2020 will be written down in sports history books as a year of lost hope and cravings for live events. It was the fourth time in the history of sports that the Summer Olympics were canceled (the games were also put on hold in 1916, 1940, and 1944). Finally, after sports were on hold for a year, we are back in the game! Faithful fans, if not back to the stadiums, are back to their screens, fervently watching their favorite sports.
This season is remarkably packed compared to the stillness of 2020, both with live events and controversies spurred around such initiatives as the European Super League or whether we should hold the Olympics this year at all. In the time between watching your favorite sportsmen and women pedaling, running, jumping, kicking, and serving, have you ever wondered about the history of sports you’re so inspired by? Sports books and movies based on true stories amount to a fulfilling opportunity to learn more about a particular sport so that you can later maximize your excitement from live sports events, training, and performing yourself!
Sports, athletics, and body exercises have always been enjoyed by people. Just think of the Ancient Olympic Games that date back to 776 BCE! But what about the history of other sports, like soccer or tennis? Were they invented at a particular point in time, or did they just develop from similar games that were enjoyed back in Antiquity or the Middle Ages? Tennis (actually, lawn tennis) has a founding father—Walter Clopton Wingfield—who patented this game in 1873. However, the game has a bunch of predecessors: various bat-and-ball games were enjoyed throughout the centuries, like real tennis and pelota. There is much more to discover in sports history, and everybody can find a book or a movie of their favorite kind, be it about soccer, baseball, or racing.
Books and movies on sports come in various genres — sports biographies, football sports books, scholarly works, as well as studies pondering over the future of sports. Moreover, there are also sports books aimed at professional athletes and medical students with an interest in sports medicine and nutrition! Of course, there is no single sports book or movie that could satisfy everybody’s interests, so we’ve compiled a list of our top picks in the history of sports. If nothing catches your eye, use it as an inspiration to look for more!
5 Best Sports Movies Based on True Stories
Sports history is especially spectacularly rendered in movies that can uncover all the technical details and capture the powerful characters of famous sportsmen and women. Here is a short selection of sports movies that are based on real stories!
10 Amusing Sports History Books
Here is a handful of sports books that are as thrilling as they are instructive. Reading these studies will help you understand not only how a specific kind of sport came into being but what it means—let’s say, to play baseball—in cultural, political, and social terms. There are also a few sports biographies on the list.
- The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown
- I Am Zlatan by Zlatan Ibrahimovic
- The Club: How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg
- The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever by Mark Frost
- A People’s History of Tennis by David Berry
- Women in Sports: 50 Fearless Athletes Who Played to Win by Rachel Ignotofsky
- Gods at Play: An Eyewitness Account of Great Moments in American Sports by Tom Callahan
- Slaying the Badger: LeMond, Hinault and the Greatest Ever Tour de France by Richard Moore
- The History of the Olympic Games: Faster, Higher, Stronger
- The Future of Post-Human Sports: Towards a New Theory of Training and Winning by Peter Baofu
Sports Medicine Textbooks
Are you looking in sports medicine textbooks or some studies on exercise and nutrition? Look no further. Here is a list of the best sports textbooks for future professional athletes and medical students. Check here for other medicine textbooks for fair prices!
- NSCA’s Essentials of Sport Science
- NSCA’s Guide to Sport and Exercise Nutrition
- AMSSM Sports Medicine CAQ Study Guide
- ACSM’s Sports Medicine: A Comprehensive Review
- Practical Applications in Sports Nutrition
- Netter’s Sports Medicine (Netter Clinical Science)
With these movies and books on sports history and sports medicine, you’re fully equipped to follow this fascinating season!
