football team.
• Jake, reinvented by Gordon Korman--Rick becomes friends with the popular new boy, Jake Garrett, football player and host of superlative parties, and in the process discovers the true nature of his schoolmates and uncovers the mystery of Jake's past.

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BASEBALL

• Boy Who Saved Baseball by John Ritter--The fate of a small California town rests on the outcome of one baseball game, and Tom Gallagher hopes to lead his team to victory with the secrets of the now disgraced player, Dante Del Gato.
• Shakespeare Bats Cleanup by Ron Koertge--When a fourteen-year-old baseball player catches mononucleosis, he discovers that keeping a journal and experimenting with poetry not only helps fill the time, it also helps him deal with life, love, and loss.
• High and Outside by Linnea A. Due--Star of her school softball team and with the highest point average in her class, Niki nonetheless has a severe drinking problem, and after nearly self-destructing decides to help herself.
• Heart of a Champion by Carl Deuker--Seth faces a strain on his friendship with Jimmy, who is both a baseball champion and something of an irresponsible fool, when Jimmy is kicked off the team.

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BASKETBALL

• Night Hoops by Carl Deuker--While trying to prove that he is good enough to on his high school's varsity basketball team, Nick must also deal with his parents' divorce and erractic behavior of a troubled classmate who lives across the street.
• How I fell in Love and Learned to Shoot Free Throws by Jon Ripslinger--Seventeen-year-old Danny Henderson, an indifferent basketball player, has his eye on Angel McPherson, star of the girls' team in their Iowa high school.
• Rimshots: Basketball Pixs, Rolls, and Rhythms by Charles Smith Jr. -- Stories and poems about playing basketball.
• Tears of a Tiger by Sharon Draper--The death of high school basketball star Rob Washington in an automobile accident affects the lives of his close friend Andy, who was driving the car and many others in the school.

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TRACK & FIELD

• Ironman by Chris Crutcher--While training for a triathlon, seventeen-year-old Bo attends an anger management group at school which leads him to examine his relationship with his father.
• Taming the Star Runner by S.E. Hinton--Sent to live with his uncle after a violent confrontation with his stepfather, sixteen-year-old Travis, an aspiring writer, finds life in a small Oklahoma town confining until he meets an eighteen-year-old horse trainer named Casey.
• The Runner by Cynthia Voigt--As a dedicated runner, a teenage boy has always managed to distance himself from other people until the experience of coaching one of his teammates on the track team gradually helps him see the value of giving and receiving.

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BOXING

• The Contender by Robert Lipsyte--Against great odds, a black high school drop-out trains to become a championship boxer.
• Fighting Ruben Wolfe by Markus Zuzak--Partly because of their family's poor finances and partly to prove themselves, brothers Ruben and Cameron take jobs as fighters and find themselves reacting very differently in the boxing ring.
• Redhanded by Michael Cadnum--Since he cannot depend on his father, Steven feels as though his only chance to make it to the big boxing tournament is to go along with the dangerous plan of a local tough guy to whom he has been introduced by a thrill-seeking friend.

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OTHERS

• Staying Fat For Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher- A social outcast in Junior High due to his excessive weight, narrator Eric Calhoune found a kindred spirit in Sarah Byrnes, who was hideously disfigured in a childhood accident. Now a Senior and considerably slimmed down through competitive swimming, Eric remains fiercely devoted to his friend, whose caustic tongue is her only protection from life's inequities.
• Iceman by Chris Lynch--Fourteen-year-old Eric, a ruthless hockey player prone to violence on the ice, tries to reconcile his own needs with those of his parents.
• St. Michael’s Scales by Neil O. Connelly--Keegan Flannery, feeling responsible for his twin brother's death and his mother's mental illness, believes he must atone by committing suicide before his sixteenth birthday, but he gains new insights when he joins his school's wrestling team.
• Born in Sin by Evelyn Coleman--Despite serious obstacles and setbacks, fourteen-year-old Keisha pursues her dream of becoming an Olympic swimmer and medical doctor.
• Pinned by Alfred C. Martino--Dealing with family problems, girls, and their own competitive natures, high school seniors Ivan Korske and Bobby Zane face each other in the final match of the New Jersey State Wrestling Championship.
• Fat Boy Swim by Catherine Forde--Teased and abused for being grossly overweight, Jimmy, a fourteen-year-old Scottish teenager who dreams mysterious dreams and secretly aspires to become a chef, decides to turn his self-loathing life around by learning how to swim.
• Tangerine by Edward Bloor-- Twelve-year-old Paul, who lives in the shadow of his football hero brother Erik, fights for the right to pay soccer despite his near blindness and slowly begins to remember the incident that damaged his eyesight.
• Sexy by Joyce Carol Oates--Sixteen-year-old Darren Flynn, a popular, good-looking high school athlete who lacks self-confidence, learns that his jock friends are hatching a revenge act against their English teacher for failing a member of the swim team.

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