All In: What It Takes to Be the Best

by Gene Chizik, David Thomas, Mack Brown (Foreword)

"All In" chronicles the remarkable journey of Gene Chizik, who in two short years went from being the much-maligned 5-19 coach of the Iowa State Cyclones to the undefeated, AP SEC Coach of the Year of the 2010 national champion Auburn Tigers.Coach Chizik shares never-before-told stories about his controversial head coaching career--from his highly contentious departure from Iowa State and his heavily criticized appointment at Auburn to his historic 2010 championship run and all the unexpected twists, turns, tragedies, and triumphs along the way. As he recounts his journey, he opens up about the pivotal role his faith has played in his life and career, and he shares his time-tested secrets to success, both on and off the field."All In" is an inspirational must-read for football fans everywhere and for anyone who has ever struggled to overcome their own 5-19 season of life.

Genres: Sports, Biography, Football, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published July 5, 2011

About the author

Gene Chizik is the head football coach at Auburn University. In 2010 Chizik led Auburn to a perfect 14–0 record, winning the Southeastern Conference Championship and the BCS National Championship. He was named the Associated Press SEC Coach of the Year, Home Depot National Coach of the Year, Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year, and Bobby Bowden National Collegiate Coach of the Year, as well as receiving the Paul “Bear” Bryant Award. He has won more games in his first three seasons at Auburn than any other coach in the school’s storied football history. Prior to taking over as head coach at Auburn, Chizik served as an assistant coach at Middle Tennessee State; as defensive coordinator at Stephen F. Austin State University, Central Florida University, Auburn, and the University of Texas; and as head coach at Iowa State University. A native of Clearwater, Florida, Chizik and his wife, Jonna, have identical twin daughters, Landry and Kennedy, and a son, Cally.

Reviews

[Seth Fuller · Rating 5 out of 5]

A phenomenal biography that also provides the readers with the necessary applications to improve his own leadership skills. This book is not just good for the Auburn Tiger but also for anyone looking for an example of what it means to get back up and lead when you are knocked down.

[Abby Gibbons · Rating 5 out of 5]

So excited for Auburn Football I read a book about it. This book… made me cry? It’s a love letter to Auburn. The way Coach Chizik led his team on a foundation of family, faith, and togetherness. What stuck out to me the most was when he said that “God was bigger than 5-19”. To question if they still felt called to football even if the end record would be them losing, and the answer being yes!! It’s worth it!! Because of the relationship with the boys?? How extremely rare is that.

[Chella LaNiece · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book thinking "I love Auburn football. I love that we are national champs. I love Coach Chiz. I'm going to support him by buying this book." Whether or not I had finished this book wasn't important. I was supporting my team and my coach. When I started this book, I couldn't put it down. This book probably would have been more at home at a Lifeway or some other Christian book store than at my local Books A Million. I loved & respected Coach way before buying this book. While so many people are doubting his character, I have long held on to my belief he's just a class act, all the way. After reading this book, my respect and love for Coach has grown monumentally. I love the challenges Coach makes to the readers on a spiritual level. I love that he is a man who believes in God, prays, reads the bible, and does the best he can to follow God's paths. "All In" means so much more to me now than it did during the season. We were "all in" as fans, but Coach wants us to take it further, be "all in" in our lives and, most importantly, be "all in" for God. And plus, reliving the championship season through the eyes of the coach doesn't hurt anything. Who needs a movie ab how great you are? Coach hit it right on the head and pointed to the One who made his life & career possible. It's great to be an Auburn Tiger!

[Nina Dunton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great insight into the inner-workings of college football in the South. Chizik let us in on the secrets of his success, including his management style. I learned a lot from this book. And...GREAT ENDING! I was biting my nails to see if we would win the national championship. War Eagle!

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

AUsome! Loved every chapter! I'm very thankful for a national championship but more so for such a man of character at Auburn. Chiz' book was so inspiring. We all are here to glorify God by fulfilling His purpose and serving others.

