Best Book You've Read?

1) Season of Life - should be a national requirement to coach the game of football

2) Nick Saban's "How Good Do You Want To Be"

3) Mike Shanahan's "Think Like a Champion"

i plan on getting this one...read a little at the store and it seemed good - stressed a lot on organization.


"48 Laws of Power" by Robert Greene
www2.tech.purdue.edu/cgt/courses/cgt411/covey/48_laws_of_power.htm

"Coaching the 40 Nickel Defense" by Jeff Walker

"Coaching the 46 Defense" by Rex Ryan

"Bunch System" by Dan Coverdale

I've read a ton of books, but those gave me the most insight and understanding of relevant coaching points and philosophies.

Two of my favorites - already mentioned:

"Season of Life" by Jeffery Marx

"Think Like a Champion" by Mike Shanahan

Creative Coaching by Lynch (must read for all coaches regardless of sport)

The Magic of Thinking Big by David Swartz (helped change my life in HS)

THe Education of a Coach (excellent work)

"WOODEN, A lifetime of observations and reflections on and off the Court"

I think this is a must read for coaches of any sports! I have read it every summer for 3 summers and still get something new every time.

blb - great book, probably #3 on my list.

ditto on the Walsh book. I think I refer to various parts of that book more than any other book I own.

"Coaching Football Successfully" Bob Reade. This has to be one of the best coaching books out there. I re-read this book at least twice a year.

"tampa"'s post re the book about John Wooden reminded me about one of the best autobiographies by a coach ever: "They Call Me Coach", by Wooden in 1972, in the midst of his unbelievable run at UCLA. Also (and I know I'm dating myself here, and it's probably got limited availabilty): "McKay: A Coach's Story" by one of the winningest college coaches (John McKay, USC) of all-time, albeit from a different era. I love reading coaches' biographies to find out what made them successful that I can incorporate into our working with kids.

The Football Coaching Bible. It is a great book that is full of information from coaches of many different types.

The Art of War - read it every year between coaching school and 2 a days

Coverdale's Bunch book - refer to it constantly

Holla

Pigskin Pulpit - Ty Cashion
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry

The Finding the Winning Edge Book by Walsh is amazing. You first get it and you instinctively flip to the playbook section (which he even says he know you'll do) and you go "Oh, Z-curl, drive, etc." Then later you refer back to the part on evaluating players, then a bit later you look back at organizing your coaching meetings and staffs, then preparing for the week. By the end of it the cover is lost and the binding is falling apart, but then you suddenly discover the section on "dealing with the media" and "ups and downs" in successfull and losing seasons that you'd always ignored and you realize what a great book it is. It's got it all.

Other football coaching books I like are: the John Wooden one is amazing, best coaching/teaching/raising men book. Other decent football books on more specific stuff are the Al Black R&S Book, the Billick one on gameplanning, and all the Coverdale Robinson ones.

Non-football books I like in no-order: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino, Victory by Joseph Conrad, The Great Gatsby, My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk, Robert Frost's poems, The Firm the Market and the Law by Ronald Coase, Micromotives and Macrobehavior by Thomas Schelling, The Other Nietzche by Freakonomics was good recently, The World's Banker by Mallaby is a great character study I read recently. I also used to read a lot more good investing books like A Random Walk Down Wall Street and the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.

It's kind of stupid but I actually recommend "Eat that Frog!" by Brian Tracy. It's just about ways of making yourself more productive, getting up early, making priorities and lists. Not a problem totally for football coaches but it helps one be more disciplined with it.

One kid who played guard for measked if I knew any good books about things like that, he was a bright kid who never really worked at school. He emailed me recently; he ended up graduating from Purdue University with a perfect GPA and he's almost completed a PhD in Economics at MIT and he mentioned that book in his email!

"Jack: From the gut" by Jack Welch The former CEO at GE created a 400 BILLION dollar increase in the company's worth over his 20 year reign. Imagine what kind of coach he'd be with those types of organizational, motivational and focusing on a task skills. Amazing man was Jack.