7 basketball books for March Madness and beyond

As March Madness takes hold, it's worth remembering that the great tradition of college basketball has spawned some really good books. Here are excerpts from seven books by some of the biggest names – coaches and players – in the business.

1. "The One Day Contract: How to Add Value to Every Minute of Your Life”

By Rick Pitino and Eric Crawford

St. Martin’s Press

272 pages

(Besides taking Louisville to an NCAA title in 2013 and Kentucky to one in 1998, Rick Pitino has coached the NBA's Knicks and Celtics.) 

“Because I left [the University of Kentucky] when I did, after being on top for some great years, I had a good ending. Most Kentucky coaches have not. Adolph Rupp didn’t; he was in a fierce battle to keep coaching. Joe B. Hall retired under fire despite winning a national title and reaching three Final Fours. Eddie Sutton left in turmoil. Tubby Smith never got his just credit for the outstanding job he did. His major problem was winning the championship too soon. So for me, leaving Kentucky personally wasn’t a bad thing. I recognized I was falling into a trap with all that adulation; but I didn’t really understand completely the consequences until I failed with the Celtics. If I hadn’t left, I might not have learned that important lesson of humility."

1 of 7

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.