Beau Riffenburgh
Beau Riffenburgh (born 1955) is an author and historian specializing in polar exploration. He is also an American football coach and author of books on football history. Early career. A native of California, Riffenburgh was the Senior Writer and Director of Research for National Football League Properties in the eighties and early nineties. While there, he wrote or edited seven books, including the NFL's official encyclopedia. He served briefly as Editor-in-Chief for Total Sports Publishing. Polar research. Riffenburgh earned his doctorate degree at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge. He has  written or edited numerous books on polar exploration, including "The Myth of the Explorer", a scholarly examination of the relationship of the popular press with exploration; "Shackleton's Forgotten Expedition", the story of Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition, which almost attained both the South Pole and the South Magnetic Pole; and "Racing with Death", the story of Douglas Mawson's Antarctic expeditions. He was the editor of the "Encyclopedia of the Antarctic", a two-volume work that is the most comprehensive reference work ever produced about the Antarctic. From 1992 to 2005, Riffenburgh served as the editor of "Polar Record