Eleven Rings (Phil Jackson and Phil Delehanty)

Having played basketball for the half my life my opinion on a book about potentially the greatest basketball coach of all time might be a tiny bit biased. Basketball isn’t the most popular sport in the UK so my original thought was many average Joe’s might not relate. However, since reading this book Netflix released “The Last Dance” which is a show on the great Chicago Bulls teams from the 1990’s lead by Michael Jordan and coached by Phil Jackson who wrote this book. The documentary even has a 95% review on rotten tomatoes (You need to watch this; 10 episodes isn’t too big to binge). I now have suspicions that interest in this book may have increased.  

 For those of you who don’t know much about basketball Phil Jackson has won more championships than any coach in the history of professional sports (he also has two from his playing days). However, he did have the pleasure of building his teams around Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant; two players in the conversation for the greatest to ever do it. Having coached a youth team myself for the past couple of years I have asked myself “Was Phil Jackson that good of a coach or was he just lucky enough to have the best players on his team?”. Once players make the NBA they are already incredibly gifted basketball players so what can a coach at this level really teach them? Apparently, the answer is a lot.

In my limited experience coaching I have quickly learnt that the most talented players are often the most frustrating. They just don’t seem to understand why the rest of the players on the team can’t do what they can, and this results in big egos and bad attitudes. This book focuses on team chemistry and on how to get the most talented players in the world to buy into a philosophy of we not me. Without giving too much away Phil Jackson is a very spiritual man who has used everything from native American philosophy to zen meditation. I wonder if this would work on a group of teenagers from a small town in North Wales? Chapters such as “ONE BREATH, ONE MIND”, “A QUESTION OF CHARACTER” and “CHOP WOOD, CARRY WOOD” give you an insight into the mind of one of the most successful coaches going and I found it truly eye opening. The chapter I enjoyed most was “THE JOY OF DOING NOTHING”. A brief overview is that sometimes you have to let people solve the problem themselves as this facilitates learning and gives them valuable experience in uncomfortable situations.

This book was a masterpiece. The beauty of it being the many lessons you learn in it can be applied to everyday life. Whether it’s a sports team full of egos, a working environment where people are chasing their own agendas or when your average day has become a bit too much and you need some alone time. I highly recommend.

9.5/10.

Behind the Mask: My Autobiography (Tyson Fury)

Most males I know in their twenties like sports, I am no exception. I even spent three years and thousands of pounds doing a Sports Science degree (still not the England manager) yet when it comes to boxing, I know more about rocky road than I do Rocky Balboa. Naturally, when there’s a big fight on like Haye versus Bellew I will watch, but that’s more as an excuse to go the pub with my friends who after their first pint magically turn into world-class boxing pundits. The knowledge I had on Fury prior to reading was he is a highly outspoken man who won some belts before he disappeared from the scene through personal issues. I didn’t like Tyson Fury before I read this book, I thought he was a cock. I only read it because my brother had it and two weeks into lockdown a distraction was needed.

One thing that the book showed me is that boxing is not fair. Your talent isn’t what gets you to the top like in other sports. It is who you have in your corner, promoting you, getting you the big fights to help you build a name for yourself. Tyson Fury in his young career was often overlooked despite his talent. This he goes on to say is essentially why he puts on the mask of this brash, cocky heavyweight. It’s a show, to help him build his name and his brand (which you could say worked since his book is selling for £20). Most athletes at the top of such sports are the same. Look at Connor McGregor. Look at Muhammed Ali. He said “I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was” and he’s a sporting hero. Yet when Fury talks like this people including myself see him as the villain. This could be because of the increasing popularity of the softer-spoken Anthony Joshua.

This book was highly compelling. I read it in just a couple of days and that was because the more I learnt about Tyson’s battles out of the ring the more I respected what he did in it. The man had everything. He was the unified heavyweight world champion, was married to a loving wife and owned the houses and cars average Joe’s can only dream of. Despite this, he was in a dark place which is something I can relate to on a much smaller scale. It just shows that no matter who you are and what you have mental health can fuck you in ways you wouldn’t believe. This is why after reading this book I have the utmost respect for Tyson Fury. It is hard to describe his struggles without ruining the book, hence the vague description. All I can say is if you read this book you will likely have a newfound respect for a man who is going to be in the headlines for years to come (for all of the right reasons).

