Coaching Sports

When Kyle Shanahan became the NFL's youngest offensive coordinator in 2008, he had one prevailing rule: Tell me the why. If a colleague couldn't justify his position by providing the unassailable reasoning behind it, he was told to get the hell out of Shanahan's office. Shanahan and the members of his coaching tree—including Sean McVay, Mike McDaniel, Raheem Morris, and Matt LaFleur—came up in a sport where innovation was the exception, not the rule. There had been brilliant football minds before, from Paul Brown to Bill Walsh to Bill Belichick.

To be a golfer is to tinker-with everything from equipment to grip to swing. But one thing most players don't give enough attention to is the mental game. Psychologists aren't a new phenomenon in golf, but Dr. Michael Lardon is a different breed of performance coach. Instead of sending his players into a losing battle against emotion, indecision, and fear on the golf course, he shows them how to organize their thoughts and use them for maximum performance.

Wicked Smart Golf is NOT just a mental game book. This audiobook delivers proven strategies to improve your game with actionable advice on course management, short game, and effective practice habits. Written by a +2 handicap and mental golf coach, this book introduces a five-pillar system designed to help you play smarter and shoot lower scores. Plus, it includes nearly three hours of bonus content featuring exclusive tips to transform your golf game.

After sixty years of keeping notes on the things he's seen and learned and on the golfing greats he's taught, Penick lets the secrets in his Little Red Book be heard by the golf world in this classic work. His simple, direct, practical wisdom pares away all the hypertechnical jargon that's grown up around the game, and lets all golfers play their best - whatever their level.

What is the new, revolutionary way people are becoming skillful? How is sports practice and coaching becoming more creative and fun—giving athletes the opportunity to explore and support their own individuality and creativity? A look at the exciting alternative approach to how we learn to move and its implications for practice design, coaching, keeping kids engaged in sports, injury prevention, developing training technology, using analytics, and more.

Have you been going to the gym for months now, but don’t look any different? Do you feel like, for the time invested, you should be bigger or more muscular than you currently are? If you’ve ever felt like you’re missing a piece of the puzzle, know this: Building muscle isn’t as complicated as the fitness industry wants you to believe. You already know what to do. You just lack the confidence to do it.

This is the first guide to motivational interviewing (MI)—the proven approach to harnessing the power of conversations to build relationships and trust—for coaches, sport psychologists, training and rehabilitation specialists, and other affiliated staff. Revealing why conventional ways of giving feedback and addressing conflict are often counterproductive, this audiobook presents tried-and-tested methods for getting through to athletes and helping them to thrive.

Ever felt not good enough? Struggling with anxiety before significant games or crumbling under pressure? Maybe you're stuck despite countless hours of training, or merely seeking that extra edge. Whatever your situation, the answer is one: develop mental strength.

Golf is a beloved yet technical game, so a sound swing and precise technique are essential. Most golfers who want to improve their skills go to the range and work painstakingly on their swings, not realizing it's often their performance state on the course that needs work, not their technique. Simple things such as awareness of your balance, tension, and tempo, as well as the ability to control mental, emotional, and social variables you encounter while playing, can quickly take your game to a new performance level.

Balancing the roles of parent and coach is one of the most rewarding yet challenging experiences any youth basketball coach can face. In Balancing the Bench: Parent-Coach Dynamics When Coaching Your Own Child in Youth Basketball, seasoned youth coach and devoted father, opens his heart and "playbook" to share practical strategies and heartfelt reflections to guide parents who find themselves on the sidelines both as coaches and as moms or dads.

The Balance is coach Aimee Boorman’s inside account of the growth of a transcendent athlete and the tumultuous events that upended the lives of many girls, including Biles. Simone Biles is one of the greatest athletes of all time. She’s won six all-around world championships and eleven Olympic medals (seven gold). Five gymnastics moves are named after her, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the youngest recipient ever), and at an age when most elite gymnasts have retired, Biles is not just still competing—she’s dominating.

Championship results require championship behaviors—it's as simple as that. In this essential book, Hugh McCutcheon provides a proven framework for competitive excellence based in motor learning, psychology, and decades of coaching experience and success. Championship Behaviors provides athletes, parents of athletes, and coaches a defined path to the "how" of significant achievement while simply and clearly explaining the research behind the "why."

In Habits That Make a Champion, Allistair McCaw provides you with the skills and tools to help you maximize your potential and become a champion. Having consulted and worked closely with some of the best athletes and people in the world, Allistair firmly believes that the difference between the good and the great performers lies in their daily habits and discipline.

Pulitzer Prize-winner David Halberstam's best seller takes you inside the football genius of Bill Belichick for an insightful profile in leadership. Bill Belichick's thirty-one years in the NFL have been marked by amazing success - most recently with the New England Patriots. In this groundbreaking audiobook, David Halberstam explores the nuances of both the game and the man behind it. He uncovers what makes Bill Belichick tick both on and off the field.

Famous three-time Grand Slam winner Arthur Ashe pointed out that many in sports fall victim to “paralysis by analysis”. Athletes on any level can experience the pain of overthinking and sabotaging their performance. Blame many traditional methods of teaching and training. How can we train smarter, not harder? If only our body and mind could perform in a way that’s more natural and instinctive. The best athletes have this quality, but many feel it is simply unattainable for them. I assure you it is not.

Building on the core concepts introduced in Every Shot Must Have a Purpose and the strategic thinking in The Game Within the Game, Play Your Best Golf Now takes the mystery out of the soft skills of golf and shows golfers how to add these skills to their game for peak performance.

How do we go from proficiency to mastery in sports? From average to elite. From having a “lot of moving parts” to being economical and efficient in our movements. From feeling rushed and pressured to slowing time down and acting like you knew what was going to happen all along. From deciding to take the best option available to moving to shape and change the options afforded to us. From building easily disrupted and broken skills to adaptable and even anti-fragile ones, getting stronger through being challenged.

The power to become better, greater, more refined versions of ourselves is something that each one of us possesses. It is a power with which we are born, like infinite gold inside the equally infinite mine shafts that are our minds. Now, to get at that gold - there is the rub. Since time immemorial people have struggled to manage the darkness within themselves. How do we reckon our possibilities with our capabilities? How do we overcome the difficulties within? How do we shake off the invisible sandbags that seem to drag us down and run faster, jump higher, push harder?

A player who could hardly defend. A bleak soccer future as a bench-warmer. An athlete who lacked confidence in their game. Are you or a loved one enjoying soccer, but can’t stand not being confident on how to defend? Do you or a child have a problem stopping the team from shooting? Are you a parent or player that would love to stop the dribble of each opponent, but struggle even stopping the foot skills of one player? If any of these situations describe you, you are not alone. Coaches of soccer are good at having the team work together. Sadly, your abilities as an individual are often lost in the team’s tactics unless you are the star player on the team. The coach lets the best player do as they please but every other player must do their job, even though the coach may not always teach exactly how to do that job.

For much of his adult life, best-selling author Tom Coyne has been chasing a golf ball around the globe. Then one day a friend suggested he attempt to play every links course in Scotland, and qualify for the greatest championship in golf. The result is A Course Called Scotland, a hilarious golf and travel adventure throughout the birthplace of the sport and home to some of the oldest and most beloved courses in the world. With his signature blend of storytelling, humor, history, and insight, Coyne weaves together his journey with compelling threads of golf history....