This Week eBA Bestseller:
A Game Plan for Life:
The Power of Mentoring
by John Wooden and Don Yeager
with forewords by John Maxwell
John Wooden’s legacy as the best basketball coach of all time results not only from his unparalleled championship-winning record but also from his brilliance as a tactician and teacher.
You might say that legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden mentored a generation. During his three-decade career, he instilled life-changing lessons in scores of athletes and fellow coaches.
In this keepsake book, Wooden explains how the power of mentoring rightly applied can foster values even as it aids with success. He movingly pays tribute to the mixed batch of mentors who most shaped his own life: his college coach, his beloved wife, Nellie, Abraham Lincoln, and Mother Teresa.
In the second half of the book, grateful students including Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar turn the tables on him, reflecting on what "Old John" has taught them.
Click on 'Read more...' to see the 3 videos !
After eight books, many of them bestsellers, A Game Plan for Life is the one closest to John Wooden’s heart: a moving and inspirational guide to the power of mentorship. The first half focuses on the people who helped foster the values that carried Wooden through an incredibly successful and famously principled career, including his college coach, his wife, Abraham Lincoln, and Mother Teresa.
The second half is built around interviews with some of the many people he mentored over the years, including Kareem Abdul- Jabbar, Bill Walton, fellow coaches, family members, and even a middle school coach in Canada.
Their testimony takes readers inside the lessons Wooden taught to generations of players, bringing out the very best in them not just as athletes but as human beings. In all, it’s an inspiring primer on how to achieve success without sacrificing principles, and on how to build one of the most productive and rewarding relationships available to any athlete, businessperson, teacher, or parent: that of mentor and protégé.
"... Coach John Wooden, who has served as a mentor to so many through his timeless teaching, turns 99 years young this month. Coach Wooden, selected by his peers as the Greatest Coach of All Time in a recent survey by The Sporting News, encourages all of us to never stop learning and to teach others with that same passion.
As Coach celebrates another birthday in a life well lived, please celebrate with him and send him your best.
Don Yaeger, Co-Author of A Game Plan for Life
The Power of Mentoring with John Wooden
"... I can't remember where I read this, but the exercise is to recall the last five Superbowl winners. Now recall five of your teachers who made a positive impact on you. The point being that it's the people in your life that make the dramatic difference.
That's the premise of the legendary John Wooden's latest book A Game Plan For Life. While the book will not win any Pulitzer prizes, it is a refreshingly honest book about the people who made and impression on John and, in turn, the people that he helped.
For example, John writes of drawing strength from Mother Teresa's admission that she questioned her faith in God. To him it made his own shortcomings more tenable. More often than not business books are written from the perspective of the infallible (Giuliani, Welch) which implies imperfection on the part of the reader; these guys didn't have any self-doubt so you're not as good since you do.
Again, the books not going to change the course of human history, but for those looking for a good airplane book this one's not bad. ..."
Greg Eisenbach ~ Grassroots Innovation
|
... Buy SAFELY
|
ONLY at ...
"... Coach Wooden is the most respected mentor I’ve ever met. He’s had a powerful impact on my life and now, through this book, he’ll touch you as well. Get ready for a life-changing experience. ..."
Pat Williams, Sr. Vice President, Orlando Magic, author of Extreme Dreams Depend on Teams
"... All of us need to read John Wooden’s tips on mentoring and build them into our lives. There is no better person to give you A Game Plan for Life. ..."
Mike Krzyzewski, Duke University basketball coach
"... There is no coach or former coach, in the U.S.A., more admired by his peers than John Wooden. When someone asks me who is the best athletic coach ever, my vote is John Wooden. A Game Plan for Life speaks loudly about the importance of learning and teaching for a lifetime. Coach Wooden’s message is one reason I keep coaching! ..."
Bobby Bowden, Head Football Coach, Florida State University
"... My time learning from Coach Wooden — sitting and asking him questions, soaking up his answers—has provided some of the most significant lessons in my life. Any way that you can be mentored by a giant like him, including reading A Game Plan for Life, will provide great lessons for you, too. ..."
Pat Summitt, Women’s Basketball Coach, University of Tennessee
"... Few coaches have effected their player’s lives so fully as John Wooden, so here’s a natural question: Who mentored the mentor? Well, John Wooden is glad we asked… ..."
Bob Costas
"... Who better to learn you all his experiences than John Wooden? This is a positively great book by a great man. ..."
Yogi Berra
"... Any success I’ve had as a parent is the result of listening to Coach Wooden expand on the lessons I learned from my own parents. ..."”
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
"... Normally, I have the following sentiment about so-called "self-help" or "motivational" books: If you're reading one, your helper is a moron. And if you need motivation, you're probably not going to find it in a book.
Yet here I am, violating my own rules when it comes to this genre. Not only was I inspired and motivated by Wooden’s words, but I loved the book.
That might be because it wasn't written from the perspective of some self-righteous-psychobabbling zealot.
Instead, it comes from the mind of the best basketball coach of all time (10 national championships can't be wrong). Wooden explains the power of mentoring, and how it is the responsibility and duty of any mentor to open himself up honestly and courageously.
