Athletics Books

"Why We Win" provides coaches with interviews on winning with some of the biggest names in coaching. The book goes way beyond the X's and O's and focuses on the leadership skills used by coaches to get the most out of their athletes and teams.

Overall the book is great because Billy Packer taps into the minds of many of the most successful coaches. The only minor drawback is that the interview questions Packer used were too rigid and didn't allow the coaches to go more in depth in their answers.

This book is a must for any coach who wants to develop winners both on and off the court/field.

This is a great account of the career of Wilma Rudolph and how she overcame so many obstacles to become a world champion. Even more, it gives an interesting account of world-class sport for women when it was still amateur: few scholarships, little organization, infrequent competitions hardly noticed by the press. For example, the day after Wilma came home from winning a bronze medal in Melbourne (1956), she was starting for her high school basketball team as if nothing really big had happened. Imagine that today. Lots of pages, and a unusual look at women's sport fifty years ago.

I am going to college right now, trying to learn about what I am going to be doing for the rest of my life. I don't have time to learn a whole new subject, and that's what I like about this book. It tells me what I need to eat and I eat it. Simple.

James

This is a must for all coaches. This book describes the four basic different types of personalities with which a coach of any sport must deal, and how to handle each personality differently. The only problem with the book is that it is used in conjunction with a presentation, and some of the material that is used in the presentation is not in the book; but overall, the book is outstanding in helping a coach realize that there are different ways to deal with different personality types. Many good examples of excellent coaches and how they dealt with different personalities are used.

This book would probably be better titled "Qigong". It contains all 4 sets of Baduanjin, 3 sets of Yijinjing, the 5 animal frolics, Yang Taiji Short form (24 movements), Taiji Sword, Taiji Pushhands, and assorted other exercises.

It's a pity that this book is out of print.

My wife and myself have found this book very helpful. We are both teachers and we like the lesson plan approach to practice. We have read about 12 books on coaching soccer and this one was the best for the following reasons: Teaching a soccer concept and the drills to renforce the concept. Showing you how to teach the drills. Pictures, and the matter of way the book explains the how to perfoam a kick, save, etc. What I would the book to do different is talk about how to manage teaching the attack during a game.

I bought this book to help my oldest son with weight training when he was about 13 years old. I found it to be an excellent source of information on warmup, stretching and of course the resistance exercises for young people. I like the concise format. The focus of the book is for all young athletes to increase strength and condition themselves; it's not just a weightlifting book. Increasing strength and conditioning should help the youth be a better athlete, and hopefully help reduce injuries. Even so, it may be used as a weight training text for the one whose preferred sport is weight lifting. There are detailed descriptions and photographs of the stretches and exercises. Explanations are given for free weights and cable exercises where both apply. The photographs include both boys and girls performing exercises. Both sexes can benefit. Sample routines are provided, as well as explanations of how to plan a training program. Be sure to read the questions and answers section. It is very informative, also. The book cover indicates it is for parents and players, but it could even be useful for a coach.

Found this book to be very candid & HONEST assessment about one man's career in MLB. I read this book after reading 'Game of Shadows', then went on to read Jose Canseco's other book 'Vindicated' and found all these books compelling and informative. I admire anyone that can make a mistake (?), learn from it and then own up to it. Like him or not, Mr Canseco did a great public service by exposing the greed and deception behind the scenes by players and owners alike. Players are not heros, they're businemen as much as athletes and at one time, Steriods were good business. Level the playing field - Jose did it. Good read!

I thought he was just a sleeze, but really, he does a great job of displaying the things he knows (seemingly) without speculating. He could have gotten all over Bonds and A-Rod, but refrains. He only speaks on guys he knows by first hand - and it's still a lot of people. Very fast read. Glad I read it. Very different perspective from Game of Shadows and the Mitchell Report.

Jose Canseco's "Juiced" really introduced me to a bit of the steroid culture in baseball and the appeal that steroids definitely have. While reading "Juiced", I found myself yearning for the chance to try steroids and see what they would really offer to me (against all of my better judgment of course). He offers such a bright picture of them at times done in a disciplined way that who WOULDN'T want to give them a try when a career depends on them.

The book is entertaining and as Jose says: he is an entertainer. Don't expect anything cerebral here ... just a interesting view of some of the baseball culture that you may or may not know about.

I enjoyed the book for what it was and found it an entertaining, quick read that I enjoyed while floating around my swimming pool. This was perfect for that.

This was really fun to read. It's been passed along about 4 times...great beach reading

I read this book when it first came out and I am glad I did not review it then. Like many others I was skeptical about what Canseco was saying. I just couldn't believe that all the famous athletes that he named took steriods or HGH. The idea that he personal injected many of them seemed ludicrous. The media put it down as a bunch of lies to sell books. Canseco also had his ups and downs and did not have a great reputation in baseball. After the hearings things looked even worse. But what came out in the long run was that everything he said became highly plausible or confirmed by drug testing or further investigation. This book is now a landmark book in the history of major league baseball. The only thing I disagree with Canseco on in this book is the idea that taking steroids was good for the game of baseball even though it led to more home runs and excitement for the fans. At least in his new book based on the accumulated medical evidence he has changed his tune. No one can deny that this was one of the major books to blow the lid on the use of steriods in baseball.

