Here are 83 books that Free Play fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am the head coach of Excelsior Athletic Development Club. I set this up after working with professional sports teams and young international athletes for a decade. I saw how poorly prepared they were and how many dropped out of the sport. I wanted to do something better for my children and the local people that had the focus on development and support rather than the prevailing ‘win on Saturday’ at all costs mentality. Many good practitioners do this under the radar but are lost in the race to win medals and secure funding. I hope this list shows coaches there is a better way.
I was lucky enough to be taught by the authors when I was doing my MSc in sports coaching. Both brought years of practical experience to their lectures, and this is reflected in the book. It gives a good overview of children's physical, mental, and social development from pre-school to teenage years.
I found it clear and helpful, and it reminded me of what is best for each age/stage of children when coaching them. I like the practical tips and ‘things to avoid’ paragraphs. Writing this review made me want to go back and read it again!
An examination of the key issues in child sport from three perspectives - the coach, the parent, and the teacher - who between them are responsible for the attitudes and successes of the child athletes of today, who will become the adult elite athletes of tomorrow. The work explores a child's early foundations in exercise and sport, through primary school years, to secondary and beyond. There are tips on maximising your child's physical, motor, mental, emotional and social development, to ensure that they not only participate more fully in sporting activities, but also grow up to be fit, active and…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I am the head coach of Excelsior Athletic Development Club. I set this up after working with professional sports teams and young international athletes for a decade. I saw how poorly prepared they were and how many dropped out of the sport. I wanted to do something better for my children and the local people that had the focus on development and support rather than the prevailing ‘win on Saturday’ at all costs mentality. Many good practitioners do this under the radar but are lost in the race to win medals and secure funding. I hope this list shows coaches there is a better way.
The big yellow book on PE taught me so much about movement, lesson planning, and skill development. It was immaculately researched and dense with ideas, progressions, charts, and sample lesson plans. I have about fifty sections marked with sticky paper tabs.
Coaches who want to develop their athletes/players/students rather than cherry-pick the big kids need to know how to teach rather than just what to teach. This book is invaluable as a teaching resource.
I also loved the feel of the old hardback, brimming with knowledge.
I am the head coach of Excelsior Athletic Development Club. I set this up after working with professional sports teams and young international athletes for a decade. I saw how poorly prepared they were and how many dropped out of the sport. I wanted to do something better for my children and the local people that had the focus on development and support rather than the prevailing ‘win on Saturday’ at all costs mentality. Many good practitioners do this under the radar but are lost in the race to win medals and secure funding. I hope this list shows coaches there is a better way.
This book is aimed at sports coaches, with a general introduction and the first half of the book containing chapters on coaching theory and practice. These aspects are usually skimmed over in coaching courses, but the authors explain the theory and why it is important to understand before coaching. They write well, and each chapter is well laid out with graphics, photos, and sub-headings. I found it to be a useful reminder.
The second half contains chapters showing how this can be applied in different sports: striking, invasion games, racquet sports, and so on. I used a lot of their ideas, especially when designing sessions in sports in which I had less experience. The only frustration is watching my children being coached with mundane, poorly planned sessions, knowing that if the coaches read this book, things would improve!
Play Practice: Engaging and Developing Skilled Players, Second Edition, provides an alternative to traditional sport instruction. This innovative and authentic approach to teaching sports combines contemporary theory with the experience of practical and reflective work in real sport environments.
Coauthors Alan Launder and Wendy Piltz, both with wide-ranging experience as players, teachers, and coaches, expand and update the play practice approach they presented in the first edition and show how it can be used to help improve sport skills for players of all ages and abilities. This flexible model of sport pedagogy can be applied as a whole or one…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I am the head coach of Excelsior Athletic Development Club. I set this up after working with professional sports teams and young international athletes for a decade. I saw how poorly prepared they were and how many dropped out of the sport. I wanted to do something better for my children and the local people that had the focus on development and support rather than the prevailing ‘win on Saturday’ at all costs mentality. Many good practitioners do this under the radar but are lost in the race to win medals and secure funding. I hope this list shows coaches there is a better way.
I enjoyed sitting in several of Wade Gilbert’s presentations on coaching and chatting with him afterward. This book is a masterpiece of organization and layout aimed at sports coaches of all levels. There is more contained in this single volume than I learned in any coaching course, including my MSc!
