Red Brick Magic: Sean McVay, John Harbaugh and Miami University’s Cradle of Coaches

by Terence Moore

Miami University in Oxford, Ohio is recognized for its beauty, highlighted by the red brick throughout its grounds. Poet Robert Frost even called it "the prettiest campus ever there was." It has a nationally acclaimed business school, and it has spent the last decade providing more CEOs of Fortune 500 companies with undergraduate Miami Ohio degrees than any other.

Yet, the best kept secret for those inside the Miami Ohio family is The Cradle of Coaches, and the astounding track record over the last century of producing some of the greatest coaches, managers, and sports executives in sports history. In Red Brick Sean McVay, John Harbaugh and Miami University’s Cradle of Coaches , Miami Ohio alum and pioneering sports journalist Terence Moore explores this unparalleled sports leadership legacy, from Weeb Ewbank, Paul Brown, Ara Parseghian, and Bo Schembechler to John McVay, John Harbaugh, Sean McVay, and everyone in between. Highlighted by Sean McVay’s Super Bowl LVI win with the Los Angeles Rams – the record fourth NFL championship captured by a team coached by a Miami Ohio alum – Moore tells the inside story of how a mid-major sports school in the Mid-American Conference has evolved into an industry trailblazer, and a true powerhouse when it comes to producing leaders and thinkers helping shape the past, present, and future of the sports world.

Genres: Sports

264 pages, Paperback

Published October 3, 2023

Reviews

[Lauri · Rating 3 out of 5]

More like 3.5. It’s really a love letter to Miami and the sports tradition. Hopefully the book will need to be updated as more join the cradle.
Also $10 to anyone who wants to rock the cradle and offer Chuck Martin a job far away from Oxford.

[Lance Kuhn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting, and I learned a lot about all the people who have come through Miami. And I'm a bit of a history geek (and older), so hearing some names from the old times was kind of cool. But I think it could have been done in half the pages, as he repeated himself a lot. It was like it was written as separate articles over time and then spliced together to make a book; many phrases were repeated at least once inn every chapter.

[Matt Shamp · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the history of the book and he does a good job of intertwining the history of the college with modern day look backs. But some of the book was repetitive and the author would recount earlier chapters in a paragraph or two about who people were by relisting accomplishments of a specific Coach - almost like the previous chapter about that coach didn’t exist.