Swing Your Sword

Author: Mike Leach
Publisher: Diversion Books
ISBN: 0983337187
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Book Description
Newly-minted Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach tells his captivating story––from rural Wyoming to law school to the upper echelons of the SEC. SWING YOUR SWORD is the first ever book by one of the most fascinating and successful coaches in sports today. A maverick who took an unlikely path to coaching through law school, Mike Leach talks about his unorthodox approach to coaching and the choices that have brought him success throughout his career. A lover of the game who started creating formations and drawing his own plays as a kid, Leach took his Texas Tech Red Raiders to numerous bowl games, achieving the #2 slot in national rankings and being voted 2008 Coach of the Year before being unceremoniously fired at the end of the 2009 season. The scandalous nature of his dismissal created a media frenzy and began a personal battle between Leach and his accusers that remains unresolved.

Swing Your Sword

Author: Mike Leach
Publisher: Diversion Pub of Texas
ISBN: 9781938120121
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
Recounts the former Texas Tech coach's life and accomplishments, reflecting on pivotal moments and discussing his unorthodox approach to coaching.

Sports for Dorks

Author: Ferhat Guven
Publisher: Sports Dorks Cfb, LLC
ISBN: 9780615484976
Category : College sports
Languages : en
Pages : 253

Book Description
Reviews "What do you get when you combine an astrophysicist, a world champion backgammon player, some respected economists and a few other brilliant minds? This fascinating book and the reason I'm hoping to watch Mike Leach on Saturdays instead of coach against him on Sundays." -REX RYAN, Head Football Coach, New York Jets "Sports for Dorks is an exciting collection of ideas and trends shaping the world of college football. Mike Leach proves, once again, that he is a step ahead of the rest." -GIL BRANDT, former Vice President of player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys, current Senior Analyst for NFL.com "One man's dork is another man's intellectually curious, envelope pushing pioneer. Mike Leach is the most original thinker I've met in three decades as a sportswriter. With this provocative, nourishing, all-you-can-eat buffet of intriguing ideas, Leach reminds us why football needs him more than he needs football." - AUSTIN MURPHY, senior writer, Sports Illustrated About Sports for Dorks Sports for Dorks College Football provides ground-breaking, innovative content to readers seeking unique insights into the world of college football. Co-edited by National Coach of the Year Mike Leach and Ferhat Guven, Sports for Dorks aims to address the information needs of college football fans who seek a deeper understanding about the game and its intricacies. Sports for Dorks looks inside the mind of Mike Leach, asks why football coaches deserve to be paid more than the governors of their state, offers a solution that would make the BCS system actually work, and examines the rise of college football in Great Britain, of all places. Readers learn why going for it on fourth down generates wins and why punting is, in most cases, a fool's errand. The book also reveals how the no-huddle offense makes conventional defensive statistics irrelevant, why Davids pick on Goliaths, and how teams can improve recruiting outcomes "simply" by looking a prospect in the eye. Intriguing, complex, cutting-edge, and provocative, this unique compilation is one ofthe smartest sports books to hit the market this year.

Geronimo

Author: Mike Leach
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476734984
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
“In the hands of Mike Leach and Buddy Levy, the story of this brilliant Apache leader comes into sharp focus, both in their narrative of his life and in spirited commentaries on its meaning” (S.C. Gwynne, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Empire of the Summer Moon). Playing cowboys and Indians as a boy, legendary college football coach Mike Leach always chose to be the Indian—the underdog whose success turned on being a tough, resourceful, ingenious fighter. And the greatest Indian military leader of all was Geronimo, the Apache warrior whose name is so symbolic of courage that World War II paratroopers shouted it as they leaped from airplanes into battle. Told in the style of Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power, Leach’s compelling and inspiring book examines Geronimo’s leadership approach and the timeless strategies, decisions, and personal qualities that made him a success. Raised in an unforgiving landscape, Geronimo and his band faced enemies better armed, better equipped, and more numerous than they were. But somehow they won victories against all odds, beguiling the United States and Mexican governments and earning the respect and awe of those generals committed to hunting him down. While some believed that Geronimo had supernatural powers, much of his genius can be ascribed to old-fashioned values such as relentless training and preparation, leveraging resources, finding ways to turn defeats into victories, and being faster and more nimble than his enemy. The tactics of Geronimo would be studied and copied by the US military for generations. Pain, pride, humility, family—many things shaped Geronimo’s life. In this “compelling book that humanizes a man many misunderstood” (New York Times bestselling author Brian Kilmeade), Mike Leach illustrates how we too can use the forces and circumstances of our own lives to build true leadership today.