My copy is well-thumbed, with dozens of notes in the margins where I keep thinking I need to incorporate the ideas into my coaching. I like the way it is laid out into different parts of the season to help the coach along their journey. It is not designed to be read in one sitting but to be worked through and changes made along the way.
Maximize the development of your athletes and team throughout the year, and just maybe win a postseason title in the process. Coaching Better Every Season: A Year-Round System for Athlete Development and Program Success presents a blueprint for such success, detailing proven coaching methods and practices in preseason, in-season, postseason, and off-season.
The Coach Doc, Dr. Wade Gilbert, shares his research-supported doses of advice that have helped coaches around the globe troubleshoot their ailing programs into title contenders. His field-tested yet innovative prescriptions and protocols for a more professional approach to coaching are sure to produce positive results both in…
Basketball has always been important to me. I was never very good at playing, but watching always moved me. I grew up worshipping Michael Jordan. I still remember seeing him play at the old Chicago Stadium, a monumental moment for a kid from the South. Basketball was always something that brought my friends and family together. Later, when I grew up, the camaraderie that came with experiencing the game dissipated, but my passion for it remained. It is an urban game associated with the working class and race in a way that none of our other major sports are.
As someone who spends most of his professional life studying Black history, the story of the Negro Leagues of professional basketball has been so important to me. Unlike the Negro Leagues of professional baseball, people don’t pay as much attention to basketball teams.
I love learning more about them. They often played games in nightclubs, bringing the stories into the heart of the Harlem Renaissance and tying them to the interwar culture of jazz and prohibition.
A groundbreaking, timely history of the largely unknown early days of Black basketball, bringing to life the trailblazing players, teams, and impresarios who made the game From the introduction of the game of basketball to Black communities on a wide scale in 1904 to the racial integration of the NBA in 1950, dozens of African American teams were founded and flourished. This period, known as the Black Fives Era (teams at the time were often called "fives"), was a time of pioneering players and managers. They battled discrimination and marginalization and created culturally rich, socially meaningful events. But despite headline-making…
I’m a lifelong basketball nut. I played through high school and college and have been a fan for as long as I can remember. After earning a PhD in History from Purdue University (Boiler Up!), I began to do research and write books about basketball. The books on this list are my favorite of the hundreds I’ve read on the topic and will give you a great start on learning about hoop's history!
Come for the artwork, stay for the quirky pop culture vibe. A sampling: there’s a cartoon drawing of Kurt Rambis having a tea party with Kevin McHale, a list arguing for inductees into a fictitious “Basketball Villain Hall of Fame,” and recommendations for pickup basketball game etiquette.
About every six months, I flip this open and read a couple of pages. It will always be on my desk!
A hardcover edition featuring new content for fans of the #1 New York Times bestseller
Any fan of Shea Serrano's unconventional, hilarious, and insightful writing will want to add this hardcover edition of his wildly popular Basketball (and Other Things) to their collection. The book will feature a new cover and two new chapters as well as removable art that showcases Serrano's trademark creativity and Arturo Torres's inimitable illustration style. First released as a paperback in 2017, the book went on to become a #1 New York Times bestseller. This edition will be a keepsake for Serrano fans and basketball…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I’m a lifelong basketball nut. I played through high school and college and have been a fan for as long as I can remember. After earning a PhD in History from Purdue University (Boiler Up!), I began to do research and write books about basketball. The books on this list are my favorite of the hundreds I’ve read on the topic and will give you a great start on learning about hoop's history!
I disagree with a lot of what Bill Simmons writes about in this book—and that is part of what makes it so wonderful! Simmons is a great storyteller, and this book feels like a bunch of basketball fans arguing about the best player or greatest team of all time.
