Coach History

Once upon a time, they taught us to believe. They were the 1980 US Olympic hockey team, a blue-collar bunch led by an unconventional coach, and they engineered perhaps the greatest sports moment of the 20th century. Their "Miracle on Ice" has become a national fairy tale, but the real Cinderella story is even more remarkable. It is a legacy of hope, hard work, and homegrown triumph. It is a chronicle of everyday heroes who just wanted to play hockey happily ever after.

In 1965, 18-year old Lew Alcindor played basketball for Coach John Wooden at UCLA. It was the beginning of what was to become a 50-year long relationship. On the court they broke basketball records. Off the court they transcended their athletic achievements to gain even wider recognition and tremendous national respect.

The Players' Coach is a player-development masterclass. It is also an inspirational life story, from humble beginnings to becoming the quarterback for the University of Iowa, a college coaching career, and then to assistant-coach and offensive-coordinator roles in six different decades. This book is destined to be a football classic, a coaching Bible, and a must-listen on leadership.

A Season on the Brink chronicles the basketball season that John Feinstein spent following the Indiana Hoosiers and their fiery coach, Bob Knight. Knight granted Feinstein an unprecedented inside look at college basketball - with complete access to every moment of the season. Feinstein saw and heard it all - practices, team meetings, strategy sessions, and mid-game huddles - during Knight's struggle to avoid a losing season.

No man has affected more runners in more ways than Bill Bowerman. During his 24-year tenure as track coach at the University of Oregon, he won four national team titles and his athletes set 13 world and 22 American records. He also ignited the jogging boom, invented the waffle-sole running shoe that helped establish Nike, and coached the US track and field team at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.

From Monday Night Football to Super Bowl Sunday, the NFL is a dominating force in the lives of millions of fans who tune in and passionately cheer for their favorite teams. And when the games are over, the conversation is just getting started. Who's the greatest player of all time? Which coaches truly shaped the game we known and love today? Why is professional football such an undeniable part of our culture? Three-time Super Bowl winner Michael Lombardi has done it all—from scout to executive to coach—and now he sets the record straight on these questions and more.

The ensuing scandal rivaled that of the 1919 "Black Sox" and the more recent steroid era, and became one of the most significant that the game had ever seen. The fallout ensnared many other teams, either as victims, alleged cheaters or both. The Los Angeles Dodgers felt robbed of a World Series title, and fended off accusations about their organization. Same for the New York Yankees. The Boston Red Sox were soon under investigation themselves. The New York Mets lost a promising manager before he ever managed a game.

Football has never stood still. Every generation of coaches and players has sought an edge, crafting new formations, refining old ideas, and forcing defenses into a constant state of adaptation. Offense Evolutions: A Century of Football Innovation tells the story of how strategy, discipline, and creativity transformed the game from bruising scrums into the complex chess match we watch today. Beginning with Pop Warner’s single wing and Knute Rockne’s forward pass, the narrative traces the rise of the T-formation, the explosion of option football, and the precision of the West Coast ...

This book is a complete tactical masterclass in 11v11 soccer formations, designed for coaches who want to understand not only the numbers on the board but the logic and history behind them. Tracing the evolution of the game from the 2-3-5 Pyramid to the fluid pressing systems of today, it explores why formations emerged, how they worked in practice, and how they were exploited or replaced over time. Every major system is covered in depth: WM, 4-2-4, 4-3-3, 4-4-2, 3-5-2, 5-3-2, 4-2-3-1, and more. Each chapter combines tactical breakdowns with real-world case studies, including Sacchi’s ...

New York Times best-selling, award-winning historian S. C. Gwynne tells the incredible story of how Hal Mumme and Mike Leach - two unknown coaches who revolutionized American football in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s - changed the way the game is played at every level, from high school to the NFL. Hal Mumme is one of a handful of authentic offensive geniuses in the history of American football. In 2015 ESPN Magazine, the nation's leading sports magazine, called him the single most influential football coach in the last quarter century.

