From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up--Unbiased biographies of 600 sports figures. Each one- to three-page article includes a black-and-white photograph, subheadings that make for easy fact finding and reading, boxed statistics, "where is s/he now?" information, a chronology, and lists of awards and personal highlights. Entries examine athletic accomplishments and why the person is considered important. Not all of the individuals are record breakers but all have had an impact on sports. Controversies and/or failures are also examined, as in the case of Tonya Harding, who did not reach her sports goals but had an effect on competitors. Coaches, team executives, administrators, sportscasters, and writers are also considered. People from a number of countries are represented, but more than 70 percent of the biographies are of Americans. While baseball, basketball, and football personalities predominate the entries, lesser-known athletes representing racecar driving, bobsledding, rock climbing, cricket, bowling, snowboarding, and softball are included. However, track-and-field male athletes or marathoners from Africa are not mentioned, though they have dominated distance running in recent years. The occupational, geographic, and subject indexes are useful additions. This set is comparable to Arnold Markoe's The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives: Sports Figures (Scribner's, 2002), which offers biographies of more than 600 people. Notable Sports Figureshas more world coverage, a larger font, and more extensive indexing. It is excellent for libraries needing to add to or update their sports reference collections.--Michael McCullough, Byron-Bergen Middle School, Bergen, NY
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This work attempts to cover all international, seminal sports figures from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century in all disciplines. More than 600 biographies cover not only athletes but also coaches, team executives, media figures, writers, and sportscasters. The criteria for selection included "first" achievements, impact on sport and then society, records set or broken, and involvement in controversial or newsworthy activities on or off the field.
Each entry is arranged alphabetically and contains a 1,000- to 2,500-word essay, contact information for the subject, and further readings, including Web sites. Sidebars provide chronologies of events in the lives of the subjects, lists of major awards and accomplishments, statistics, extracts from material such as magazine articles, and brief biographies of individuals who played significant roles in the sports figures' lives. Other valuable features are the three indexes: a geographic index, an occupational index, and cumulative subject index that provides access under team name, religion, awards, position played, and even diseases, such as HIV/AIDS.
Notable Sports Figures does not necessarily fill a void in biographical coverage of athletes when one considers the recent publication of several other sources, such as Encyclopedia of North American Sports History (2d ed., Facts On File, 2002) or The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives: Sports Figures (2002). Admittedly these two volumes are restricted to American or North American sports coverage, but after scanning the geographic index in Notable Sports Figures, it is quite evident that the emphasis is on American athletes. However, having all of the notables in one reference set will save the reference librarian time in searching for authoritative sources. Notable Sports Figures is recommended for high-school, public, and academic libraries where budget dollars will allow purchase. RBB
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