Ahead of the Game
The Unlikely Rise of a Detroit Kid Who Forever Changed the Esports Industry
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Ahead of the Game
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Narrated by:
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Charles Ray
About this listen
Prepare to be inspired by the story of Delane Parnell, the unlikeliest of CEOs now leading a gaming empire at the center of the booming, multibillion-dollar esports industry. This audiobook edition includes an exclusive interview between the author and Delane!
Delane Parnell is not your typical tech entrepreneur. He was raised in a gang-riddled neighborhood on Detroit’s west side, bouncing between homes as his mother tried to make ends meet. Many of his closest friends and family members ended up in jail or dead.
This makes it even more incredible that Delane became the 25-year-old founder and CEO of PlayVS, a Los Angeles company that is forever changing the gaming landscape in America. In 2018, esports—team-based competitive video gaming—became an officially sanctioned high school sport, meaning student gamers can now earn varsity letters just like their basketball and volleyball player peers. Delane’s startup is making that happen, providing the infrastructure that hosts the competitions, compiles the statistics, organizes playoff tournaments, and streams state championships for tens of thousands of students across the country.
Ahead of the Game is a deeply reported narrative that tells the story of Delane, the motley group of underdogs and hustlers that helped build his several-hundred-million-dollar startup, and the previously overlooked students now participating in America’s growing esports phenomenon. It’s a tale of perseverance, courage, loyalty, race, family, tragedy, and believing you can overcome the odds—no matter how severely they’re stacked against you. You will also:
- Learn how the growing esports industry is changing the lives of students across the country who were previously not engaged in the high school experience.
- Get a glimpse into a successful entrepreneur path unlike any other by following the story of how Delane Parnell created PlayVS in spite of the greatest of challenges.
- Be inspired that there is hope and opportunity available to people who go against conventional paths to realize their dreams.
With a foreword by Sean "Diddy" Combs
Follow Delane’s journey with the photos included in the audiobook companion PDF download.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2022 Kevin J. Ryan (P)2022 Thomas NelsonListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Story4 out of 5 stars 222
Over the last three years, Forbes has published in depth profiles of this new batch of billionaires, including the founders of Spotify, Dropbox, Tumblr, and Twitter. Now, in a compilation introduced and updated by Forbes editor Randall Lane, fans and critics alike will get a comprehensive look at who these super-entrepreneurs are and what they say about their own success and their plans for the future.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Awesome book!
- By Jamal Love on 06-17-15
By: Randall Lane
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Working Together
- Why Great Partnerships Succeed
- By: Michael D. Eisner, Aaron R. Cohen
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson, Michael D. Eisner (introduction and epilogue)
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 97
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 74
Dig deep and you will find the most compelling argument for working together: Happiness. In business there are always unique individual achievers, but pull down the veil and you'll often find someone alongside them. Michael Eisner does just that in Working Together. Using his own collaboration with Frank Wells at Disney as a launching point for examining other famously successful partnerships, Eisner offers us an intimate and deeply personal look at some of the most rewarding business partnerships.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting to see what all partners had in common
- By Amazon Customer on 06-01-13
By: Michael D. Eisner, and others
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Endzone
- The Rise, Fall, and Return of Michigan Football
- By: John U. Bacon
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 16 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 203
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 187
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Story5 out of 5 stars 185
Endzone tells the story of how college football's most successful and respected program nearly lost it all in less than a decade and entirely of its own doing. It is a story of hubris, greed, and betrayal, a tale more suited to Wall Street than the world's top public university.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding!
- By Justin on 12-21-15
By: John U. Bacon
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Billion-Dollar Ball
- A Journey Through the Big-Money Culture of College Football
- By: Gilbert M. Gaul
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4 out of 5 stars 40
In the spring of 2013, a study showed that despite huge economic problems, 27 states were awarding their highest salaries to college football coaches. College football has doubled in size in the last decade thanks to generous tax breaks, lavish TV deals, and corporate sponsors eager to slap their logos on everything from scoreboards to footballs and uniforms. In one recent year, the 10 biggest programs took in $800 million from football, with profit margins far surpassing those of Fortune 500 companies.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Much Better Books Out There On This Subject
- By Andrew N Dobson on 01-19-16
By: Gilbert M. Gaul
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Ahead of the Curve
- Two Years at Harvard Business School
- By: Philip Delves Broughton
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 108
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
In 2004 Philip Delves Broughton abandoned a post as Paris bureau chief of the London Daily Telegraph to join 900 other would-be tycoons on the Harvard Business School's plush campus. With acute and often uproarious candor, he assesses the school's success at teaching the traits it extols as most important in business: leadership, decisiveness, ethical behavior, and work/life balance.
