5 comments about The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game.

1. The Blind Side, by Michael Lewis, is primarily a biography of projected future NFL first-round draft pick Michael Oher and secondarily a history of the evolution of the left tackle position in the NFL.
   
   Lewis chronicles how Oher, who bounced around as a child and never learned to learn, was taken in by the wealthy Tuohy family, how they helped him to learn and to play football, and how he went on to start at Ole Miss. Lewis does an excellent job communicating the characters' personalities to the reader, particularly Oher's.
   
   Interspersed throughout the book are historical anecdotes about the evolution of the left tackle position. Lewis gives particular attention to Lawrence Taylor and the shift to fast, destructive pass rushers, and to Bill Walsh, who was one of the first coaches to emphasize protection of the quarterback's blind side.
   
   While Lewis tells a very interesting story, his writing style has its flaws. He jumps around quite a bit, which is almost as distracting (he just does it one too many times) as the sentence fragments he loves to sprinkle in. Lewis also uses the wrong word a few times. He mixes up "insure" and "ensure". He calls linemen "ectomorphs" (ectomorphs have slender builds). The copy editor for this book was asleep at the switch.
   
   On the whole, this is an interesting and entertaining book about a likable young man, and a good recap of a major strategic shift in the NFL.



2. If you liked Moneyball and are hoping this will be its spiritual successor, it's not. It's much more a story of one player, Michael Oher, and his travels through high school and college football (as of July 2008 he's still in college so no pro career to speak of).
   
   I used to work as a lawyer for a pro football team so I read these kinds of stories with some personal interest, but if you're looking for a pure sports book buy Moneyball. If you like Lewis' writing style and his ability to tell a story you won't be disappointed at all. It's a great story and does contain an interesting analysis of the development of college and pro football and especially the role of the left tackle in the new offence. But it's much more personal than Moneyball - much more in the style of Liar's Poker, which becomes explained in the afterword when you discover that he knows the family described in the book personally and so he had significantly more insight into their private lives than an ordinary author.



3. On the surface, this is a book about Michael Oher, a poor teenager in Memphis, whose size and speed turn him into one of the country's top football prospects. Michael Lewis, one of the greats at mapping the intersection between sports and economics, expands the story to include much more. He demonstates why the frenzy occured over someone like Michael Oher (the Left Tackle covers the Quarterback's blind side, a huge gap after Lawrence Taylor showed exactly how fragile the multimillion dollar QB investments can be) as well as how people try to jump on the bandwagon.
   
   The book is at it's finest when it shows the conflicting loyalties of people "helping" Michael Oher improve his life. What are the true intentions of the coach who also is looking for a ticket to a college coaching career? A mentor looking to assist his alma mater? Or even the unwritten - an author looking for a topical subject.
   
   The book is a very easy read, and hard to put down. And you won't ever look at those offensive lineman the same.



4. My husband made me read this book. I wasn't looking forward to it. After about 10 pages I was hooked. I knew nothing about football going into this book and absolutely loved it. I got it for my brother for his birthday and he was obsessed. He got it for our father...he's hooked.
   Great story of overcoming odds while teaching about the sport of football.
   
   Everyone will enjoy this one!



5. I saw the author interviewed by Barry Kibrick on the local community college television station. They disgussed the issue of the prohibition against organizations cultivating young potential college-ball recruits with gifts and aid and ["perhaps"] whether this was the motivation in adopting a child from the inner city, it was left unclear, of course BECAUSE IT WOULD BE A MONSTROUS THING TO ADOPT A CHILD SPECIFICALLY TO SERVE YOUR ALMA-MATERS FOOTBALL TEAM!!! This issue is deftly dealt with as an unconfronted secondary matter which really doesn't require that much attention--RIGHT!? This book delibrately avoids a hard look at a real manifestation of SLAVE CULTURE! The act itself renders secondary the childs life to a brief time on a college football team. It is saying that it is less important that a child has a history that is his own, that of his parents and grand parents, and not the history of the rich people who lived across town and were so proud of their third rate college team they just had to have a player--some kind of pet-mascot hybrid whose training program and life perspective and system of values can be molded in any way to suit that end enforcable by law--like a slave. Why? Because in their heart of hearts they believe in slavery. Like Milton Freidman says in "Capitalism and Freedom," [Robinson Crusoe, without his man Friday is not free, because he must fend for his own survival.] It becomes clearer as your read what Freidman means by this... it isn't the freedom of the wage earner that is of value protecting, nor those tied to a salary, or even the freedoms of those with a modicum of wealth, but those who've really created freedom like say in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, or even better, billions of dollars worth of wealth. What Freidman shares with most other economists in this regard is this... he chooses to empathize with those most likely to offer him a career and not those who comprise the bulk of humanity. Like this book, "The Blind Side," which acknowldges social strife in the inner city just so far as it hinders a couple of ghoulish gnomes and the recruiting hinderances of their favorite college team! Screw this book, screw Michael Lewis and Barry Kibrick!

