Sports Development

In 2015 former England football star Rio Ferdinand suddenly and tragically lost his wife and soul mate, Rebecca, age 34, to cancer. It was a profound shock, and Rio found himself struggling to cope not just with the pain of his grief but also with his new role as both mum and dad to their three young children. Rio's BBC1 documentary Being Mum and Dad touched everyone who watched it and won huge praise for the honesty and bravery he showed in talking about his emotions and experiences.

Life is busy, full of things competing for our time and attention, and it’s easy to believe that the best way to get things done is just to keep going—as fast as possible. But that just isn’t true. In fact, taking time to re-centre ourselves can have tremendous personal and professional benefits. In this concise programme, sports psychologist Dr Josephine Perry and yoga for sports specialist Lexie Williamson will guide you through tried-and-tested relaxation techniques designed especially for busy people—which, let’s face it, is all of us.

The law of attraction is based on the idea that everything in the universe has a polarity, meaning that everything - from the food you eat to the people you talk to, to the things you say to the things you think - contains either a positive or a negative kind of energy. Notice that being with people who complain or rant a lot tends to make you feel bad, even though you're not exactly experiencing what they're going through - that's the law of attraction working its magic. When you focus on negative stuff, then more negative stuff will happen.

Kirk Herbstreit is a reflection of the sport he loves, a reflection of his football-crazed home state of Ohio, where he was a high school star and Ohio State captain, and a reflection of another Ohio State football captain thirty-two years earlier: his dad Jim, who battled Alzheimer’s disease until his death in 2016.

Confidence is essential to success, happiness, and peace of mind. Whether it be in sports, business, or any other area of life, the most confident people tend to be the most successful. But despite knowing how important confidence is, it's easy to lose your self-confidence and start doubting yourself—especially during difficult times. Revealing the confidence-building techniques used by some of the greatest coaches of all time, this book will show you how to build and maintain confidence while eliminating self-doubt and insecurity.

Disillusioned with overly competitive organized sports and concerned about her lively daughter’s growing shyness, author Angie Abdou sets herself a challenge: to hike a peak a week over the summer holidays with Katie. They will bond in nature and discover the glories of outdoor activity. What could go wrong? Well, among other things, it turns out that Angie loves hiking but Katie doesn’t. Hilarious, poignant, and deeply felt, This One Wild Life explores parenting and marriage in a summer of unexpected outcomes and growth for both mother and daughter.

Eddie Jones is one of the most successful sports coaches of all time. From coaching three different nations to Rugby World Cup Finals and with a winning record with England of nearly 80 per cent, Eddie Jones knows what it takes to lead and manage high-performance teams. For the first time, Eddie Jones shows just what it takes to be a leader in a high performance and high pressure environment and how these lessons can be applied to every walk of life, from coaching the U9 rugby team to leading a multinational organisation to simply doing your job better.

There comes a time in every competitive athlete's life when the cheering stops, and it's time to move on to other pursuits. Written by a former Division 1 football player and Academic All-American, The Way of the Athlete argues that sports prepares athletes for this transition by instilling qualities that contribute to academic, business, and personal success.

Teresa Edwards has won more Olympic medals than any other basketball player in history with four golds and one bronze. She is the youngest woman to win a gold medal in basketball - and the oldest. She’s a WNBA pioneer and has been inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Now, for the first time, she shares the story of her greatest loss - and her most incredible victory.

The Fearless Footballer is not just another "how to" book on how to become a successful footballer. It is not about scoring more goals or assists to your resume - yet these secrets will help you to get exponentially more goals & assists than you've ever experienced before. It is not about showing your full potential in game time - yet these secrets will automatically make you bring the same type of performance from practice to game time more than any gym training ever could.

Afternoon kindergarten is having a field day, and Junie B. Jones is team captain! Only, here's the problem: Room Eight keeps on winning too many events. And so how will Room Nine ever become the kindergarten champions? As Captain Field Day, will Junie B. find a way to lead her team to victory? Or will it be up to someone else to save the day?

In speed skating, a hard pivot is an aggressive shift of direction that requires courage, practice, and split-second timing. For Apolo Ohno, the most frightening hard pivot of his life didn’t happen on the ice—but rather, when he had to hang up his skates for good. “After my final Olympics, I felt confused, vulnerable, and adrift without purpose,” he says.

Will Castro, star of Velocity Channel's Unique Rides and one of the most popular car customizers in America, has achieved the American Dream, finding great success doing something he loves. He has worked with marquee names in entertainment, and Unique Hustle is packed with anecdotes of some of the biggest names in sports, music, film, and television.

Larry had dreamed of sailing around the world ever since he first stepped foot into a sailboat at the age of 13. He held onto that dream for 30 years, until one day he realized that "it's now or never". He left his corporate job, trading his comfortable executive life for adventure. A true story memoir packed with lessons from the ocean that served as a teacher of seamanship, personal strength, growth, leadership, and perseverance, while Larry and his crew discovered themselves, and the world.

Fearful thinking is one of the most destructive thought patterns you can fall into. Whenever you find yourself worrying, procrastinating, or questioning your potential—FEAR is getting the best of you. In this inspirational fable, Mickey McGavin is a pro boxer struggling to overcome the fears that are holding him back—in the ring and in life. With the help of a former world champion who becomes his trainer and mentor, McGavin learns he must defeat the fears in his mind before he can defeat his opponents in the ring.

Learn how to perform at your very best, from the psychologist who has advised elite military operators, Olympic medalists, big wave surfers, neurosurgeons, cliff divers, first responders, Cirque du Soleil acrobats, professional athletes and coaches, Fortune 500 business executives, and CIA analysts. Learned Excellence is a comprehensive and practical guide to the mental disciplines of high performance, from the expert who developed the US Navy SEALs mental toughness curriculum and has worked with thousands of top athletes, elite military personnel, business executives, and first responders.

The benefits of mindfulness for general well-being have been discussed extensively, but little has been written about how mindfulness can be applied to running. In this book, leading health and fitness journalist Mackenzie L. Havey explores how combining mindfulness with running can not only improve sporting performance but can also enhance overall health.

A look at how commercialization has transformed youth sports from fun into a heavily commercialized and profitable venture. Examining the youth sports economy from many sides - the major corporations, the small entrepreneurs, the coaches, the parents, and, of course, the kids - Hyman probes the reasons for rapid changes in what gets bought and sold in this lucrative marketplace. He reveals the effects on kids and profiles the individuals and communities bucking this destructive trend of commercialization.

Audie Award, Business/Educational, 2016. America's favorite football player turned morning talk show host, Michael Strahan, reads his book of motivational advice on how to turn up the heat and go from good to great in pursuit of your personal ambition. Inspiring and chock full of advice that will help you make significant strides toward pursuing your dream, Wake Up Happy is a book no one, young or old, male or female, will want to miss.

In Home Ice, with equal parts humour and anguish, Angie Abdou charts a full season of life as an Atom-level hockey mom, from summer hockey camp to the end-of-season tournament. Her revealing stories and careful research on issues such as cost, gender bias, concussion, and family pressures offer a compellingly honest and complex insider’s view of parenting today’s young athlete in a competitive and high-pressure culture.