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5 out of 5 stars
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On one breath.
- By Atkins on 05-17-22
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The Intelligent Entrepreneur
- By: Bill Murphy Jr.
- Narrated by: Fred Berman, L. J. Ganser
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,100
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 764
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Story4 out of 5 stars 763
In 1998, three Harvard Business School graduates - two men and one woman - turned down six-figure salaries at big corporations, bet on themselves, and launched their own new companies. By their 10-year reunion, their audacity had paid huge dividends. They'd made many millions of dollars, created hundreds of jobs and left their mark on the world. The Intelligent Entrepreneur tells the compelling and instructive story of how these three young founders did it.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Terrible waste $ and a lot of time
- By David on 01-23-11
By: Bill Murphy Jr.
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The System
- The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football
- By: Jeff Benedict, Armen Keteyian
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 511
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 443
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 445
College football has never been more popular - or more chaotic. Millions fill 100,000-seat stadiums every Saturday; tens of millions more watch on television every weekend. The 2013 Discover BCS National Championship game between Notre Dame and Alabama had a viewership of 26.4 million people, second only to the Super Bowl. Billions of dollars from television deals now flow into the game; the average budget for a top-ten team is $80 million; top coaches make more than $3 million a year; the highest paid, more than $5 million.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Gripping Inside Look at an Industry to Itself
- By W Perry Hall on 01-23-14
By: Jeff Benedict, and others
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The Power of Being Yourself
- A Game Plan for Success by Putting Passion into Your Life and Work
- By: Joe Plumeri
- Narrated by: Joe Plumeri, Joseph A. Califano Jr.
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
Everyone imagines top CEOs as larger-than-life figures who do things no one else could. But deep down every good business leader is an everyman who combines vision and high energy with the ability to connect with all types of people and learn from them
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5 out of 5 stars
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Go Play in Traffic!
- By Teri Gasper on 01-03-18
By: Joe Plumeri
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Shortest Way Home
- One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future
- By: Pete Buttigieg
- Narrated by: Pete Buttigieg
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 5,118
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 4,597
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 4,574
Once described by The Washington Post as "the most interesting mayor you've never heard of", Pete Buttigieg, the 36-year-old Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has improbably emerged as one of the nation's most visionary politicians. First elected in 2011, Buttigieg left a successful business career to move back to his hometown, previously tagged by Newsweek as a "dying city", and transformed it into a shining model of urban reinvention.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Reveals a Person Wise & Experienced & Literate
- By dbbks3 on 03-17-19
By: Pete Buttigieg
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Ship It Holla Ballas!
- How a Bunch of 19-Year-Old College Dropouts Used the Internet to Become Poker's Loudest, Craziest, and Richest Crew
- By: Jonathan Grotenstein, Storms Reback
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 87
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 75
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
Who were the Ship It Holla Ballas? Arguably the most successful poker crew of all time, they took advantage of the online poker boom to win tens of millions of dollars before most of them were old enough to set foot inside a casino. Then they did what any red-blooded teenagers with mountains of cash and no responsibilities would do: They partied like rock stars, transforming themselves from Internet nerds with zero life skills into legends, at least in their own minds.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fun trip down memory lane
- By Anonymous User on 03-31-24
By: Jonathan Grotenstein, and others
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The Club
- How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports
- By: Joshua Robinson, Jonathan Clegg
- Narrated by: Shaun Grindell
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 527
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 464
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 460
No one knew it when their experiment began, but without any particular genius or acumen, the motley cast of billionaires and hucksters behind the modern Premier League struck gold. Pretty soon, everyone wanted to try their luck, from Russian oligarchs to Emirati sheikhs, American tycoons, and Asian Tiger titans. Some succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Some lost everything. Today, players are sold for tens of millions, clubs are valued in the billions, and games are beamed out to nearly 200 countries, all while the league struggles to preserve its English soul.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Read don't listen
- By JR3 on 01-23-19
By: Joshua Robinson, and others
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High-Hanging Fruit
- Build Something Great by Going Where No One Else WIll
- By: Mark Rampolla
- Narrated by: Mark Rampolla
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 77
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Story5 out of 5 stars 77
When Mark Rampolla filled a notebook with potential start-up ideas, his wife asked him some tough questions. What about this idea is exciting, beyond the possibility of a profit? How will it fit into a life that makes you and your family happy? How will it change the world? Eventually Mark found his great idea: coconut water. He had seen the developing world use coconut water, but this valuable resource was being discarded in the US. While taking on the beverage industry was a big goal - high-hanging fruit - it was worth the risk.