No comments about 2008 NFL Record & Fact Book (Official National Football League Record and Fact Book).

5 comments about Playing For Pizza: A Novel.

1. As one who has been a big John Grisham fan, I found myself to be disappointed with this book.
   
   It is a fictionalized account of a third string pro quarterback who finds himself playing in the Italian version of the NFL. It is interesting in spots, but bland overall. It is not remotely on a par with a typical Grisham novel.
   
   Although he has written a couple of other books that were not great (A Painted House, Bleachers), Grisham's books are normally fast paced and keep the reader's attention. Not so with this one. Even as a fan of both the author and pro football, I would not recommend 'Playing For Pizza'. For the hardcore fan who thinks he/she must read everything Grisham, it would be best to get this one in a used bookstore, or better yet, at a library.



2. Not typical Grisham -- but you may already know that. This is a great beach/airplane read as it is simple and fun. Rather predicatble, but that's ok. Basic story about a man at the end of his career rope and he manages to hang on for little while longer and find a rich cultural nook in a place he had not expected (or wanted) to be. I enjoyed the Italian characters, including the city of Parma. Grisham's writing syle is simplistic and straightforward, which fits the main character's personality. Don't expect any major plot twists or surprises!



3. We obtained this on CD and listened through 4 discs with increasing bewilderment before we tossed in the towel.
   
   There doesn't seem to be anything going on.
   
   For Grisham this is astonishing.



4. And no offense to Ms. Cartland. This book starts off well. The first 10 pages are a delight. From there, it's all downhill. The story reads almost like a travelogue, starting with the importance of wearing the proper clothes in Italy, meeting a girl who wants to travel a lot - and giving details on all of the what-and-where sites they visit, detailed descriptions of many Italian dinners, implied casual sex throughout yet never any involvement, attending an opera and actually explaining the plot of the opera scene-by-scene, far too much play-by-lay dialogue and activity, an easily predictable outcome for their football season and very thin personalities. If you don't really want to read a book, yet feel a compulsion to say you read one this summer, then this might be the ideal reading companion. Never enough substance to make you think, letting you idly flip the pages.
   
   Okay, I didn't like the book. However, I do like John Grisham's writings and have enjoyed his legal books and especially "The Painted House", which was impressive. This book just read as though he wrote the whole thing while flying back from Italy to kill time. His other writings are so superior and have real characters and real emotion - but not here. Despite my comments, I'm always looking forward to his next work.



5. Mr. Grisham has surprised me with this delightful, light little novel about an American NFL player who somehow loses a game so badly that he becomes almost a joke, a really hated player. He gets the opportunity to play football in Italy where, of course, he redeems himself. But all of that is just the basic outline of a story that is really about a bunch of wonderful characters who play for the love of it. Mr. Grisham makes the reader genuinely admire these players, and I must say, I felt very fond of Parma when I finished. I read this book in just a few hours. It is short (262 pages). But if you want to have a genuinely pleasant afternoon, then you should consider reading this book.

5 comments about The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL.

1. 
   Mark Bowden has written a brillant book on the Giants VS Colts,1958 Championship game. Bowden brings the game and the inpact it had on the sport into perfect harmony. His insight into the meaning of the game beyond the score brings greater understanding of today's billion dollar NFL brand. Whether your a football fan or a fan of American culture Bowden's work is a remarkable merging of the the two. Enjoy the read.



