Ian O'Connor has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 3 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 25 ratings. The most-rated is Belichick.
Belichick
Summary
From a New York Times best-selling author, the definitive biography of the NFL’s most enigmatic, controversial, and yet successful coach, Bill Belichick. Bill Belichick is perhaps the most fascinating figure in the NFL - the infamously dour face of one of the winningest franchises in sports. As head coach of the New England Patriots, he’s led the team to five Super Bowl championship trophies. In this revelatory new and robust biography, listeners will come to understand and see Belichick’s full life in football, from watching Naval Academy games as a kid with his player-scout father, to masterminding two Super Bowl-winning game plans as defensive coordinator for the Giants, and to his dramatic leap to the Patriots, where he has made history. Veteran sports writer and award-winning author Ian O’Connor delves into the mind of the man who has earned a place among coaching legends like Lombardi, Halas, and Paul Brown, presenting sides of Belichick that have previously been unexplored. O’Connor discovers how this legendary coach shaped the people he met and worked with in ways perhaps even Belichick himself doesn’t know. Those who follow and love pro football know Bill Belichick only as the hooded genius of the Patriots, a team shrouded in victory and controversy. But there is so much more - from the hidden tensions and deep layers to his relationship with Tom Brady, to his sometimes frosty dealings with owner Robert Kraft, and to the surprising camaraderie he shares with the team. This is a man who has many facets and, ultimately, has created a notorious football dynasty. Based on exhaustive research and countless interviews, this audiobook circles around Belichick to tell his full story for the first time and presents an incisive portrait of a mastermind at work.
©2018 Ian O'Connor (P)2018 Recorded Books
The Captain
Summary
Every spring, Little Leaguers across the country mimic his stance and squabble over the right to wear his number, 2, the next number to be retired by the world’s most famous ball team. Derek Jeter is their hero. He walks in the footsteps of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle, and someday his shadow will loom just as large. Yet he has never been the best player in baseball. In fact, he hasn’t always been the best player on his team. But his intangible grace and Jordanesque ability to play big in the biggest of postseason moments make him the face of the modern Yankee dynasty, and of America’s game. In The Captain, best-selling author Ian O’Connor draws on extensive reporting and unique access to Jeter that has spanned some 15 years to reveal how a biracial kid from Michigan became New York’s most beloved sports figure and the enduring symbol of the steroid-free athlete. O’Connor takes us behind the scenes of a legendary baseball life and career, from Jeter’s early struggles in the minor leagues, when homesickness and errors in the field threatened a stillborn career, to his heady days as a Yankee superstar and prince of the city who squired some of the world’s most beautiful women, to his tense battles with former best friend A-Rod. We also witness Jeter struggling to come to terms with his declining skills and the declining favor of the only organization he ever wanted to play for, leading to a contentious contract negotiation with the Yankees that left people wondering if Jeter might end his career in a uniform without pinstripes. Derek Jeter’s march toward the Hall of Fame has been dignified and certain, but behind that leadership and hero’s grace there are hidden struggles and complexities that have never been explored, until now. As Jeter closes in on 3,000 hits, a number no Yankee has ever touched, The Captain offers an incisive, exhilarating, and revealing new look at one of the game’s greatest players in the gloaming of his career.
©2011 Ian O'Connor (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
The Jump
Summary
In The Jump, one of America's great sports writers follows high school phenom Sebastian Telfair on his quest for NBA stardom - and exposes all that big-time sports in America has become, the good and the bad. Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James - all became NBA superstars without playing a day of college ball. In 2004, Coney Island's 5-foot-11 Telfair became the first small player ever to jump straight from high school to the NBA when he signed contracts with the Portland Trail Blazers and Adidas worth $25 million. Author Ian O'Connor, who followed every moment of Telfair's senior year, draws on exclusive interviews with friends, family members, coaches, recruiters, agents, and players to tell the story of the young star's road out of the crime-ridden projects and into the NBA. And O'Connor brings readers up to date on Telfair's fate in the NBA in an all new chapter.
©2005 Ian O'Connor (P)2013 Audible, Inc.