Sports

For years, former sports agent Josh Luchs provided money and other benefits to college athletes, in clear violation of NCAA and NFL Players Association rules. He comes clean in a new memoir, Illegal Procedure.

A new book follows an American basketball veteran as he coaches a struggling Chinese pro basketball team. Pulitzer Prize winner Jim Yardley has a courtside seat from which to observe China's frantic capitalist expansion and its ambivalent fascination with all things American.

HBO's newest series Luck is set in and around the world of horse racing. TV critic David Bianculli says the series, which stars Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte, is loaded with thoroughbred talent.

The new HBO drama Luck examines the inside world of horse racing through the lives of thoroughbred breeders, owners, jockeys and gamblers. Series creator David Milch spent much of his childhood at the track and has struggled in the past with gambling addiction.

Award-winning sports journalist John Feinstein explains how he's gotten some of the most talented and temperamental athletes and coaches in the world to talk to him. His book One on One details his conversations with people like Bobby Knight, Tiger Woods and John McEnroe.

Brad Ausmus has been called one of the best catchers in baseball. He spent 18 seasons in the big leagues, playing for teams like the Dodgers and the Padres. He details what it's like to couch behind home plate, deal with umps and make pitching calls.

Baseball's official historian, John Thorn, sets the record straight on the game's earliest days ...in the 1700s. Yes, that's right, baseball started decades before Abner Doubleday supposedly created the game at Cooperstown -- and it only became popular when professional gamblers took an interest.

Chris Nowinski has made a crusade of fighting head injuries in football. The Harvard-educated former pro wrestler had to leave the ring after suffering multiple concussions. He now educates others — including the NFL — on what head injuries can do to players' brains years later.

The new FX series Lights Out centers on a retired heavyweight boxer contemplating a comeback. TV critic David Bianculli says the intense boxing drama may end up being the best new dramatic series of 2011.

Mark Wahlberg and David O. Russell talk about creating a movie based on the real-life boxer Micky Ward, who won a welterweight championship in 2000 after several years away from the boxing ring.

The fading junior welterweight boxer Micky Ward was working in construction in the early '90s when he decided to give the ring one more try. That's the story of The Fighter, starring Mark Wahlberg. David Edelstein says the boxing film is a mess -- which he means as a term of endearment.

For the past three years, sportswriter Jim Gorant has been following the pit bulls rescued from Michael Vick's compounds. Grant, along with an animal behaviorist and dog trainer, explains how the Vick dogs have been evaluated and rehabilitated.

Doug Glanville is a former major league baseball player with an engineering degree from an Ivy League school who writes about baseball for The New York Times. Glanville's new book, The Game From Where I Stand, is an insider's look at the world of professional sports.

During his nine years as the coach of the Baltimore Ravens, Brian Billick led the team to a Super Bowl win in 2001. Now a commentator for Fox Sports and the NFL Network, he joins Fresh Air to discuss the upcoming Super Bowl — and the future of the NFL.

Widely considered on of the greatest tennis players of all time, Andre Agassi admits in a new autobiography that he hates tennis, "with a dark and secret passion." Always has. He's here to talk with host Terry Gross about what he calls the "contradictions" at the core of his life.

A 2007 scandal involving NFL star Michael Vick exposed the world of illegal dogfighting. Now out of prison, Vick has pledged to help end the practice; Dave Davies talks about the campaign with John Goodwin, Humane Society manager of animal fighting issues, and former dogfighter Sean Moore.

The King of Queens star and the writer of last year's acclaimed film The Wrestler have collaborated on a wrenching movie about an obsessive football fan whose life is upended after a brutal encounter with his favorite player.