2. Mark Bowden has crafted a terrific narrative of the THE GAME, the one that changed everything. He places the weight and the credit where it belongs and explains how each major event unfolded. Mainly he provides background and insight into a group of extraordinary men and how everything came together at just exactly the right moment and in exactly the right place. He contrasts the glamorous, endorsement contract lives of many of the Giant players with the hardscrabble, sooty backwater of neighborhood Baltimore where the Colts lived and worked.
   
   He explains the pivotal plays in the game and how early unsuccessful plays actually set up later successes. He describes the crowd, a significant part of which rooted for the Colts. Finally, he covers the personalities behind the legends throughout the book, delving into the background of each critical player and coach, right down to Frank Gifford's whining which continues to this day. This is a must read for anyone interested in how the NFL came to be.



3. The Best Game Ever brought back to life many of the characters I grew up watching on TV when I was a young boy, Johnny Unitas, Raymond Berry, Frank Gifford, Vince Lombardi, Tom Landry, the list goes on. The book is as compelling as I'm sure the game must have been and after reading it you come away with a better appreciation of the roots of America's new favorite pass-time. Highly recommended!



4. Fine writing, excellent content, interesting insight by Bowden make the book a great read for all fans of football interested in the most exciting game of football ever played, but an especially great read for fans of the old Baltimore Colts.



5. Bowden always delivers. This is a quick read of the '58 NFL Championship Game. It's like watching a documentary of the game on ESPN Classic. A little game action then switch to a little background on some of the colorful personalities of the GIANTS or COLTS. All in all it delivers and entertains. I'm too young to have seen the game but I could picture my dad(a big Colts fan) cheering on Johnny Unitas! The names of the players, owners and coaches are legendary, all in all 17 of them from this game would make the NFL Hall of Fame. I really enjoyed some of the locker room stories between the players no doubt the stories have grown in stature over the years as has this game and the NFL. Highly recommended.

5 comments about Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, & Priorities of a Winning Life.

1. Loved the book, many lessons to be learned, a little too much football at times but if you can look by that it is a quick and enjoyable read



2. The autobiography, "Quiet Strength," of Tony Dungy is appropriately subtitled "The Principles, Practices, and Priorities of a Winning Life." Dungy recounts his life from its beginnings to the present as the Coach of the world champion Indianapolis Colts. A man of proactive faith, Dungy has been able to climb many mountains, from being one of the first black quarterbacks in NCAA college football to one of the first black head coaches in the National Football League.
   
   "Quiet Strength" details key formative relationships, those that helped him to become what he is today. They include his mother, The Most Athletic Dungy, who supported in him in a number of sports; his father who taught him what was most important - not the accolades and memories of success, but the way you respond when opportunities are denied; his high school assistant principal, Mr. Rockquemore, who took a great interest in him and Dungy claims things would have been different if he had not; and his first pro coach, Chuck Noll, who taught him how to win in the NFL and how to maintain family-career balance.
   
   Dungy always viewed his work in football as a means to do something more as a servant of God. When he was fired as the head coach of Tampa Bay, the firing itself was not the cause of shock, but rather, the thought that God was allowing this great experiment of using him as a head coach in the NFL to end. He wondered, what's next? How will God use him, whether in the NFL or not.
   
   I am grateful that Dungy went on from Tampa to win the Super Bowl as coach of Indianapolis. More than becoming the first African-American to win a Super Bowl, this extraordinary achievement provided an excellent platform from which to tell this great story.
   
   Dungy's story is inspirational, challenging, and encouraging - reminding us about what really is important in a world driven by the love of material success. He shows that one can live their Christian faith in the workplace and succeed - even in the demanding fish bowl atmosphere of the NFL. He is a living testimony of one man's faith in God.
   
   "Do you your best and let God do the rest."



3. This book is fantastic - I couldn't put it down! I have been a big fan of Tony since he was the coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, because of his presence on the football field. This book is an honest and inspiring account of Tony's life and the trials and successes he has encountered. Thank you Tony for a great read.