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid book covering Gene Chizik’s time at Iowa State and the 2009 and national championship winning 2010 football seasons at Auburn. It was very interesting reading this almost 15 (!) years later. He picked a good time to write his book since he got fired 2 seasons later after a disastrous winless record in the SEC in 2008.

Some positive and negative thoughts:
+ He gave Kodi Burns plenty of credit for his selfless attitude in switching positions to WR after losing the QB battle to Chris Todd in 2009. Loved the redemption of Kodi catching the first touchdown pass of the national title game a year later.

- This book feels like it does a lot of skimming and skipping over potentially interesting parts of Chixik’s tenure at Auburn. How and why did he hire his assistants? We barely get any mention of Gus Malzahn (need him to write a memoir I suppose). Key players are glossed over (Nick Fairley’s contributions to our defense in 2010 were almost untouched). I feel like a lot of interesting material was left on the table.

+ I didn’t realize how much Chizik was a man of faith, and I appreciated his perspective on being a Christian while navigating the challenges of being a college football coach. His vivid description of leaving Iowa State was very interesting, with many people angry on both sides.

- No mention of the deluge of rain and subsequent delay in the 2009 West Virginia game…c’mon, you’ve gotta at least mention it!

In hindsight, it is hard to believe Auburn hired a coach with a 5-19 record, but it makes the redemption of winning a national title in 2010 all the better. His crashing out and getting fired two seasons later feels like a microcosm of Auburn football—a rollercoaster of highs and lows.

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

All In by Gene Chizik is a heart-warming story of a modern-day Job, forced to suffer indignation by coaching at a two-bit school like Iowa State, and then brought out from the wilderness to the land of milk and honey called Auburn. God is bigger than 5-19!

That's how most Auburn fans are going to feel about this book. Looking at the reviews that have been posted thus far, Auburn fans are pretty much the only ones reading the book.

I'm an Iowa State alum, so I have a bit of a different take on this book. Mostly in the fact that Chizik lies. Or rather, it's not that he's lying, but that his ego warps the fabric of the universe around him to the point that he can't recognize what's really happening. There are many examples of this.

Let's go to a statement Chizik makes on page 81 where he's talking about his departure from Iowa State.

Jamie is a quality athletic director, and I respect him for what he has done at Iowa State. But I wish he had handled my departure differently. It could have, and should have, gone so much better for all involved.

Chizik is referring to a statement that Jamie Pollard put out after he found out that Gene Chizik was departing ISU for Auburn. The statement said that he was disappointed for the fans, and that the timing and the way the situation played out was hurtful and disappointing. Chizik didn't think that was very nice. Interesting...because he admits to doing many of the things that made us ISU fans pretty ticked off.

Page 73, right after his interview with Auburn:

...I called Iowa State. I talked the Steve Malchow, the associate athletic director, since Jamie was out of pocket for a few hours. I told Steve I had called Auburn to withdraw my name from consideration.

See, Chiz...you told us that you weren't going to take the job. Why would someone feel hurt and disappointed by how the situation played out?

Chizik states over and over wanting to build up the ISU team into something better. Championship caliber. It was God's plan to bring him to ISU and make the team better. But after two losing seasons, God apparently decided it was time for Chizik to move on. And how did Chizik tell the team that he was leaving them when they needed a coach the most?

Page 85:

I was brief and to the point, and my message was simple[...] The meeting lasted probably five minutes.

And in his own warped way, Chizik realizes that the team's silence is somehow positive reinforcement for him. Page 86:

No player said a word as I walked out of the meeting room. It dawned on me that in a strange way, their body posture and evident anger made a positive statement about our relationship. Their nonverbals indicated that they believed in the direction the program was headed.

Or possibly that the players had just had two bad seasons and now their coach was ditching them. A coach that had a six year contract and had just been offered a contract extension and had repeatedly stated publicly that he wanted to mold the team into winners, and now had in the span of five minutes completely shattered their hopes and any validation in them what-so-ever. Yeah, they were making a positive statement. That's what it was. Couldn't possibly have been that you destroyed their own self-worth. Couldn't have been the rather abrupt and crushing abandonment they felt.

