CHARLOTTE — A new book from Novello Festival Press focuses on one of Carolinas’ top passions — sports.

“Sports in the Carolinas: From Death Valley to Tobacco Road” collects accounts of last-minute wins, heartbreaking losses, inspirational coaches and untold stories from on and off the field.

The book came about after the success of Novello’s “Making Music in the Carolinas,” said Ed Southern, the new book’s editor.

“I knew going in that it couldn’t be an encyclopedia of sports in the Carolinas,” Southern said. “There are just so many great athletes, so many great coaches. I wanted stories that spoke to what sports means to people.”

Ann Campanella’s “A Special Athlete,” the story of her brother competing in the Special Olympics,” sums up what the book is all about to Southern.

“It really summed up the sort of thing I wanted to have in the book,” he said.

Many of the book’s pieces tell the behind the scenes stories of great games, such as upstart Davidson College going head to head against Michigan last year, or Coach Kay

Yow assembling the team that ended the Soviet Union’s domination of Olympic women’s basketball.

“I really liked Susan Shackleford’s piece on Kay Yow,” Southern said. “I knew who Kay Yow was, but I didn’t what she had down until I read the piece.”

The book is broken down into three sections: “The Games,” “The Players,” “The Coaches.”

The first section tells such stories as the only Rose Bowl ever played on the East Coast, the annual Easter Monday baseball game at North Carolina State University and, of course, the deep-seated and ongoing rivalry between Clemson and USC.

That section also explores the effect that Title IX legislation had on women’s sports.

“There was this perception that women are not — and cannot be— athletes,” Southern said. “There’s this untrue stereotype that women don’t love sports.

“The effect of Title IX was ensuring some degree of equality at the college level,” Southern said. “For several generations of women who loved sports, it let them pursue the dream.”

“The Players” profiles such Carolina sports figures as Junior Johnson, Michael Jordan, Ernie Shore, “Shoeless Joe” Jackson and “The Nature Boy” Rick Flair.

“The Coaches” section profiles rivals North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith and Duke University’s “Coach K” Mike Kryzewski, Summerville High School football coach

John McKissick and a Clemson University’s alumni’s ongoing fascination with former head coach Danny Ford.

There are currently no plans for a sequel to the book, but Southern said there’s a wealth of material to chose from.

“There’s more than enough material for a second book,” he said. “There’s a lot more to be said about Clemson football, the Clemson Carolina rivalry, George Rogers, the year he won the Heisman Trophy. We’ve barely scratched the surface there.”

For more information about the book, visit www.plcmc.org/Novello_Press.