Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) -- How many football figures do you find on the cover of Time magazine? Not many. There’s Dick Kazmaier of Princeton. Bobby Layne of the Detroit Lions. Tom Harmon of Michigan. Knute Rockne of Notre Dame. Here’s another: Red Grange of Illinois, in jacket and tie, his face a portrait of purpose on the front of the Oct 5, 1925, issue.

Good thing he was there, too, because without that cover most Americans would never have seen Grange, who played at a time before football players became television stars. He was a roaring success in the ‘20s, and Gary Andrew Poole speaks for almost all of us when he says, in “The Galloping Ghost” (Houghton Mifflin, $25): “Red Grange played way before my time, but his ghost always hovered above the American sporting landscape.”

Exceptional players are often described as defining an era, but Grange did more. He defined a game. “If you were to draw a line through the mud of American history and find one man who could be considered the founding father of our football culture, it would be Red Grange,” Poole says. He’s right; Grange’s mastery moved football from the periphery to the center of American life.

At Illinois and later, breaking a great taboo for a squeaky- clean collegian by signing with pro teams, Grange placed an indelible footprint on the gridiron. He built up statistics that impress even eight decades later, including a fabled 1924 showdown against Michigan in which the Ghost recorded 402 net yards in only 41 minutes of play. He was, as Poole puts it, “a quiet warrior,” but his game, and impact, were loud.

Gary Smith

What makes a piece of sports reporting a classic? Easy answer: You want to read it again.

If you’re devoted to sports and don’t think the word “volume” applies only to the loudness of the television on Sunday afternoons, you’ll find Gary Smith’s collection “Going Deep” (Sports Illustrated Books, $26.95) a great replay.

You’ve read many of these pieces before, in Sports Illustrated, especially the one about Jim Valvano, the basketball coach who lost his fight with cancer, and maybe the one about Mark Fidrych, the pitcher who was known as the Bird but who is remembered for how he crashed to earth. You want to read them again, and now you can.

Maybe the most haunting is the story of George O’Leary, whose career as head football coach at Notre Dame lasted but five days in 2001. He lied on his resume, and when this became a national cause celebre, his friends feared he was in so much despair that he might soon put himself in his own grave.

Listen to Smith,  maybe the best sportswriter alive: “As he drove, he prayed the rosary on a set of old brown beads worn smooth by his father’s hands on his deathbed.”

Be a Superstar

And now, finally, a how-to guide to being a professional athlete. It’s called “Men With Balls,” by Drew Magary (Little, Brown, $16.99), and it’s an owner’s manual to the superstar lifestyle and zeitgeist. Lest you think this doesn’t fill an important cultural void, consider this from the introduction to pro athletedom:

“For, while a career in professional sports provides you with fabulous wealth, adoring fans, and a fully stocked koi pond in your backyard, you must always be wary of its dangers. If you’re not careful, you could end up in prison. Or in a bad relationship. Or in Cleveland.”

So here is a guide to how to act like a spoiled brat or sports royalty. (Your athletic cup is either half full or half empty. That’s my line, and infantile as it is, it’s better than most in this book.) Magary explains why you might consider purchasing a sports-utility vehicle (“it can fit all your friends, all your equipment, and 60 percent of your children”). Or why you might buy a full-length mink coat (“the kind of thing Genghis Khan would have worn had he played linebacker”).

Stand-Up Book

Magary’s eyes are sharp even if his sensibility is juvenile. Consider this insight: “Your head coach is a tireless taskmaster who spends only five seconds savoring a victory before going back to sucking all the fun out of your sport.” Many a truth was said in jest.

Such as: This is a prime example of a special genre of book, the kind best read standing up in the bookstore, because all the fun will be sucked out if you actually pay for it.

(David M. Shribman is executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: David M. Shribman at dshribman@post-gazette.com.

Last Updated: November 28, 2008 00:01 EST