PositiveSports.net

Bring Your 'A' Game: A Young Athlete's Guide to Mental Toughness

Jennifer L. Etnier is professor of kinesiology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. A soccer player and former coach, she leads sport psychology seminars for the United States Soccer Federation and is a consultant to professional athletes. Of her 2009 book, Bring Your 'A' Game: A Young Athlete's Guide to Mental Toughness, Dr. Etnier says:

Mental training is just as important as physical training when it comes to success in sport. And like physical fitness, mental toughness is something that can be taught and learned. Yet many young athletes have not learned the psychological skills needed to develop their best game. This book was written specifically for young athletes interested in improving their performance and reaching their potential in sport.

The book contains practical advice for athletes through the high school level, as well as for coaches and parents. 

Click here to read a Q&A with Dr. Etnier and find more information on the book.

(Book Review) Carry the Rock:Race, Football, and the Soul of an American City

From Amazon.com:

 

In 1957, nine African American teenagers faced angry mobs and the resistance of a segregationist governor to claim their right to educational equality. The bravery of the Little Rock Nine, as they became known, captured the country’s imagination and made history but created deep scars in the community.

Jay Jennings, a veteran sportswriter and native son of Little Rock, returned to his hometown to take the pulse of the city and the school as the fiftieth anniversary of the integration fight approached. He found a compelling story in the school’s football team, where black and white students came together under longtime coach Bernie Cox, whose philosophy of discipline and responsibility and punishing brand of physical football know no color. A very private man, Cox nevertheless allowed Jennings full access to the team, from a preseason program in July through the Tigers’ final game in November.

In the season Jennings masterfully chronicles, the coach finds his ideas sorely tested in his attempts to unify the team, and the result is a story brimming with humor, compassion, frustration, and honesty. Carry the Rock tells the story of the dramatic ups and downs of a high school football season, and it reveals a city struggling with its legacy of racial tension and grappling with complex, subtle issues of contemporary segregation. What Friday Night Lights did for small-town Texas, Carry the Rock does for the urban south and for any place like Little Rock, where sports, race, and community intersect.

 

Read a review at the Wall St. Journal