Central Kansas Library System

From the best-selling author of The Painted House, Skipping Christmas, and The Firm comes a nostalgic novel about high school football in a small Texas town, a place in which football has become a religion. High school all-American Neely Crenshaw was probably the best quarterback ever to play for the legendary Messina Spartans. Fifteen years have gone by since those glory days, and Neely has come home to Messina to bury Coach Eddie Rake, the man who...

Sixth-grader and self-proclaimed genius Nate Wright faces his all-time enemy, Gina, when they are paired to work on a research paper together and she also gets a position on his intramural team.

Intellectually and athletically gifted, TJ, a multiracial, adopted teenager, shuns organized sports and the gung-ho athletes at his high school until he agrees to form a swimming team and recruits some of the school's less popular students.

After an embarrassing loss to her ex-girlfriend in their first basketball game of the season, seventeen-year-old Scottie Zajac gets into a fender bender with her nemesis, Irene Abraham, head cheerleader for the Fighting Reindeer. When the accident sends Irene's car to the shop for repairs, the girls are forced to carpool, and their rocky start only gets worse. In trying to get back at her toxic ex, Scottie bribes Irene into a fake-dating scheme that...

Best friends Hannah and Caitlin are both on the high school dance team, but Hannah is troubled when her friend's preoccupation with a boy causes her to miss practice time and put their friendship at risk.

High school basketball coach John Harrison receives unfortunate news that will change his life. The largest manufacturing plant in town suddenly shuts down, forcing many families to leave in search of other job opportunities. John and his family are faced with an uncertain future, and his dreams of winning the state basketball championship are in jeopardy. He agrees to coach the cross-country team where he meets a runner who is on her journey of discovery....

After his team is reduced to nothing when the largest manufacturing plant in town suddenly shuts down, a high school basketball coach mentors a struggling student in cross country.

Terminally nerdy Dizzy Harrison is routinely laughed at, ridiculed and picked on. His senior year is nothing but an exercise in pain and torture. After purposely getting expelled from school, he enrolls in a rival school with a new look, a new story and a new attitude. But when his past re-surfaces and threatens to expose the real Dizzy, he must rise to the occasion to show the world exactly what he's all about.