4. As a Steeler fan who is old enough to remember Dungy as a part of the Steel Curtain defense (but not as large as I remembered!), as a Christian husband and father, and as a Patriots hater who cheers for any team against New England, I had three reasons to look forward to this book, and it was even better than I expected.
   
   Dungy's writing, with assistance by a co-author, reads as mild and humble as his (lets face it) nerdy appearance. Despite, or because of, this to-the-core character, Dungy has succeeded at the cutthroat business of professional football at the highest level. Remember, neither of the teams he has coached had any history of winning before his tenure, and he essentially won a Super Bowl with each team (Chucky Gruden won with Tony's players after Dungy was fired, and you can see what kind of success Chucky has had since!).
   
   One of the amazing aspects of Dungy's book is how wide spread his deep-rooted Christianity was amongst the "nasty" 70s Steelers--Dungy, Dirt Winston, Mel Blount, and Donnie Shell not alone made for one of the hardest-hitting defensive backfields in NFL history, but apparently one of its most mature and consistent Bible studies as well. It is encouraging to read about NFL players and coaches who focus on family and faith, not contracts and crime sprees.
   
   Dungy never sounds boastful or arrogant about his faith, usually demonstrating his life lessons from his own mistakes. My tears spotted the pages of the chapter when Dungy talked about his son's suicide and the rest of the way it was hard for me, and for Dungy as well, to focus on football. As he says in a later chapter, never confuse your goals (winning a Super Bowl) with your purpose (glorifying God).
   
   I needed reminding. Thanks, Tony!



5. What an inspiration Coach Tony Dungy is and this book was one I could not put down.

3 comments about You Can Do It!.

1. Tony Dungy is a successful author, family man, public speaker, and a fine example of how to be a Christian gentlemen. Oh, he also manages to coach an NFL team in my city, the Indianapolis Colts.
   
   Tony takes us back to his childhood in Michigan and tells the story of his little brother, Linden, who is a cut-up in class but can't seem to find his way. He can't figure out what is his "it". Tony is an athlete. His sisters take care of animals. What is his thing, his "it"?
   
   To Dungy's credit, the story is simple, but not preachy and not so simple that it bores the adult reader. I read right to the end and was genuinely interested in seeing how it came out. The illustrations are perfect and really help tell the story.
   
   My daughter, an 8 year-old and an excellent reader liked the story as well. She liked the way Dungy addressed the issue of Linden not knowing what he wanted to be when he grew up. What kid has not wondered what he or she will do when he or she grows up? (Right now she wants to be a combination waitress/veterinarian/race car driver with Danica Patrick) She also liked the fact that it mentioned prayer and God.
   
   If this is the quality of work we can expect from Tony Dungy, I hope he comes out with many more books.



2. Dungy's book is promoted to be for children ages 4-7, but I don't think you can put an age limit on its topic which is reminding readers (adults too) to trust in God and dream big. The book conveys an episode in a family with 4 children--2 brothers & 2 sisters. It seems all of the children know their dreams and talents except for Linden who is unsure about his talents or his dream for his life.
   
   A toothache and the support and encouragement of his family lead him to his desire. The family encourages Linden to trust God, and they pray for him that God will show him his "it" for his life. Even in a such a brief episode, there is a caring family dynamic conveyed in the book that is refreshing and serves as an excellent model.
   
   The story emphasizes that God has made each of us special and takes an interest in our lives. It is from him that we learn our "dream" for our lives. The story is for children and I think for parents who play a role, along with God, in shaping and guiding children.
   
   I also think boys and girls will enjoy reading a book for children by a Super Bowl coach. The illustrations are excellent and very colorful. The book's size is just right.



3. Faith. Family. Love.
   
   In a time when values oftentimes have more to do with pop culture than the family, Tony Dungy provides a wonderful story for young people, though adults can learn from it, too.
   
   The wonderfully-illustrated book - done by Amy June Bates - tells the story of Dungy's younger brother, Linden, as he figures out his life dream and is encouraged by his family to pursue his goal to become a dentist.
   
   Faith and the support of a loving family help Linden as he turns his frustration in being the only one in his class or at home who does not know what he wants to be when he grows to positively pursuing and ultimately achieving his dream.
   
