John Schulian, a much-honored sportswriter for nearly forty years, takes us back to a time when our greatest athletes stood before us as human beings, not remote gods. In this compelling collection, Schulian paints prose portraits to remind fans of what today's cloistered stars won't share with them. Here, Willie Mays remembers how to smile in dreaded retirement; Muhammad Ali muses about a world that was once his. For every moment of triumph-Joe Montana in the Super Bowl, Marvelous Marvin Hagler over Thomas Hearns-there is another filled with the heartache that Pete Maravich felt when he hung up his basketball shoes. The result is a book guaranteed to stir memories for the generation that was-and to leave subsequent generations wishing they had it so good. John Schulian's work has been included in Best American Sports Writing and Sports Illustrated's Fifty Years of Great Writing. His many books include The John Lardner Reader and Twilight of the Long-Ball Gods: Dispatches from the Disappearing Heart of Baseball, both available in Bison Books editions. William Nack is the author of Secretariat: The Making of a Champion and Ruffian: A Racetrack Romance.