He didn't even give the players an opportunity to ask questions. He went in, told them he was leaving, and left. And I mean left. The Chiziks departed Ames just as fast as they could.

Page 89:

Jonna was packing so fast that when she opened the suitcases later, she discovered that she had brought at least three single shoes...without their matches! I failed to pack all my suits but one.

Gene Chizik is a very religious man, and he talks about his faith frequently. That's fine. But over and over and over again, he talks about how God is greater than 5-19. I'm not disagreeing with that. But I'm upset that somehow, his two seasons at ISU are the cross that he had to bear. The wilderness that he had to be led from. The suffering he had to endure in Egypt and the exile he had to face in Babylon, all to let God bring him to salvation at last and give him a national championship.

Chizik had an opportunity to do some good at Iowa State, and he screwed us over worse than any team in the Big 12 ever did. We put our faith in him. We brought in a rookie head coach, we let him determine the direction of our football program, we even offered a contract extension after that 5-19 performance. We put our faith in a false idol, and look where that got us.

If you enjoy fiction, this may be a good book for you. But you're going to find it in the biography section. Just realize that Gene Chizik's sense of reality doesn't really mesh up with what the rest of the world sees. His ego is bigger than 5-19.

[Summer Nettleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing style is very simple and makes for a very quick read. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Coack Chizik provided some interesting insights into the Auburn program as well as college football in general. I appreciated his faith and dedication. His contributions to the players' lives and not just their football career is to be commended.
War Eagle!

[Kev Willoughby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can easily see where an Auburn fan would give this a 5-star rating whereas an Iowa State fan would give this a 1-star rating. There's some good and some bad in this story, and taking both sides into consideration, I'd have to give this a 3-star rating overall. I think Chizik is transparent enough in telling his story that an ISU fan would have to admit that this book is not terrible. At the same time, an Auburn fan would have to admit that not everything here is great either. It does seem to be factual though. Chizik does not present himself as being without fault.

In full disclosure, I'm an Alabama fan. However, I follow Chizik on Twitter, and I enjoy his updates and encouraging messages. He seems like a great guy; one I would probably enjoy meeting. And although I'm fully aware that he was once Auburn's football coach, I didn't know anything about his background before coming to Auburn. This book connected the dots for me. Even in reading his own words, I was surprised to see how he admitted to handling the transition from Iowa State to Auburn. It's not what I would have expected considering who he presents himself to be online today.

However, any of us can look back at different portions of our life and recognize that in some cases, we could have made better choices. I certainly can as well.

I can also empathize with Iowa State alumni and fans, because as an Alabama fan, Chizik's story of leaving Iowa State to come to Auburn reminds me very much of when Dennis Franchione left Alabama to go to Texas A&M. I could easily see how an Iowa State fan could be jaded, especially considering how Chizik paints that era of his life as a dark time or a trial that he had to endure. He brought much of that upon himself in the way he chose to handle it through the secrecy and miscommunication that he, again, is fully transparent about in the book. However, he repeatedly refers to it as the "5-19" experience (his win-loss record while at ISU). I can see where ISU fans might be turned off by his perception of those years as something God had to rescue him from. And I don't think Chizik really intended for it to sound that way towards the people of Ames, Iowa.

I think the tone of the book could have been better if he had owned his exit from ISU instead of expressing surprise and disappointment in how the fans, players, coaches, and administration at Iowa State perceived his exodus from their school. Especially given the support, trust, and faith that they had placed in him throughout his time there (without any reason to do so based on his record there). In the end, I believe Chizik learned from the experience and it did help him to be better positioned to succeed at Auburn. He realized the value of those relationships and the reader can see where he became a better coach because of it.

[Brady Watts · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good! Much more spiritually focused than I expected. Fun to read Gene Chizik's recaps of big plays I remember watching as an 11 year old haha. I wanted more behind the scenes Xs and Os football content, but I guess that wasn't the point of the book. Lots of corny coach speak! Overall, about what you'd expect from a book like this. I enjoyed it.

