Overview
Virtually every athlete and every sport readers might reasonably expect to find can be found here. Although there is an emphasis on sports that are popular in North America, there is considerable coverage on sports and athletes from other parts of the world. Most North Americans have at least some familiarity with such sports as baseball, basketball, football, golf, ice hockey, and tennis. They are likely to have had less exposure to badminton, cycling, and soccer and even less exposure to sports such as cricket, fencing, and Tae Kwon Do. No matter what the sport, however, readers of Great Athletes will learn that outstanding athletes from all parts of the world and all cultures have in common histories of hard work, rigid discipline, goalsetting, and sacrifice-points that Olympic decathlon champion Rafer Johnson discusses in his Introduction to this set.