Caleb Hart, a seasoned stagecoach driver, roams the vast Arizona desert, his life a journey of relentless change and adventure. Known for his unwavering determination and skill, he's the embodiment of the rugged, restless spirit that defines the Wild West. When tasked to replace a fallen driver after a brutal ambush, Caleb stumbles upon a chance encounter that could anchor his wandering heart. Will he embrace the call to settle, or will the thrill of the untamed land keep him in its grasp? After rebuilding her life in Arizona, Molly Bennett's determination is put to the ultimate test when ...

In 1971, a small-town high school baseball team from rural Illinois playing with hand-me-down uniforms and peace signs on their hats defied convention and the odds. Led by an English teacher with no coaching experience, the Macon Ironmen emerged from a field of 370 teams to become the smallest school in Illinois history to make the state final, a distinction that still stands. There, sporting long hair, and warming up to "Jesus Christ Superstar", the Ironmen would play a dramatic game that would change their lives forever.

'He is rugby's Pep Guardiola' – The Telegraph Rassie Erasmus has been called a genius. He’s been called reckless. All his life, he’s done things differently. Now, with his trademark candour, Rassie talks openly about his adventures and misadventures at the pinnacle of world rugby, both as...

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Dabo's World and learn about how Dabo Swinney used his energy, faith, and determination to turn the Clemson Tigers into a football powerhouse.

Clarinda, Iowa, population 5,000, sits two hours from anything. There, between the cornfields and hog yards, is a ball field with a bronze bust of a man named Merl Eberly, a baseball whisperer who specialized in second chances and lost causes. The statue was a gift from one of Merl's original long-shot projects, a skinny kid from the ghetto in Los Angeles who would one day become a beloved Hall of Fame shortstop: Ozzie Smith.

Black Bart is widely regarded today as not only the most notorious stage robber of the Old West but also the best behaved. Over his lifetime, Black Bart held up at least twenty-nine stagecoaches in California and Oregon with mild, polite commands, stealing from Wells Fargo and the US mail but never robbing a passenger. Such behavior earned him the title of a true “gentleman bandit.”

Dive into the heart of the world's most popular sport, soccer, where every moment thrives with tension and excitement, every skillful maneuver draws spectators' attention, and tactical battles are waged with high stakes. At the core of this beautiful game lies the might of formations — the tactical architecture that defines a team's character, enhances its strengths, and dictates its gameplay. Soccer Coaching: 11v11 Soccer Formations: Masterclass in Soccer Formations, History, Case Studies & Tactics is your comprehensive guide to the intricate world of these crucial structures. Consider ...

Based on true accounts born into slavery, allowed to grow up with her owners' daughter, Molly was taught to read and write. After emancipation, Mary found it difficult to remain close to her childhood friend and struggled with many jobs throughout her life. At 60 years old, Mary became the first Black woman mail carrier and became known as "Stagecoach" Mary. Even though she frequented saloons, smoked cigars, and fought like a man, she was loved by the town of Cascade and given more privileges than a White woman.

Born in Brooklyn, Sammy Gregg is small in stature and naive to the ways of the world, yet headstrong and resolute to save enough money to marry Susie Mitchell. Gregg calculates that he needs $15‚000 and figures he can earn enough in six months out west. Although he is a small man who knows nothing of fighting‚ guns‚ or horses‚ he takes his $5‚000 in savings and heads west‚ arriving in Munson‚ a tough, lawless town.

Collectively, Rick Pitino, Jim Calhoun, and Gary Williams have won more than 2,300 games and six national championships and reached thirteen Final Fours. Before Pitino became the face of the Providence, Kentucky, and Louisville programs, before Calhoun turned UConn into a national power, and before Williams brought Maryland to its first national championship, these coaches cut their teeth in front of modest-sized crowds in college gymnasiums of Boston during the '70s and '80s. Boston Ball charts how this trio of coaches, seemingly out of nowhere, started a basketball revolution