Playing Hurt: My Journey from Despair to Hope

An Amazon Best Book of August 2017: For three decades beginning in 1986, John Saunders was a mainstay at ESPN, a jack-of-all-trades providing of thoughtful play-by-play, analysis, and commentary across a wide range of sports including basketball, football, and hockey, as well as anchoring the network’s flagship program, SportsCenter. For many, Saunders would appear to be leading an ideal existence – a happy family combined with a career that also happened to align with his passions – but off-camera, he was harboring a secret: debilitating depression that threatened everything he held dear, including his life. In this autobiography (written with John U. Bacon), Saunders lays bare his struggles, and the story is as harrowing as it is inspirational, a journey through our darkest pathways where the only way out is through. Made all the more profound by his unexpected death in 2016, Playing Hurt is a testament to human will, generosity, and the triumph of optimism.

• The Great Halifax Explosion: A World War I Story of Treachery, Tragedy, and Extraordinary Heroism
• Michigan Man: Jim Harbaugh and the Rebirth of Wolverines Football
• The Best of Bacon: Select Cuts
• Every Day I Fight: Making a Difference, Kicking Cancer's Ass
• Unscripted: The Unpredictable Moments That Make Life Extraordinary
• What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen
• Superfans: Into the Heart of Obsessive Sports Fandom
• A Season on the Brink: A Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers
• Tiger Woods
• Pitino: My Story