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1 out of 5 stars
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10 Chapter Infomercial
- By KIM WILLIAMSON on 02-16-20
By: Mark Rampolla
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Illegal Procedure
- A Sports Agent Comes Clean on the Dirty Business of College Football
- By: Josh Luchs, James Dale
- Narrated by: David Ledoux
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 62
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 58
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Story4 out of 5 stars 59
For 15 years, sports agent Josh Luchs made illegal deals with numerous college athletes, from top-tier, nationally recognized phenoms to late-round draft picks. Then, in October 2010, Luchs wrote a confessional article in Sports Illustrated, telling the truth about what he did and didn't do. Since then, he has taken on a new role: whistle-blowing, truth-telling reformer. In telling his own story, Luchs here pulls back the curtain on the real economy - and the broken system - of college football.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Very cool!
- By Phil on 01-24-13
By: Josh Luchs, and others
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Loudmouth
- Tales (and Fantasies) of Sports, Sex, and Salvation from Behind the Microphone
- By: Craig Carton
- Narrated by: Craig Carton
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
In this debut, Carton invites the listener to join him as he recounts tales from his suburban youth, defends his long-held love affair with the New York Jets, reminisces about the shenanigans of some of the highest paid and most celebrated athletes playing today, and reflects on his work as one of radio's craftiest, most hilarious personalities ever to get behind the microphone.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fun but too much about early life
- By Anthony A. Ciaccio on 07-13-13
By: Craig Carton
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Radical
- Fighting to Put Students First
- By: Michelle Rhee
- Narrated by: Shannon McManus
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 74
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 63
Part memoir, part manifesto, Radical is this fearless advocate's incisive, intensely personal call-to-arms. Rhee combines the story of her own extraordinary experience with dozens of compelling examples from schools she's worked in and studied-from students from unspeakable home lives who have thrived in the classroom to teachers whose radical methods have produced unprecedented leaps in achievement. Radical chronicles Rhee's awakening to the potential of every child, her rage at the special interests blocking badly-needed change, and her recognition that it will take a grassroots movement to create outstanding public schools.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good read after seeing Waiting for Superman
- By Marie on 04-10-13
By: Michelle Rhee
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Alibaba's World
- How a Remarkable Chinese Company Is Changing the Face of Global Business
- By: Porter Erisman
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 496
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 433
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 434
In September 2014, a Chinese company that most Americans had never heard of held the largest IPO in history - bigger than Google, Facebook, and Twitter combined. Alibaba, now the world's largest ecommerce company, mostly escaped Western notice for over 10 years, while building a customer base larger than Amazon's and handling the bulk of ecommerce transactions in China. How did it happen? And what was it like to be along for such a revolutionary ride?
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not bad
- By Daniel on 09-12-15
By: Porter Erisman
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Calling the Shots
- How to Win in Football and Life
- By: David Dein
- Narrated by: Arsène Wenger, David Dein
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 32
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story5 out of 5 stars 29
There's no doubt that Dein has been one of the most significant and influential figures in British football for over three decades—operating at club and international level. He was a prime mover in the creation of the Premier League, hugely influential within the England set-up and, of course, was the mastermind—along with Arsène Wenger—in creating the glory days of Arsenal Football Club, leading the team for almost a quarter of a century.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Modern Day Herbert Chapman
- By Will on 02-10-23
By: David Dein
What listeners say about Ahead of the Game
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- D. P. Pierre
- 04-21-22
Way Ahead of the Game
One of the most inspiring "rags to riches" stories ever. Unflinching and unapologetic, this is an amazing book for fans of Esports, but especially for Black youth whose entrepreneurial or tech dreams often have no role models to emulate.
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