How to Succeed in the Game of Life: 34 Interviews with the World's Greatest Coaches

by Christian Klemash

What would legendary Boston Celtics coach and 16-time NBA champion Red Auerbach say is the most critical quality for a person to be successful? Would his advice differ from 10-time NCAA championship coach John Wooden's? What would each say to a young person just starting out in pursuit of their dreams? What is the best advice they were ever given? It took author Christian Klemash more than two years of research, persistence, and original interviews, but now he's ready to pass on the best advice you'll ever get. Only the rare individual has had the opportunity to pick the brain of just one legendary sports coach—let alone thirty-four of the best sports coaches of all time. Klemash gives sports fans a once-in-a-lifetime chance to learn valuable life lessons from the most famous, intelligent, and victorious coaches ever. The legends span the sports world, from gold medal-winning gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi and three-time college football championship coach Tom Osborne to four-time World Series-winning baseball manager Joe Torre and hall-of-fame boxing trainer Angelo Dundee. These coaches know how to teach top athletes about character and winning, how to manage pressure at crunch time, and how to bring out the best in their players when it matters most. How to Succeed in the Game of Life shares their insights into sports, life, and the most vital keys to sustain success.Featuring Exclusive Interviews Red Auerbach , 16-time NBA World Champion Bobby Bowden , College Football's All-Time Winningest Coach, 2-time National Champion Scotty Bowman , 9-time Stanley Cup Champion Bill Cowher , Super Bowl Champion Tony Dungy , Super Bowl Champion Dan Gable , 15-time NCCA Champion April Heinrichs , Gold Medal Winning Coach of the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Bela Karolyi , The World’s Greatest Gymnastics Coach Bill Parcells , 2-time Super Bowl Champion Emanuel Steward , Boxing Trainer of 30 World Champions Joe Torre , 4-time World Series Champion Bill Walsh , 3-time Super Bowl Champion Lenny Wilkens , NBA’s All-Time Winningest Coach, NBA Champion John Wooden , 10-time NCAA Champion And More!

Genres: Sports

288 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2006

Reviews

[Lauren Head · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book for BetterBookClub.com because of the Q&A style chapters. Each chapter covers topics such as childhood heroes, achieving dreams, failure, overcoming adversity, their favorite quotes, and much more.

While the book overall didn't have an "ah-ha" moment, it did provide insights from respected coaches in various sports that was easy to digest. My big take away from this book was that no matter how rich/famous/successful a person is they still had to put in hard to work to get there. Everybody has struggles; it just depends on how you handle them.

Since this book has quotes from various coaches-instead of just a book about a particular coach-it is a very appealing book to sport enthusiasts no matter their favorite sport. This book is also a great one to read when you are very busy due to the style of writing. You can easily pick the book up and read a little and then put it down. When you pick the book up again in a few days you can easily slide (baseball pun intended) back into the book.

[John Landes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not ground breaking, but enjoyed so many perspectives on leadership.

[Karen & Gerard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book went through various questions about succeeding in life and listed all the responses from each coach. It was interesting but somewhat repetitive in that many said basically the same thing. I enjoyed reading this book because it had a lot of good advice from a lot of successful coaches. The advice I remember most is to work harder than anyone else, never quit, always be honest, do your best, failure is opportunity for a comeback, and be passionate about what you do. All of them agreed that making a lot of money does not mean you are successful, but money can be a by-product of being successful. The last chapter included short summaries about each coach.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in philosophy, or who is looking for some advice or inspiration about success.

--Karen Arlettaz Zemek, author of "My Funny Dad, Harry"

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

While giving brief ideas of success and ways to improve character this book taught the valuable basics in order to succeed and to never give up. Not your average story with resourced quoted information slowed the pace of the read and found by picking up at any given section could be a valuable reference for grasping new ways of self-improvement.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books, you get what you want from it.

I loved the variety of coaches that spoke in this book. It was wonderful in that aspect.

It's also not unsurprising that all the coaches spoke on similar points. It's about hard work, being truthful to who you are and making the most of life. Those aren't any real secrets other then in how to stay motivated in that light.

[gosobooks.com · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book on coaches and their perspectives on what it means to be successful and how to achieve that in life. More of an anthology of coaching principles of these coaches from John Wooden, Red Auberch...Bill Walsh e.t.c

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting reading for college football fans, but come on, I could have grabbed a bunch of quotes from various interviews and pieced this together myself.