In 1958, journalist Neil Leifer took the picture that remains one of his most famous to this day. The day he got the shot - Alan Ameche's game-winning "sudden death" touchdown - was Leifer's 16th birthday. This game, called "the greatest ever played," signaled football's emergence as America's new national pastime; formerly half-empty stadiums welcomed sold-out crowds seemingly overnight, while football surpassed baseball in national television ratings. Starting then, on any given Sunday Leifer was most likely shooting a football game somewhere in America...While best known for his iconic photograph of Muhammad Ali towering over a fallen Sonny Liston, it is his football pictures Leifer considers his best. This collection represents the best of his best, culled from over 10,000 rolls of film on the sport. With an introduction assembled from the best football columns of the era by famed sports columnist Jim Murray, and incisive captions detailing the legendary players, coaches, and games, this volume carries the guts and glory of the game into the end zone.

Author Biography

Jim Murray was a founding father of Sports Illustrated, and sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times for 37 years. Murray was inducted into Cooperstown's Baseball Hall of Fame writers' wing in 1988 and won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1990. He died in 1998. Sports authority Gabriel Schechter, is the author of five books, most recently This Bad Day in Yankees History. Native New Yorker Neil Leifer began photographing sports events as a teenager. Over 160 of his pictures have appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated and over 40 of his photographs have graced the cover of Time. He has published 17 books, and was one of two principal photographers in TASCHEN's tribute to Muhammad Ali, GOAT--Greatest Of All Time and the illustrated edition of Norman Mailer's The Fight.