Underrated Books for Sporting Excellence

"The difference between who we are now and whom we become in five years is the people we meet and the books we read." 

Learn across domains. You may have read 'classic' basketball books such as Dean Smith's "Basketball: Multiple Offense and Defense" and John Wooden's "Practical Modern Basketball." 

Recently, I mentioned a few outstanding non-basketball books: 

"Legacy" by James Kerr - building character organizations 

"The Score Takes Care of Itself" by Bill Walsh - attention to detail

"Game Changer" - Dr. Fergus Connolly - impacting winning 

What about other resources for athletes and coaches? Here are a few:

"In These Girls Hope Is a Muscle" UMASS Journalism professor Madeleine Blais shares the story of a divided girls high school basketball team, loaded with talent...and drama. It's beautifully written and named one of the top 100 sports books by Sports Illustrated. Blais inspires better writing. 

"The Boys in the Boat" Daniel Brown weaves a tapestry of history and sport amidst the Great Depression, the rise of Nazi Germany, and the emergence of the US Olympic crew team. Aside from its historical relevance, Brown's prose is pristine. "It is hard to make that boat go as fast as you want to. The enemy, of course, is resistance of the water, as you have to displace the amount of water equal to the weight of men and equipment, but that very water is what supports you and that very enemy is your friend. So is life: the very problems you must overcome also support you and make you stronger in overcoming them. —George Yeoman Pocock”

"Coaching the Mental Game" H.A. Dorfman shares leadership concepts and stories in bite-sized chunks. "By 'leaving it in the locker room' -or his office- the coach gives himself an opportunity to regenerate his vitality, enthusiasm, brain cells." Some might call it the perfect bathroom book.

"The Russell Rules" Bill Russell (with David Falkner) sees sport through a different lens. About Oscar Robertson he writes, "For a while, I thought he had 360-degree vision. He seemed to know where everyone on the court was at all times; he could thread a pass through the eye of a needle...but he didn't really have 360-degree vision at all; he had this peculiar ability great athletes had to focus." 

"Search Inside Yourself" People regard "soft skills" with varying degrees of skepticism and credence. Mindfulness is a skill, enhancing focus, raising grades and test scores, improving sleep, reducing anxiety, lowering blood pressure. Here is one of many excellent summaries. 

Here is my Google Drive Presentations mindfulness slideshow

"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness. — Viktor Frankl  We all have things that trigger us to react emotionally. I know I do — I can be a very action-oriented person and can sometimes act on impulse, so this was a particularly big learning for me."

Lagniappe. A different look at the roll and kick, vis-a-vis the short roll and kick off the trap. 

Either way you need the playmaker and the shooter.