The Perfect Pass

Author: S. C. Gwynne
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501116215
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
An “excellent sports history” (Publishers Weekly) in the tradition of Michael Lewis’s Moneyball, award-winning historian S.C. Gwynne tells the incredible story of how two unknown coaches revolutionized American football at every level, from high school to the NFL. Hal Mumme spent fourteen mostly losing seasons coaching football before inventing a potent passing offense that would soon shock players, delight fans, and terrify opposing coaches. It all began at a tiny, overlooked college called Iowa Wesleyan, where Mumme was head coach and Mike Leach, a lawyer who had never played college football, was hired as his offensive line coach. In the cornfields of Iowa these two mad inventors, drawn together by a shared disregard for conventionalism and a love for Jimmy Buffett, began to engineer the purest, most extreme passing game in the 145-year history of football. Implementing their “Air Raid” offense, their teams—at Iowa Wesleyan and later at Valdosta State and the University of Kentucky—played blazingly fast—faster than any team ever had before, and they routinely beat teams with far more talented athletes. And Mumme and Leach did it all without even a playbook. “A superb treat for all gridiron fans” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), The Perfect Pass S.C. Gwynne explores Mumme’s leading role in changing football from a run-dominated sport to a pass-dominated one, the game that tens of millions of Americans now watch every fall weekend. Whether you’re a casual or ravenous football fan, this is “a rousing tale of innovation” (Booklist), and “Gwynne’s book ably relates the story of that innovation and the successes of the man who devised it” (New York Journal of Books).

Double T - Double Cross

Author: Michael Lee Lanning
Publisher: Scottsdale Book Publishing
ISBN: 9780983126829
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 202

Book Description
Acclaimed author Michael Lee Lanning uncovers the backroom dealings that led to the firing of Coach Mike Leach and turned the Red Raider nation against the Texas Tech administration -- P. [4] of cover.

Warrior of the Wild

Author: Tricia Levenseller
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
ISBN: 1250189942
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
An eighteen-year-old chieftain's daughter must find a way to kill her village’s oppressive deity if she ever wants to return home in Warrior of the Wild, the Viking-inspired YA standalone fantasy from Tricia Levenseller, author of Daughter of the Pirate King. How do you kill a god? As her father's chosen heir, eighteen-year-old Rasmira has trained her whole life to become a warrior and lead her village. But when her coming-of-age trial is sabotaged and she fails the test, her father banishes her to the monster-filled wilderness with an impossible quest: To win back her honor, she must kill the oppressive god who claims tribute from the villages each year or die trying.

The Way of the Living Sword

Author: Yagyu Munenori
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595279988
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 66

Book Description
The Way of the Living Sword is the final installment in D.E. Tarver's popular Warrior Series. It stands beside The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi as one of the greatest writings of the warrior mind. In The Way of the Living Sword, Munenori gives an in-depth explanation of the connection between physical martial arts and the mental process of Zen. While Munenori and Musashi were both avid students of Zen, Munenori was more fascinated by the academic aspects of the philosophy. Munenori stretches the consciousness of even the most enlightened martial artist. Martial arts devotees will experience many flashes of revelation as Tarver explores the various aspects of Munenori's approach. Read and grow!

Building a Champion

Author: Bill Walsh
Publisher: St Martins Press
ISBN: 9780312925796
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
The celebrated coach shares his philosophy of football, profiles players he has coached, and recounts key moments in his career

Football Scouting Methods

Author: Steve Belichick
Publisher: Martino Publishing
ISBN: 9781578987061
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
"Considered the bible of scouting techniques" according to the Los Angeles Times, Football Scouting Methods explains the basic scouting strategies and insights of author Steve Belichick. He was widely viewed as the ablest football scout of his time and coached at the U.S. Naval Academy for 33 years; his son is New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, a three-time Super Bowl winner. When Steve Belichick died in November 2005, the New York Times headline cited him as "Coach Who Wrote the Book on Scouting," and quoted Houston Texans General Manager Charley Casserly calling Football Scouting Methods "the best book on scouting he had ever read." Joe Bellino, Navy's Heisman Trophy winner in 1960, told the Times that Steve Belichick "was a genius. On Monday nights, he would give us his scouting reports, and even though we were playing powerhouses, I always felt we were prepared because he found a way for us to win." In recent years Football Scouting Methods has been one of the top ten most sought out-of-print books; used copies have been quite scarce. This reissue edition makes the original 1962 text available once again in exact facsimile. The book covers how to scout opponents, recognize defenses, analyze offenses, discover "tip-offs" that reveal the opponent's plays, compose a useful report, self-scout, and conduct postgame analysis. "Steve Belichick taught many younger men how to scout and how to watch film and how to prepare their teams for the next week's game," David Halberstam noted in the Washington Post, and his best student was his own son Bill Belichick, "one of whose greatest skills as a coach to this day remains his ability to analyze other teams, figuring out both their strengths and their vulnerabilities, and shrewdly deciding how to take away from them that which they most want to do." When CBS asked Bill Belichick to name his favorite book, he replied "Well, I've got to go with my dad's. Football Scouting Methods. I'd have to go with that."