WARNING: This is not a goalkeeping book. From the best-selling author of Soccer iQ comes a book dedicated to teaching and organizing a back four. Coach Dan Blank led the Southeastern Conference's best defense at two different universities in consecutive years. It began with a handbook he created for his defenders that ensured everyone was on the same page. Shutout Pizza is a vastly expanded version of that handbook. It introduces the governing principles that guided the SEC's best defenses, and covers a broad spectrum of scenarios that commonly occur during matches. Shutout Pizza is packed with diagrams that will help the reader visualize the concepts discussed in the text, and includes several of most effective drills for training these concepts. This is an excellent book for coaches and players who want to defend more effectively.
An Amazon #1 Best-Seller! Named the #1 Soccer Book by Football.com. Named a Top 5 Book of the Year by the NSCAA Soccer Journal! Soccer iQ is the first book for soccer PLAYERS! In a world saturated with books about how to coach soccer, Dan Blank finally gives players a book on how to think it. Standing on two decades of collegiate coaching experience, Blank has catalogued soccer's most common mistakes and provides simple, connect-the-dots solutions to help players solve their soccer problems. Soccer IQ is soccer's first text book for players; an almanac of smarter soccer decisions intended to flatten out the learning curve. It covers everything from hunting rebounds to the value of the toe-ball; from playing in the rain to the world's dumbest foul. Blank tells his story from the familiar and humorous voice of a coach who has endured years of stress at the hands of his players. Written in plain-spoken language, Soccer IQ is an easy read and a quick-fix to the most common yet critically important soccer problems. Includes a bonus chapter on the college recruiting process. " Finally someone wrote this book! If every soccer player read Soccer IQ, every coach would be a lot happier." Mark Francis - Head Coach University of Kansas "Dan Blank has just written soccer's first definitive text book." Colin Carmichael - Head Coach Oklahoma State University "This book has immediately become required reading for my team. I'll take 30 copies." Steve Nugent - Head Coach UNC-Greensboro "Soccer IQ may the best practical soccer book I have ever read. There's no fluff. Just nuts and bolts principles that we teach every day. It'll solve a lot of your soccer problems." Steve Holeman - Head Coach University of Georgia
In this installment of the Soccer iQ series, college soccer coach and best-selling author, Dan Blank, educates coaches and players on the most effective ways to implement a high-pressure style of team defending. Nearly 80% of goals scored are the result of three or fewer passes, and more than half of all goals scored begin when a team wins possession of the ball in its attacking half of the field. The numbers clearly indicate a statistical advantage to winning the ball in the opponent’s end of the field, and that’s exactly what high pressure is designed to do. High pressure is perhaps the most misunderstood term in soccer’s vocabulary. There are countless coaches who want their teams to play high pressure, but many of them aren’t always quite so sure about what that means. They tend to translate ‘high pressure’ into ‘run around like you stole something until we score.’ They only extract the urgency of which the term implies without much understanding of the nuance that makes high pressure a formidable system of team defense. Those coaches understand that high pressure requires a high work rate, but they don’t understand the tactical savvy that can maximize the output of that work. As a result, their teams feature only the madness but not the method behind successful high pressure. High Pressure provides an easy-to-follow blueprint for coaches and players so they know not only what to do, but why they are doing it. In this book, Dan Blank clarifies the differences between high and low pressure and explains the big picture of high pressure defending. You will learn the roles of each position, the importance of restraining lines, and how to set up pressure funnels to win the ball in the attacking half. Coach Blank also details the telltale cues that signal a team to step up or back off its pressure, and much, much more. High pressure defending requires more than just hard work. It requires organization, communication and an indefatigable team spirit. This book will show you how to create and implement these elements to get a maximum return on your team’s effort.
POSSESSION is a book for coaches of all levels who want their teams to pass the ball and pass it well. It combines a thorough explanation of possession concepts with 30 practical possession exercises to help your team develop its ability to keep the ball. Easy-to-understand diagrams help you understand the layout and design of these exercises. More importantly, the exercises include explanations about the critical coaching points AND the most common mistakes the players will make when playing these exercises. These insightful tips give coaches a head start by showing you what to expect once an exercise begins, the mistakes to look for and the proper corrections to make.
This is what your coaches would have said to you if you were a boy, told through the story of a small-college soccer team that won more games than it ever had a right to win. It’s an inspiring and straightforward look at the qualities that define the most competitive females, and what separates the ones who get it from the ones who don't. Everything Your Coach Never Told You is the instruction manual for female athletes who want to do more than just play. It's for those girls who want to win, win big, and never apologize for it. It's the call-to-arms for competitive female athletes who dare to color outside of the lines. Not recommended for readers under the age of 13.
This classic abdominal course is back! The man who many feel began the abs craze, Doug Brolus, who authored the booklet, holds nothing back. Doug has been a lifelong natural bodybuilder who has trained diligently and has developed a world class set of abs that would make any bodybuilder, fitness enthusiast, or athlete, proud, and once again he shares his methods with you. It’s all there, diet, exercises, workout routines. Doug may not have invented the six pack, but he certainly perfected it.
"It's as if Dan was sitting right next to you with a dry erase board saying, 'See what I mean?' This is another must have book for the soccer lover." ~ Ray Leone, Head Coach, Harvard A follow-up to the Amazon #1 best-seller, Soccer iQ, Volume 2 is written in the same conversational and humorous tone as its predecessor. Volume 2 is an easy read that identifies more of the most common soccer mistakes and provides players with simple, connect-the-dots solutions that they can immediately implement into their games. It is another must-have book for any serious soccer player. "Soccer iQ Vol. 2 gives you way more than your money's worth." ~ Tony Amato - Head Coach, Arizona
In this riveting follow-up to the best-seller Everything Your Coach Never Told You Because You're a Girl, Coach Dan Blank takes aim at the warm and fuzzy double-standard facing those who coach female athletes, and reveals the philosophies and methods that sparked a culture of unapologetic competitiveness in a women’s college soccer team that won more games than it was ever supposed to win. In My Tribe is written specifically for coaches looking to develop a competitive culture within their teams, and recounts the author's experience coaching a group of rebellious over-achievers who became notorious for their commitment to extinguishing the spirit of their opponents. In My Tribe details Coach Blank’s unconventional approach to culture-building, from selecting captains and indoctrinating rookies, to aggression, accountability and self-governance. This book also includes a Tools of the Tribe section – specific exercises that helped to build a culture where teammates were ferociously loyal, where everyone was accountable, and where winning was the only acceptable outcome. Written in Blank’s familiar, pull-no-punches style, In My Tribe speaks directly to coaches who strive to build a competitive culture that teaches girls to win, win big, and to never, ever apologize for it.
This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.
Praise for Mind Gym "Believing in yourself is paramount to success for any athlete. Gary's lessons and David's writing provide examples of the importance of the mental game." --Ben Crenshaw, two-time Masters champion and former Ryder Cup captain "Mind Gym hits a home run. If you want to build mental muscle for the major leagues, read this book." --Ken Griffey Jr., Major League Baseball MVP "I read Mind Gym on my way to the Sydney Olympics and really got a lot out of it. Gary has important lessons to teach, and you'll find the exercises fun and beneficial." --Jason Kidd, NBA All-Star and Olympic gold-medal winner In Mind Gym, noted sports psychology consultant Gary Mack explains how your mind influences your performance on the field or on the court as much as your physical skill does, if not more so. Through forty accessible lessons and inspirational anecdotes from prominent athletes--many of whom he has worked with--you will learn the same techniques and exercises Mack uses to help elite athletes build mental "muscle." Mind Gym will give you the "head edge" over the competition.
