I’m excited to announce that Book No. 2 in the Sports for the Soul series is here! This new book is all about GRIT. Good, old-fashioned, keep-moving-forward, never-back-down GRIT! Psychologists tell us that the “secret” to a successful and happy life, more than anything else, is something called GRIT. Defined as the willpower to persevere [...]
Darrin Donnelly
In my book, OLD SCHOOL GRIT, the main character is an archetypal “old school” basketball coach entering the final days of his long and storied coaching career. While his team tries to advance through the NCAA postseason tournament, he uses his last days as a coach to write his grandchildren letters revealing the rules for [...]
Mike Matheny, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, is always looking to learn more about what it takes to succeed—in sports and in life. A dedicated student of history’s greatest coaches, Matheny has also learned invaluable lessons from role models outside of sports. He once took the Cardinals players and coaches to visit the [...]
When John Wooden was growing up in the 1920s, one of the hardest obstacles he faced was when his father lost their family farm. In a perfect storm of negative events, a bad vaccination killed their hogs and a drought stunted their crops. This was a time before there was insurance for such things and [...]
Bobby Bowden is one of the winningest coaches in college football history. In his 44 seasons as a head coach, Bowden won two national championships, 12 conference championships, three national Coach of the Year awards, and nearly 400 games. When this legendary coach’s two sons, Terry and Tommy, became head coaches, Bobby sent them a [...]
Joe Torre was a nine-time All-Star as a baseball player and he won four World Series championships as a manager. Throughout his storied career, Torre was known for his calm and stoic demeanor in the face of intense situations. While Torre admits that what he showed on the outside purposely hid the anxiety he was [...]