   It is an inspirational story of leadership on the field of life and the outcome that will occur when positive energy and faith are allowed to carry a person over the goal-line.

2 comments about A Few Seconds of Panic: A 5-Foot-8, 170-Pound, 43-Year-Old Sportswriter Plays in the NFL.

1. In this book the author signs up to go through training camp with the Denver Bronco's. He's relatively old and relatively small so he's going to try out to be a kicker. Like his last book about Scrabble competition - Word Freak, this guy doesn't just cover the action, he jumps on in.
   
   I'm a big fan of Stefan Fatsis as a writer. He's got a great eye for detail and an excellent, but subtle, sense of humor. I enjoyed Word Freak tremendously and when I hear him commenting on NPR, I always appreciate his analysis. Also, I'm a sports fan and I live in Denver and I follow (but am not a season ticket type fan) of the Broncos. This was a fun book for me for those reasons.
   
   Stefan shows what it's like for the guys you don't generally read about. The second tier kickers, the 3rd and 4th string QBs. It's a high stress gig with no job security and the threat of serious injury. You get a lot of short bios of the different sports characters he deals with. (Interesting fact, Mike Shanahan lost a kidney in a college game injury.) These bios/sketches make for great reading. You get to see the team in it's ups and downs.
   
   The only quibble I had was that it started a little slow, with the author trying to find a place that would have him and some of the details in what it takes a middle age guy to become competent at kicking. Minor issue though. The book was massively enjoyable and I'm looking forward whatever Fatsis does next.



2. If you like sports or competing, you'll love this book. It's an Every Man story of a regular guy trying to find out how it feels to be a professional athlete. And for those of us who'll never get a chance to find out, it's a ton of fun.
   Fatsis takes us inside the practices, the plays, the coaches offices, the locker room and the training room for a first-hand look at the conflicted and pain-filled lives of professional football players. Between the gnarled fingers and torn ligaments, we see how these athletes balance a violent and insecure job and real life and why the pay that looks so good on the outside isn't so great on the inside.
   As he did with Word Freak, Fatsis makes a reader feel part of it all, especially as he works to become something that he's clearly not. As he kicks and kicks (and often misses and misses), we feel his determination and ambition, underscoring the challenges that all athletes (and even those of us in cubicles) face every day.
   A great read to get ready for training camp, to go along with the season, or make the off-season go faster!

5 comments about Hero of the Underground: A Memoir.

1. Okay, so my husband who is a huge football fan bought this book. I really had no interest you know football and all. One day I was getting ready to go to the beach and had no new reads so I throw Hero of the Underground in my bag. I started reading the first chapter and was instantly sucked in. The story is so much more than football. It is an honest in your face account of someone's journey with addiction. The stories are riveting and ultimately it is a tale of bravery and triumph over addiction. Needless to say, I finished the book at the beach that very day. I hope it will help someone who is struggling with demons. Great read.



2. Wow, this a riveting story from start to finish. I only bought this book because I was knocked out by Tony O'Neill's first novel (Digging The Vein) I know nothing about American Football and hadn't heard of Jason Peter before but that didn't matter, this is such a dark deep story that I was hooked immediately. Really amazing.
   
   I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves a good roller coaster ride to the dark side. Great holiday read (but you'll probably end up just wanting to read it all in one day!)



3. I picked up this book with some hesitation given that the subject matter is somewhat disturbing, but having enjoyed "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey (hoax notwithstanding) and being a huge fan of college football, I thought the combination of over-the-top drug use and big time American football would be interesting. After three pages I was hooked. The writing is fantastic, the story flows well and there is wonderful insight into the college football recruiting process, campus life as an All-American player, and the lonely existence as an NFL rookie arriving at camp. I highly recommend "Hero of the Underground".



4. I'd read Tony O'Neill's novel, Digging the Vein, and so found out about this book he wrote with Jason Peter, a defensive linesman for first, Nebraska, and then the Carolina Panthers, and a former drug addict.
   
   I read it, breathelessly, in one day. My family was annoyed. It was RIVETTING. Peter's story is - ah- something else and no doubt O'Neill helped craft the raw material into a really well constructed book. Unputdownable. Really.
   
