When Kyle Shanahan became the NFL's youngest offensive coordinator in 2008, he had one prevailing rule: Tell me the why. If a colleague couldn't justify his position by providing the unassailable reasoning behind it, he was told to get the hell out of Shanahan's office. Shanahan and the members of his coaching tree--including Sean McVay, Mike McDaniel, Raheem Morris, and Matt LaFleur--came up in a sport where innovation was the exception, not the rule. There had been brilliant football minds before, from Paul Brown to Bill Walsh to Bill Belichick. But for the most part, coaches learned a particular system and stuck to it no matter what--no matter the players on their team, no matter what the opponent might do.

This group of young coaches would change all that. The Why Is Everything is the story of old dogmas falling before astonishingly creative new strategies and game plans. Drawing on unmatched access across the league, longtime NFL reporter Mike Silver takes us into the key moments in this still-unfolding revolution, from the education of Mike Shanahan, Kyle's father and a two-time Super Bowl champion, in the 1980s; to the Washington Redskins' football laboratory in the early 2010s, where the coaches first worked together, shocking the league with their cutting-edge scheme for rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III; to McVay's Super Bowl victory in 2022 and Kyle Shanahan's Super Bowl agony in 2019 and 2024.

Less than a decade after their emergence, these men are the stars of their profession and have helped propel the NFL to new heights of viewership and drama. With The Why Is Everything, Silver reveals how it all happened, and in the process gives us a timeless account of friendship, rivalry, and the never-ending pursuit of perfection.

The story of Natalie Coughlin's remarkable battle back from injury and burnout to be-come America's Golden Girl--a two-time Olympic Gold Medal winner in swimming and the most decorated female athlete at the 2004 Olympics
Five years ago, Natalie Coughlin's promising swimming career was all but extinguished when a devastating shoulder injury ended her dreams for the 2000 Olympics. After becoming, at age 15, the first person ever to qualify for all 14 women's events at the U.S. Nationals, she seemed destined to follow the path of so many other young swimming stars--devoured by an oppressive training schedule.
In Golden Girl, Sports Illustrated's Michael Silver--coauthor of many bestselling sports memoirs--including Dennis Rodman's, Kurt Warner's, and Jerry Rice's--tells the story of Natalie's remarkable journey back from the brink. With complete access to her family, friends, coaches, teammates, and adversaries, Silver details how she made the crucial choice to train with University of California coach Teri McKeever. Together the two, star and coach, have defied long-standing training methods, forcing the swimming community to rethink the ways in which it treats its talent. An inspirational story of a complex and courageous young athlete, Golden Girl is also a fascinating portrait of the fractious world of competitive swimming.

If you love surprise, even shocking endings to a mystery, Dying To Live, will take you to that place.Four young adults, traveling alone on four different cruise ships, in four different parts of the world, disappear mid-sea and ocean, in the middle of the night within weeks of each other. Local, national, even international investigative authorities can find no clues whatsoever to these vanished three women and one man, who did not know each other and had no background difficulties. Was it suicide, homicide or coincidence? The cruise ship owners and especially the families of these victims want to find out. With the help of a renowned criminologist, they attempt to gain the help of three retired detective brothers who in past years took on these kind of unsolvable cases and solved them. But they have lived extremely secluded lives for several years on an exclusive private island, and regardless of the pressure to take on previous cases they've refused to resurrect their work.But the pressure to solve this unusual case may be too great even for them and the Mason Brothers may not be able to refuse these fascinating circumstances that turn out to be the ultimate mystery.

Once again the Ookie Brothers Detective Agency has been called upon to solve an intriguing and complex crime. This time it's fact not fiction as an unsolved crime in the record books of Hilton Head, SC. It all begins when three twelve-year old boys, spending the summer with one boy's grandparents, determine they want to solve the mystery. Grandpa and Grandma turn to their friends Sherlock Pookie, Dr. Mookie and Geeky Dookie for help. These famous dog detectives take you from the famous lighthouse at Harbour Town to the Washington Monument to our Mexican neighbors to figure out the surprise ending to the mystery. This is Mr. Silver's second Ookie Brothers detective mystery; the first book is entitled The Case of the Vengeful Veterinarian. In a letter to Mr. Silver the editor said the following, This is definitely another fun and charming book about the Ookie's... once again, the tone and style of this book made for delightful reading. I don't know if it's their silly names, their uncanny ability to solve crimes or the way the writing makes them seem to leap off the page, but the Ookie Brothers are nothing short of great fun.

Mr. Silver, in his newest Ookie Brothers mystery, blends fantasy, time travel, intrigue, and outright horror in Journey to Evil: A Case of Sweet Revenge.

A sequel to his first mystery, The Vengeful Veterinarian, this new tale sees the return of Mr. Black, evil incarnate, who was thought by the Ookie brothers to be dead and long since burning in hell. But Pookie, Mookie, and Dookie are wrong, maybe dead wrong!

With the help of the most renowned detectives of their time, Sirs Prescott and Basil Youngblood, a chief inspector from Scotland Yard and a host of incredible characters from the present day USA and 19th century England, they seek to rid the world of Mr. Black, once and for all. Unfortunately, this powerful evil is out for sweet revenge and his diabolical scheme won't end until he destroys the Ookie brothers and everyone around them.

Mr. Silver's dog detectives always challenge the readers. Written for pre-teens, teenagers and young adults, his many followers have tried to solve the mysteries, but few do until the last chapter.

When Kyle Shanahan became the NFL's youngest offensive coordinator in 2008, he had one prevailing rule: Tell me the why. If a colleague couldn't justify his position by providing the unassailable reasoning behind it, he was told to get the hell out of Shanahan's office. Shanahan and the members of his coaching tree--including Sean McVay, Mike McDaniel, Raheem Morris, and Matt LaFleur--came up in a sport where innovation was the exception, not the rule. There had been brilliant football minds before, from Paul Brown to Bill Walsh to Bill Belichick. But for the most part, coaches learned a particular system and stuck to it no matter what--no matter the players on their team, no matter what the opponent might do.

This group of young coaches would change all that. The Why Is Everything is the story of old dogmas falling before astonishingly creative new strategies and game plans. Drawing on unmatched access across the league, longtime NFL reporter Mike Silver takes us into the key moments in this still-unfolding revolution, from the education of Mike Shanahan, Kyle's father and a two-time Super Bowl champion, in the 1980s; to the Washington Redskins' football laboratory in the early 2010s, where the coaches first worked together, shocking the league with their cutting-edge scheme for rookie quarterback Robert Griffin III; to McVay's Super Bowl victory in 2022 and Kyle Shanahan's Super Bowl agony in 2019 and 2024.

Less than a decade after their emergence, these men are the stars of their profession and have helped propel the NFL to new heights of viewership and drama. With The Why Is Everything, Silver reveals how it all happened, and in the process gives us a timeless account of friendship, rivalry, and the never-ending pursuit of perfection.