Wooden certainly takes his own advice, laying a foundation of knowledge and strategy to the lucky reader.
At UConn, my position coach, Hank Hughes, would talk -- somewhat in awe -- of Wooden and how he made his players pay attention to even the smallest of details.
Hughes’ favorite story was how Wooden taught his team, from freshman to senior, how to put on socks and tie their shoes before every season. At the time, I laughed at my coach for how much respect he showed Coach Wooden, but after reading this book, I now understand.
This was, without a doubt, a sports lover’s dream read, and for anyone searching for a little direction, there is no one man more qualified to impart knowledge, insight and experience than the Wizard of Westwood, John Wooden. ..." Rob Lunn graduated from the University of Connecticut at NESN.com
About the Authors
John Wooden is simply the most successful basketball coach in the history of the sport. In his 40 years as a head coach, Wooden compiled an unparalleled 885-203 overall career win-loss record (.813).
Wooden’s UCLA teams registered 620 wins and only 147 losses, won a record 10 NCAA championships, and achieved one of the most amazing winning streaks in all of sports with 38 straight NCAA tournament victories.
His Bruin teams also set the all-time NCAA record by winning 88 straight games over four seasons, including consecutive 30-0 seasons in 1971-72 and 1972-73.
As a high school basketball player at Martinsville, Indiana, Wooden won all-state honors three consecutive years. At Purdue University, he won letters in basketball and baseball his freshman year and later earned All-American honors as a guard on the basketball team from 1930 to 1932.
He captained Purdue’s basketball teams of 1931 and 1932 and led the Boilermakers to two Big Ten titles and the 1932 national championship.
Wooden was the first person to be inducted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and coach. In 1999, ESPN named Wooden the Greatest Basketball Coach of All Time.
He was also named The Sporting News Sports Man of the Year in 1970 and Sports Illustrated Sports Man of the year in 1973.
Don Yaeger is the author or coauthor of sixteen books, including Never Die Easy, with Walter Payton, and Running for My Life, with Warrick Dunn.
After his playing career, Nater served as athletic director for 9 years at Christian Heritage College, where he also coached the basketball team to a national title. Currently, Nater is an assistant sporting goods buyer for Costco Wholesale, and he resides in the small town of Enumclaw, Washington, with his wife, Marlene.
About the Contents
Mr. Wooden, who is ninety-nine, divides the book between seven people who mentored him, and seven people he mentored.
In the section about his mentors, Mr. Wooden points beyond himself to two mentors, Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa, vast expanses of character capable of mentoring anyone.
This is how John Wooden begins the book: "Over the years, I have written books about basketball, about leadership, about coaching, and about my life. But this may well be my most important work.
While I made my living as a coach, I have lived my life to be a mentor - and to be mentored! - constantly. I think he's right that this is his greatest work, not because of the book, but because of his life.
Two stories about his life: When Mr. Wooden was ninety-seven, his walker caught on his bathroom rug and he fell, breaking his wrist and collarbone.
His wife Nellie had made him promise to wear an emergency bracelet, but as Mr. Wooden says, she did not make him promise to push the button. Wooden regained consciousness on the bathroom floor. Pushing the button meant waking up his family.
He waited for his friend to come at the regular time to take him for breakfast. Fourteen hours after the fall, sitting up in his hospital bed he eagerly ate chicken soup while watching a John Wayne movie.
Earlier this year, a non-Division 1 women's college basketball team, in California for a tournament, sought to meet him, unbeknownst to Mr. Wooden, at the diner where he eats breakfast everyday. The team arrived late, and inquiring, was told Mr. Wooden had hurried home. I knew Mr. Wooden was writing this book, and I like to think of the ninety-nine year-old coach hurrying home to work on it.
But what I like to think of more is what actually happened: Mr. Wooden was phoned and invited the whole team to the tiny starter condo he has continued to live in since Nellie died. They spent the day talking and eating his favorite candy from childhood that Mr. Wooden still gets from Martinsville, Indiana. And they were all made to feel as if they were the ones doing him the favor.
In the chapter 'My Beloved Nellie' wooden shares his deep love for his first and only loving partner, wife and confidante. "She was my strength and encouragement, my comfort and my support – she taught me so much about love."
John Wooden, the icon, expresses his hu-man-ity over his accomplishments. A man who loved first and most, Nellie, and secondarily those with whom he had meaningful contact.
His father Joshua, as Wooden explains in Chapter 2, was his first mentor who set him on the path to human greatness.
Dad Joshua’s seven rules for living:
1. Be true to yourself.
2. Make each day your masterpiece.
3. Help others.
4. Drink deeply from good books.
5. Make friendship a fine art.
6. Build a shelter against a rainy day.
7. Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.
• Authors: John Wooden and Don Yeager with forewords by John Maxwell
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of Pages: 208 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc USA
• Publishing Date: October 13, 2009)
• Language: English
|
... more
|
in the Books & DVD Sections of the ...
eBA Portal, the eBA Blogs, the eBA Store, and at the eBA Library