   I have such compassion for Peter. I mean, yeah, I wish I'd met him when he was still wild and I was young and wild and- but hey, he's doing OK now!!! And that's great. Because, man, he should be dead. And he knows it. But- he's not! And he has a really great way of dealing with his struggles. That is to say, he's not "AA". And I'm not against AA, but I am against the idea that it is the ONLY way to get it together.
   
   Anyway, I love all the partying and hookers and private plane stuff. So did he. But, it's great he's got it together.
   
   Oh, and I love summer. But now that I read this book, I sort of can't wait for football season to start. I totally recommend this book. Fantastic story, heartfelt, so well executed.



5. I have to admit I'm not a big sports guy. I caught an interview with Jason Peter on Sirius, and was really sucked into his story when the interviewer read the opening paragraph of the book. Then hearing Jason talk about his football glory days, and his post NFL nightmare had me chomping at the bit to read this book.
   
   I was not disappointed. Peter and O'Neill have crafted a book that grabs you by the throat on the first page, and doesn't let up until you close the cover.
   
   I know - pro sports guy blows it on drugs, and then writes a book about it. So far, so Darryl Strawberry, right? But this one is different. For a start there is not an iota of self-pity in these pages. Peter comes on like the authentic version of the guy James Frey tried to pass himself off as: a primal, raging tough guy waging war on the world and himself. There are moments of poetry here, and some genuinely beautiful writing that really comes as a surprise. I picked up the book expecting a fun read, a behind the scenes look at the big money world of the NFL and the plentiful women and drugs that come along with it. I got all of that, but also I got a book which sits neatly on my bookshelf next to oddball classics like "A Fans Notes" by Fred Exely, "Permanent Midnight" by Jerry Stahl (no coincidence then that Stahl compares the author to Hunter S Thompson on the back flap) or even the brawling, boozy tough-guy poetry of Bukowski.
   
   While Peter refrains from implicating others when talking about the culture of drugs and money in professional football, he is unsparing in exposing his own dark heart here. What starts off as a book about addiction becomes a book about the flipside of the American Dream itself: what DO you do when the adoration, the money, the women, the screaming crowds are no longer there for you? We follow Jason as he tries to fill this void with sex, painkillers, cocaine, crack, and eventually heroin. Even the faux-spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous cannot satisfy the hole left by his aborted football career (in fact, some of the funniest passages of this book are set in rehab, and Peter offers a cynical view of "redemption" that is probably the polar opposite view of what we are normally offered in the standard "recovery memoir")
   
   All in all, this is a great book, one for the football fans and certainly one for those who have never seen a game in their lives. Ultimately it's a story about one man rediscovering his humanity. Underneath the "jock monster" promised on the cover, there beats the heart of a real writer...

2 comments about Pro Football Prospectus 2008: The Essential Guide to the 2008 Pro Football Season (Pro Football Prospectus).

1. One Moment Changes Everything: The All-America Tragedy of Don Rogers
   Of all the books that rely on statistical information to be applied in a useful way (fantasy football), Pro Football Prospectus is, to me, the very best. It doesn't seem as easy to use as the baseball version, but at over 500 pages, it's incredibly heavy on the stats, which are listed in numerous ways, then compared and analyzed dispassionately (you won't believe the ways they use statistics to uncover who is undervalued, and who is overvalued). It covers every team, and every player. Strengths, weaknesses, injuries. It all helps make FF drafts easier than some of the similar books now available (though, admittedly, I haven't seen them all). The fact that PFP 08' is the first one available this summer doesn't hurt. Once you get used to it, it's easy to reference, meticulously organized and, of course, heavy on the nuts and bolts, (but paper-thin on the glitz). If you just want to win arguments, or want information about a particular player's personal life, it's too heavy for you. If you want information on just your favorite team, there are better places to get it (media guides, for one). It really is only for ultra-serious, intense fans of the game, and, of course, FF players. For roughly $15.00 online, how can you go wrong? I haven't seen anything else on the market that comes close.
   --Sean D. Harvey



2. Football Outsiders/Pro Football Prospectus is the best thing going as far as public football analysis.
   
   This edition needed a more thorough editing job. It abounds with typos, transposed numbers and missing negative signs.
   