8.0/10.

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE (Phil Knight)

Just do it. We have all heard this phrase. What average Joe didn’t ask their parents for a pair of Nike football boots to look the part in PE? Saying that I am an adult now and my most recent google search is “cheap Nike trainers". Playing basketball and football throughout high school and university resulted in a minor obsession with the world-famous athletic company and that is why I originally bought this book. However, upon reading it I must admit it had me hooked for completely different reasons.

Before reading this book I will confess my knowledge of Nike as a company was very small. I knew many of their sponsored athletes but I had never looked into the people behind the business. I never knew about Phil Knight. I kind of expected that the founder of the world-famous swoosh would have been a world-beating athlete or at least the son a millionaire. To say I was wrong would be an understatement. Phil Knight did run track at the university ay Oregon for coach Bill Bowerman (a big name in the world of athletics) but he was far from a household name. Also, the handout he received from his father from which he built an empire was $50. That’s less than the price of a pair of a Nikes.

I loved this book and I think it’s the fact that Phil Knight seemed to me to be an average Joe. At the start of this book Mr Knight is 24 years old which is the age I am writing this. Being 24 is no easy task. Some of my friends are married with a house and kids, some of them are travelling the world (or at least they were before COVID-19) and some of them live at home working part time on the weekends. The standards you compare yourself to at age 24 in this social media driven climate are ridiculous. In fact, at this point I am not even sure what the standard is? The beauty of this book is that Phil Knight didn’t have an advantage, yet he still managed to meet his goals. All he wanted to do aged 24 was travel (just like many of us) which isnt’t exactly what you expect a man worth 35.2 Billion USD to be doing in his early twenties. At 24 he could have been any of us.

This book tells you of the struggles Phil Knight went through, the numerous times he managed to make things work despite not having the money in his account, the shoes in his warehouse or the support that other companies had promised him he would have.

Are you ready for an extremely cringe comment that I can’t believe I am going to write? This book left me with an overwhelming feeling that if you have a goal then throw yourself into it completely and you will appreciate the outcome no matter what it is. Buy this book. Just do it.

10/10

Make Your Bed (William H. McRaven)

Make your bed is a book about the little things in which can change your life and “maybe the world”. The book is based on a speech given by Admiral William H. McRaven in 2014 which simply stated that by making your bed every day you will have accomplished your first goal and that this will lead to you accomplishing many more goals. A video of this speech actually went viral and being the kind of guy who spends far too much time on their phone I first saw it a few years ago and I must admit that the video was very motivational. I am pretty sure it even motivated me to make my bed for maybe a week or two.

When a friend first told me they had bought the book I instantly remembered the video and had hoped that the book would be as motivational and uplifting so instantly went and bought it. I hadn’t looked the book up online I just put it in my basket and clicked “pay now”. Upon its arrival, I was very surprised at the size of the book and how this great navy seal could give his 10 life lessons in as little as 144 pages, especially as a considerable amount was simply just a transcript of the original speech. I must have been very bored that night as I had the whole book finished from front to back in under three hours including the obligatory breaks to check my Instagram feed.

To give credit where it is due the overall tone of the book was one of an inspiring nature and some of the life lessons made me think and gave me a short-term sense of purpose of which I was looking for. Despite the positive notions it often left me wanting more. It was essentially ten pages per life lesson and these would often include multiple stories which weren’t expanded on in great deal.

The best chapter and lesson was by far “start your day with a task completed” which was the chapter mainly covered in the speech delivered by the Navy Seal. It gives you as the reader a simple task which you can complete at home, giving you a sense of accomplishment which seems to be the overall aim of the book. This chapter made me feel good. Other chapters were a little bit too cliché and left me thinking “well no shit”. Chapters such as “Never ever quit” were filled with stories of these courageous men in wars such as Afghanistan never losing hope and fighting no matter the odds. These chapters were a lot harder to associate with. That being said, I did pass the book on to my mother as it is a short and simple read which has the potential to be life-changing for some people, especially during the current climate. Unfortunately for an Average Joe like me,

I finished the book less motivated than when I had watched the video.

7.0/10.

If you want to watch the video here is a link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sK3wJAxGfs