[Jonathan Howald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing super exciting here really just a fun little book for Auburn fans. I hoped it would be a little more in depth about the football stuff but it basically came from the perspective that the reader wouldn't know much about football, which is kinda odd for a book for Auburn fans.

[Joey Haynes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspiring. Refreshing.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring for even the nonfootball player.

[Braydon Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book. This book is great because it is a nonfiction book that is about a ¨rags to riches¨ story about a college football coach. I like that it tells the whole story behind Gene Chizik and not just when he came up and became the coach of Auburn. It is a story about how a man that came from nothing, never gave up on his dream to be a college football coach and win a NCAA National Championship. This story shows the relationships that a football coach makes with his players. It shows the rise and fall of Auburn football program and the heartbreaking losses of the players that he has created great relationships. I like this book because it shows every single step to make it to be a great coach in the NCAA. Chizik starts off at small schools and not a great coach, then he struggles to make it to bigger and better things but he eventually becomes the coach of Iowa State. After years of being at Iowa State he decides to go to Auburn and a couple years after being there, he finally accomplishes his goals of winning a National Championship.

[Brendle Moyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great book for me to read. It was about major events that took place in Coach Gene Chizik’s coaching career and meeting his wife. It shows Chizik’s character and why he is a well-liked man. I first read this book because I am an Auburn fan, but when I first started reading this book, I could not put it down. It shows his struggles and ridicules he faced for coming to Auburn after his losing season at Iowa State. My favorite part of the book was when it told us how Chizik met his wife.

[John Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book and now am more pleased with his choice as head coach at Auburn (my school). In his book, Coach Chizik goes into great detail about his values as a man and how that affects his coaching style. While he does discuss the games at Iowa State and Auburn for the past few years, he doesn't go into great detail about that. He also doesn't go into a great detail about the Cam Newton investigation very much. Rather, this is a story about his personal values and how he applied them to his coaching. I found it a very good read.

[Jonny Dent · Rating 2 out of 5]

You'll only read this is you're an Auburn fan obviously. I was on the fence about it. I figured it would be a run of the mill poorly written cliche coach-speak book. It still is for the most part, but there were enough interesting nuggets of information in it that caused it to exceed my expectations. If you check your Auburn blogs daily and know the names of everyone the roster, you should definitely give it a read.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic memoir from Auburn's head coach from 2009-2012. Chizik makes wonderful connections between faith, football, and life. He remarks that it is easy to be a fan when you're 14-0 but will you still show up when your team is 3-9? He relates these experiences to faith - it's easy to be faithful when all is going well in your life but will you still have faith when things are looking down?

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I may have gotten my hand on an advanced copy somewhere...and it's awesome! It was cool to see which players Coach Chizik spoke highy of and which he left out. And I got goosebumbs reading the description of the national championship. Yes. Do what we do.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Auburn Tigers and a diehard fan. I learned a lot from reading his book that I probably wouldn't have. His love for the sport and his faith in God makes Chizik a great coach no matter what team he's coaching. War Eagle!!!!

[Olivia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really don't care one way or another about Chizik. But writing a book 'What it takes to be the BEST' after one extremely successful season? C'mon that's just crazy. Can't you put the book on hold?

The title itself is arrogant. Just wait until you read the inside. Geez.

[Tammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didnt know what to expect.....I have always been proud to be an Auburn Tiger, but now I am much prouder to have a man of faith and conviction to be our leader of young athletes. What an example he is to all of us. I'm All In Coach! War Eagle!!

[Travis Doig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simply a retelling of the Auburn Tigers season from 2010. Gene gives some of his organization plans and philosophies, but mostly a story. Nothing too compelling narrative -wise. I enjoyed reading the book, but three stars for lack of depth.

[Jana Slocum]

I loved it! Great Man and I am proud to be an Auburn Tiger!!

[Lynne Lee]

Just started the book, but VERY impressed with the man! Love his honesty, sense of humor and faith in God!

[Catherine Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book by a great coach.

[Frank Spina]

Meh