   Additionally, the authors make a fair ammount of errors. Correlation and causation are confused, conclusions are drawn from questionable sample sizes, context and interrelatedness of statistics aren't considered strongly enough. In the text-heavy portions, it seems that the FO team tries to "force" analysis and discussion instead of approaching their subject with the detachment of scientists.
   
   That said, at times the analysis is superlative and there is great data in here from the charting of NFL games from the last few seasons.

2 comments about The Winners Manual: For the Game of Life.

1. This excellent game plan for the gridiron of life was 23 years in the making.
   
   Over that time period, coach Jim Tressel has utilized such a manual for his Youngstown State and Ohio State teams. And this book is the guide presented to players at the start of each season.
   
   The main source that inspired Tressel came from the home; his father, Lee, was a long-time head football coach and athletics director at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio. Lee was nationally-renowned in the coaching community for his work with young people. But Lee also had a "head coach" in reaching out to others.
   
   "She (Lee's wife, Eloise) typed the practice schedules for my dad's teams, because at a small school the athletic department didn't have money for a secretary. She sewed the players' names on the back of their jerseys at Baldwin-Wallace College for many years," writes Tressel, in a section on living with an attitude of gratitude.
   
   "And her service was always motivated by a perspective of gratitude," he continues. "She was grateful that her husband had a chance to coach and to have an impact on all those young men. Because of her service and her involvement in the community, she was selected as an outstanding citizen in the city of Berea long before my dad was."
   
   Each day will bring additional challenges, which may lead someone to tackle new avenues and goals. "(I)f a player says, 'I really want to excel at football, but I feel that medicine is my life's calling,' we help that player map out a plan to make it to medical school. It might be medical school, law school, or some other career path, but we want to help every player achieve his goals," writes Tressel.
   
   "Executing a plan to reach our full potential takes a lot of preparation. We must first uncover all the hidden things that can help or hinder our putting that plan into action. Excellent preparation takes tremendous commitment, focus, and discipline," he adds. "The willingness to do what it takes to execute that plan will yield excellence, but it doesn't just happen. Achieving excellence requires a great deal of hard work."
   
   With proceeds from the book to benefit the renovation of The Ohio State University main library, Tressel is making sure that a foundation in books will be available to every OSU student and researcher using the college's vast library system.
   
   Tressel is a successful coach who has led teams to five national titles. But the book is an inspirational guide to strive to be the best in any situation, on and off the field.



2. One Moment Changes Everything: The All-America Tragedy of Don Rogers
   I'm West Coast born and raised. Too often we fans, and sportswriters, get caught up in regionalism and bias. We may call it "loyalty", but that's a nice word for what often comes across as petty whining because our coach, team or region isn't constantly praised by the media. It's nothing terminal, that is, until we take those perceived slights personally. In the writing of my book about former Cleveland Browns' star safety, Don Rogers, I had the opportunity to gain an insight into what I will admit was a foreign people: football fans of Ohio. So it was with a slightly more enlightened perspective than, say, I would have had some years ago, that I read "The Winners Manual" by Ohio State head coach, Jim Tressel. Never mind that the proceeds from the book go to the school's already amazing library. That's just the icing on the cake. The book is a how-to manual for organization, and road map into the mind of Tressel, a man who excels in one of the toughest jobs--including being in the highest levels of politics--that a person could ever have.
   
   I believe we bend ourselves toward our goals, and it isn't any one thing that gets us there. If your looking for insight into the great Jim Tressel, this book will help. But if your looking for a guide in which to help you live a better, more organized life, The Winners Manual is a must-read, along the lines of some of John Wooden's best books, and books by the best and brightest CEOs this country has produced. Learn from, and surround yourself with winners, and success will follow.
   
   Ohio is the country's center in so many ways, but I've come to know it's football fan base as, by far, the most loyal and informed in the country. And in every sense, Tressel is the CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation that insists on excellence performed under a powerful and exacting microscope. I think he succeeds admirably. And this book can both help you understand how he does it, and how you too might get the most out of your life, as well.