I believe that Canseco wrote this book for the noteriety and the money and that his selective choice of names to name was deliberate to sensationalize the book and sell copies. He now freely admits to naming people to make the book marketable in his new book vindicated. Also I think the book was intended to provide a rationalization for his own use of steroid and for turning so many others onto it. But hte Mitchell report and other investigations has confirmed that those named were really users!

I really enjoyed "The Last Amateurs." I've been a sports fan since grade school and as I write this, I'm closer to 50 than I'd care to be, so it's been a while. The past several years, I've tended to seek books about sports at the more grass-roots level because the games are (usually) purer than where all the money can be found. This is such a book.

If you're a fan of quick and snappy books about major league sports, stay away from this one. It is not a fast read, and there's not a protagonist in it who played in the NBA (okay, maybe Adonal Foyle or David Robinson, but they're abstract figures). That's the point. The Patriot League is all about colleges who expect their athletes to attend class and graduate, and these are good SCHOOLS just below Ivy League status.

I've seen a number of reviewers downgrade "The Last Amateurs" because author John Feinstein spends so much time on so many people. Well, YEAH...it's a large cast of characters when you're writing a book about a league. As tired as I've become of NBA players with college backgrounds who somehow made it through up to five years of classes without being able to string a coherent sentence together with any sense of intellect, it's kind of nice to get to know D1 players who can actually tell you who the president and is and would likely be able to find Iraq on a map if you asked. When I think of college athletes, these guys are closer to what I'd like to see than the ones you usually see on ESPN.

If you're a skeptic like me who doesn't buy into the notion that the Final Four is the pinnacle of college basketball, you'll enjoy this one. If you're still held in the thrall of major college sports programs but could care less about schools outside the big conferences like the ACC or Big 10, you SHOULD read it because you've been missing something.

I moved to Indiana roughly 18 months ago, and thus, re-read this book that I had first read a few years back. It was better and more telling the second time, obviously. It's nice to see kids who play for love of the game. You can see that here in the Hoosier State at any Butler University or high school game. I enjoy those tilts/atmospheres far more that IU, Purdue or the NBA's Pacers.

Feinstein has particularly good insight herein, thanks to his fastidious documentation and "all access" passes to the seasons of these teams. I actually follow the Patriot League more now because of this book.
John Feinstein writes a new book each year, and some are better than others. This was perhaps his best.

Remember Feinstein's book when you watch Carolina and Duke and think that's what college hoops is about.

I bought this book since I went to Lehigh and thought it would be extra interesting because of my background and because I played soccer and ice hockey at college. What a let-down!
I found the game by game annayasis drawn out and boring. About the only thing I can recommend to you from the book is the "amaterism" ( if there is such a word) of college sports at Lehigh and the great majority of other colleges in the US that we do not read or hear about on a daily basis.

I see you can purchase a used copy on Amazon for $0.99 - so what the hell - for a buck it's worth it I guess.

I agree with other reviewers who said that Feinstein would've been better off following one team instead of all of them. This could also chop the length down to a more reasonable amount. There's just too much going on to remember everything. I didn't even finish the book because it just took too long to get to the end and it didn't seem like the end would ever come. Feinstein could've told this story in about 250 pages instead of almost twice that. Not terrible, but I wouldn't go out of my way to get it.

I generally enjoy Feinstein's writings and his commentary. 'The Last Amateurs' is Feinstein's best work. Following his standard procedure, Feinstein gets inside access to the teams of the Patriot League, an east coast league of mostly small private colleges. At the time the schools did not offer athletic scholarships. The players played because they wanted to keep playing competitive hoops and they were all required to be real students.

These games are played in small arenas far way from the glare of the big time spotlight. Nonetheless, these players and coaches passionately want to win. The big dream is to make the NCAA post-season tournament. The conference torunament championship that determines which team goes to the the Big Dance is one of the great sporting events on the modern scene.

With very few exceptions, none of these players have the slightest chance of making the NBA. For the coaches, things are a little different because coaching college hoops is their career and they are looking to move up.

Feinstein does a great job of taking the reader behind the scenes. In a way, these players and games are the ideal of amateur competition that has a deep emotional resonance for many fans - and therein lies a danger that too much exposure will ruin the very thing that makes the league attractive.

Highly recommended for college sports fans.

Mr. Browne does an excellent job of examining a sports phenomenon which has not received much actual scholarly treatment. His writing style is clear and level-headed, and the level of detail into which he goes is fascinating. He's written a useful and comprehensive book which is also consistently entertaining. I'd strongly recommend AMPED to anyone who would like to learn more about the subject matter in a pleasurable way.

This book wasnt all I thought it was cracked up to be, it was actually very dull sometimes. He doesnt seem to know what he is talking about to much and talks in very stereotypical terms sometimes. I wouldnt suggest this book.

Amped was an awesome book that really looked at the extreme sport industry. I loved it!

I thought that the book was solid. It points out a lot of aspects of the action sports world that haven't been covered before and I thought it was good. I'm backing it.

Im not a skater, bmxer, or rollerblader. I am a critic and was told to review this book honestly. Honestly it is very bland. It leaves you hoping the next chapter is the final chapter. I dis-like publications that leave me bored throughout each sentence. I would only compare this to my 5th grade social studies bible I so desprately wanted to burn in my fireplace.. Give it a chance and know that you will probably feel the same way..