This is the perfect book for someone who loves basketball and wants to learn more about the history of the game.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The wildly opinionated, thoroughly entertaining, and arguably definitive book on the past, present, and future of the NBA—from the founder of The Ringer and host of The Bill Simmons Podcast
“Enough provocative arguments to fuel barstool arguments far into the future.”—The Wall Street Journal
In The Book of Basketball, Bill Simmons opens—and then closes, once and for all—every major NBA debate, from the age-old question of who actually won the rivalry between Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain to the one about which team was truly the best of all time. Then he takes it…
When Jay Rosenstein and I started writing Boxed Out of the NBA, we thought we were writing a light collection of mostly humorous anecdotes from old ballplayers about playing in the minor league. But as we interviewed the old Eastern Leaguers and understood how the league gave a home to players who couldn’t make the NBA in large part because of race, we realized we had a much more important and socially significant story. It’s been our privilege to get to know these gentlemen, and feel like they have entrusted us to tell their story. We want to help them get the respect and recognition they deserve while they are still here to appreciate it.
I was on lunch break one day in 2010 walking through Union Station in DC when I saw a very tall, elderly Black man seated at a table in the B. Dalton bookstore with a stack of books in front of him.
I smiled at him and he back and me, and then the man with him said, “Do you know who this is?” I said no. The man said “It’s Earl Lloyd, the first African American to play in the NBA.” It occurred to me then, as it has many times since, that most Americans know about Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in professional baseball, but until that moment I didn’t know who did the same in basketball.
And it wasn’t until 10 years later, when I finally read the book that Mr. Lloyd graciously signed for me, that I wished I’d talked with him about his remarkable…
In 1950, future Hall of Famer Earl Lloyd became the first African American to play in a National Basketball Association game. Nicknamed ""Moonfixer"" in college, Lloyd led West Virginia State to two CIAA Conference and Tournament Championships and was named All-American twice. One of three African Americans to enter the NBA at that time, Lloyd played for the Washington Capitals, Syracuse Nationals, and Detroit Pistons before he retired in 1961.
Throughout his career, he quietly endured the overwhelming slights and exclusions that went with being black in America. Yet he has also lived to see basketball - a demonstration of…
Race has always been a primary issue in American life—and a test of how well our ideals as a nation sync up with reality. Because sports are a national passion, they have long put questions of inclusion on full display. It’s a fascinating, illuminating clash: the meritocracy of sports vs. the injustice of racism.
The National Basketball Association’s color barrier was not as long-lasting as Major League Baseball’s, but it was in place in 1950 when the more enlightened white owners and talented Black players shattered it.
Author Thomas recalls the economic justification for racism, with how one owner warned another owner that his “players will be 75% Black in five years and you’re not going to draw people.” Fears that racial fairness would ruin the NBA were ridiculous, of course. The first Black player drafted and the first to sign a contract were Harlem Globetrotters. Through deep research and interviews, Thomas explains in an engaging manner how the NBA was integrated.
Today, black players comprise more than eighty percent of the National Basketball Association's rosters, providing a strong and valued contribution to professional basketball. In the first half of the twentieth century, however, pro basketball was tainted by racism, as gifted African Americans were denied the opportunity to display their talents. A few managed to eke out a living playing for the New York Renaissance and Harlem Globetrotters, black professional teams that barnstormed widely, playing local teams or in short-lived leagues. Also, a sprinkling of black players were on integrated teams. Modern professional basketball began to take shape in the late…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
Basketball has always been important to me. I was never very good at playing, but watching always moved me. I grew up worshipping Michael Jordan. I still remember seeing him play at the old Chicago Stadium, a monumental moment for a kid from the South. Basketball was always something that brought my friends and family together. Later, when I grew up, the camaraderie that came with experiencing the game dissipated, but my passion for it remained. It is an urban game associated with the working class and race in a way that none of our other major sports are.
Halberstam tells the story of the 1979-1980 Portland Trailblazers season, but it does so much more. I read this book before reading George Plimpton or Gay Talese, so Halberstam's personal relationships with the team were my first exposure to that kind of sports journalism.
I love that he didn’t choose the team’s championship season but instead covered the team’s breakdown and dissolution. It gives the book so much more character and turns it away from traditionally triumphalist sports narratives.
A New York Times bestseller, David Halberstam's The Breaks of the Game focuses on one grim season (1979-80) in the life of the Bill Walton-led Portland Trail Blazers, a team that only three years before had been NBA champions. More than six years after his death David Halberstam remains one of this country's most respected journalists and revered authorities on American life and history in the years since WWII. A Pulitzer Prize-winner for his groundbreaking reporting on the Vietnam War, Halberstam wrote more than 20 books, almost all of them bestsellers. His work has stood the test of time and…
