Getting to Us

How Great Coaches Make Great Teams

By: Seth Davis

Narrated by: Mark Deakins

What makes a coach great? How do great coaches turn a collection of individuals into a coherent “us”?

Seth Davis, one of the keenest minds in sports journalism, has been thinking about that question for twenty-five years. It’s one of the things that drove him to write the definitive biography of college basketball’s greatest coach, John Wooden, Wooden: A Coach’s Life. But John Wooden coached a long time ago. The world has changed, and coaching has too, tremendously. Seth Davis decided to embark on a proper investigation to get to the root of the matter.

In Getting to Us, Davis probes and prods the best of the best from the landscape of active coaches of football and basketball, college and pro—from Urban Meyer, Dabo Swinney, and Jim Harbaugh to Mike Krzyzewski, Tom Izzo, Jim Boeheim, Brad Stevens, Geno Auriemma, and Doc Rivers—to get at the fundamental ingredients of greatness in the coaching sphere. There’s no single right way, of course—part of the great value of this book is Davis’s distillation of what he has learned about different types of greatness in coaching, and what sort of leadership thrives in one kind of environment but not in others. Some coaches have thrived at the college level but not in the pros. Why? What’s the difference? Some coaches are stern taskmasters, others are warm and cuddly; some are brilliant strategists but less emotionally involved with their players, and with others it’s vice versa. In Getting to Us, we come to feel a deep connection with the most successful and iconic coaches in all of sports—big winners and big characters, whose stories offer much of enduring interest and value.

Critic reviews

“This series of profiles is a brisk and colorful companion if you want to know how several of the best coaches in college hoops operate. . . . vivid.” –Tom Perotta, Wall Street Journal

"A spirited survey of some of the techniques of winning coaches in building winning teams . . . [Davis] provides plenty of useful information for aspiring coaches and committed fans." – Kirkus Reviews

"This refreshing look into the complex lives of coaches will appeal to an audience far wider than hardcore sports fans." – Publishers Weekly

Praise for When March Went Mad: The Game that Transformed Basketball

“A must-read book for anybody who considers themselves a basketball fan.” —The Washington Post

“A vivid portrait of a time when we knew a lot less about the sport and, because of that, loved it in a different way.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Excellent.” —Detroit Free Press

“The sports book of the year.” —Politico

Praise for Wooden: A Coach’s Life

“Superb . . . [Seth Davis] has written a virtual cutaway view of the history and evolution of basketball in the form of a biography. Davis takes us on bus rides over snow-covered roads to Friday-night high school games, puts us in the frantic and precarious whirl of semi-pro basketball barnstorming in the Midwest and, finally, gives us a courtside seat in the high-stakes pressure cooker of big-time college basketball.” ―Los Angeles Times

“A meticulously researched and evenhanded assessment.” ―The New York Times Book Review

“Mr. Davis beautifully captures the ties that bound a strong-willed coach and his players. His biography is superb--readable, well-reported and savvy in its understanding of basketball.” ―The Wall Street Journal

Getting to Us got to me.

Read this book. You won’t regret it. There are a bunch of lessons from all of these coaches.

Good listen

Great book. easy to listen to, and kept you interested. Really brought you in to these coaches lives and some of their thought process.

Coaches

Essential read for anyone in the coaching business or in any leadership business. Insight to the great minds of sports.

A Couple of Bad Chapters

There are a few too many coaches with significant violations which is not the fault of the author but puts them in a different light. I really prefer this book to read entire biographies of coaches.

Need help to improve your team - Must read

Seth Davis provided many great examples of how each coach got their team to US. Just bought the hard copy as well.