CHECK IT OUT:

Since the first kickoff of the season you’ve waited all season long for this. Today is the National Football League’s Championship Game, better known as the Super Bowl. What is left to tide you over until next season? Check out some of these game winners that will keep you full of football anticipation for helmet-to-helmet action during the off season.

Theron Hopkins, author of “The Eighty-Yard Run,” journeys across the country stopping in 20 towns in 20 weeks. From Kennewick, Washington to Valdosta, Georgia and many stops in between, Hopkins tells the stories of high school football teams and games throughout a single season. Each week he observes a new school and wraps the high school football season up in Texas for one of the biggest games of the year, the Texas 5A State Championship. He witnesses teenage boys playing their hearts out, coaches growing their players, and the dedicated fans who come week after week to cheer on their local high schools.

After high school, for some, the dream of reaching the NFL dies, but for others they go on to play college football. While individual players want to be in the super bowl of college bowls, the Bowl Championship Series, they also covet the greatest of individual college football awards, the Heisman Trophy. “The Heisman” by Bill Pennington explores the stories of some of the men who have had the honor of receiving the award. Pennington begins with the 1939 winner, Nile Kinnick, and ends with the fateful Ricky Williams who won the award in 1997.

“A Few Seconds of Panic” by Stefan Fatsis captures life in the NFL. Fatsis gives an insider’s look into playing with an NFL team when the journalist joins the Denver Broncos training camp as a placekicker. For three months he is a Bronco, certified with a locker in the players’ room and a team uniform. His report is less about the game and more about the personalities and machinations on and off the field of his teammates, coaches, and front office personnel.

Football isn’t only for the guys. There’s “The Girlfriend’s Guide to Football” by Teena Dickerson. This is for the ladies looking in from the outside and wanting to comprehend what’s happening on the field. It’s filled with entertaining explanations about the rules, lingo, top players, and history of the sport.

There are those of us who watch the games week after week and ultimately the Super Bowl is what it’s all about. Still, there are others who merely watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. Relive some of the most memorable commercials in “100 Best TV Commercials…and Why They Worked” by Bernice Kanner. This compilation takes a look at half a century of commercials that keep going and going while millions of other commercials are hardly mentioned over time.

The “NBC Sunday Night Football Cookbook” consists of recipes perfect for your Super Bowl entertaining. Faith Hill and John Madden contribute to the Introduction and there are 150 recipes from today’s NFL players featuring appetizers, main courses, and desserts. Also included are three Super Bowl menus for a variety of gatherings, so bring on your best gourmet game with these tasty recipes.

Lastly, for the football fanatics who didn’t do as well as they expected to with this year’s picks, check out a copy of “Fantasy Football for Dummies” by Martin Signore. For Dummies begins with the basics, reveals drafting secrets, and ends with in-season strategies to help give you a leg up in next year’s fantasy season.

CHECK IT OUT is written by the staff of the Newport Beach Public Library.