Hal Mumme » Reviews

Sports For Dorks: College Football

admin — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:18:02 +0000

By: Mike Leach & Ferhat Guven

Sports Dorks CFB, LLC (2011)

REVIEWS

“What do you get when you combine an astrophysicist, a world champion backgammon player, some respected economists and a few other brilliant minds? This fascinating book and the reason I’m hoping to watch Mike Leach on Saturdays instead of coach against him on Sundays.” -REX RYAN, Head Football Coach, New York Jets

“Sports for Dorks is an exciting collection of ideas and trends shaping the world of college football. Mike Leach proves, once again, that he is a step ahead of the rest.” -GIL BRANDT, former Vice President of player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys, current Senior Analyst for NFL.com

“One man’s dork is another man’s intellectually curious, envelope pushing pioneer. Mike Leach is the most original thinker I’ve met in three decades as a sportswriter. With this provocative, nourishing, all-you-can-eat buffet of intriguing ideas, Leach reminds us why football needs him more than he needs football.” - AUSTIN MURPHY, senior writer, Sports Illustrated

ABOUT SPORTS FOR DORKS

Sports for Dorks College Football provides ground-breaking, innovative content to readers seeking unique insights into the world of college football.

Co-edited by National Coach of the Year Mike Leach and Ferhat Guven, Sports for Dorks aims to address the information needs of college football fans who seek a deeper understanding about the game and its intricacies.

Sports for Dorks looks inside the mind of Mike Leach, asks why football coaches deserve to be paid more than the governors of their state, offers a solution that would make the BCS system actually work, and examines the rise of college football in Great Britain, of all places.

Readers learn why going for it on fourth down generates wins and why punting is, in most cases, a fool’s errand. The book also reveals how the no-huddle offense makes conventional defensive statistics irrelevant, why Davids pick on Goliaths, and how teams can improve recruiting outcomes “simply” by looking a prospect in the eye.

Intriguing, complex, cutting-edge, and provocative, this unique compilation is one of the smartest sports books to hit the market this year.

Swing Your Sword

admin — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 19:05:16 +0000

Swing Your Sword

By: Mike Leach and Bruce Feldman

Diversion Publishing (2011)

Swing Your Sword is a must read for all “Air Raid” fans. Mike tells his most compelling story of coaching travels and his rise through the ranks with his usual understated humor. I particularly enjoy the stories from his early years in law school. This book is highly recommended!

Blood, Sweat and Chalk by Tim Layden

admin — Thu, 26 May 2011 15:37:04 +0000

The modern game of football is filled with plays and formations with names like the Counter Trey, the Wildcat, the Zone Blitz and the Cover Two. They have become part of the sport’s vernacular, and yet for many fans they remain just names, often confusing ones. To rectify that, Tim Layden has drilled deep into the core of the game to reveal not only how these chalkboard X’s and O’s really work on the field, but also where they came from and who dreamed them up.

These playbook schemes, many of them illuminated by diagrams, bear the insignia of some of the game’s great innovators, men like Vince Lombardi, Don Coryell, Tom Osborne, Bill Walsh, Tony Dungy, Buddy Ryan and both Hal Mumme and Joe Lee Dunn. But football has also been radically altered by the ingenious work of men with more obscure names, like Tiger Ellison, Emory Bellard and Mouse Davis.

In Blood, Sweat and Chalk, Layden takes readers into the meeting rooms-and in some cases the living rooms-where the game’s most significant ideas were hatched. He goes to the coaches and to the players who inspired them, and lets them tell their stories. In candid conversations with some of football’s most intriguing characters, Layden provides a fascinating guide to the game, helping fans to better see the subtleties of America’s favorite sport.

The game of football is cyclical. Coaches today are getting too much credit for formations and offenses that were dreamed up years ago. Tim Layden does a wonderful job of tracing the origin of those ideas in Blood, Sweat and Chalk.
- Urban Meyer, Head Football Coach, University of Florida

Tim Layden explores the minds and ambitions of the game’s formative thinkers. Serious students of football must have this on their bookshelves!
- Steve Sabol, President, NFL Films

Blood, Sweat and Chalk is a must-read for all football aficionados. I, of course, especially enjoyed reading about the great Don Coryell, a true innovator in the game we all love. His ideas changed football-and this book shows you how.
- Dan Fouts, Hall of Fame Quarterback, San Diego Chargers

Tim has created a playbook that’s instructional, a history book that’s fascinating and a football bible that’s a must-read for anybody who loves the game. All in one.
- Dan Patrick, Host, NBC’s Football Night in America

Tim Layden does a great job telling the story of the people and the ideas that had a major impact on the game of football as we know it.
- Mack Brown, Head Football Coach, University of Texas

This is one of the most important sports books of our generation-and a lot of fun too. The formations and philosophies that win Super Bowls and national titles are made crystal clear. If you live for fall weekends, this is your book.
- Peter King, Author, Monday Morning Quarterback

(Provided by Amazon Books 2011)

Wishbone Wisdom by: Al Pickett as told to by Emory Bellard

admin — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 21:17:46 +0000

Had a chance to attend a Texas A&M luncheon in which Emory Ballard was the guest speaker. Was a great opportunity to listen to an innovator of the game and a great Texas Coach.

This book is a great read and an important one for many coaches to read. A quick read the book discusses the inception of the great wishbone offense in the late 1960’s. Always an enjoyment to understand how this game has developed and changed over the last hundred years.

Book Review: The Real All Americans by Sally Jenkins

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:26:03 +0000

If you love football and American History you will do like I did and read this. A wonderful book about the early beginnings of football and will only take a short amount of time to read. It reads like a novel and details Pop Warner’s days at Carlisle Indian School where Jim Thorpe became famous. For us coaches much of modern offense was also conceived in this time frame and at a school not talked about often. A must read for all aspiring young coaches.

Life Lessons of a Legend by Captain Tony Tarracino & Brad Manard

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:56:25 +0000

Mike Leach sent me this book. In 1990 Mike and I took a recruiting trip for Iowa Wesleyan College, we went to Florida and got several good players including a kicker from Key West. Our first trip to Key West so we go to Captain Tony’s Saloon one night and Mike and I end up meeting Captain Tony himself. Now this is a big deal for Jimmy Buffett fans. The song “Last Mango in Paris” is about the Captain.

The book is about Key West colorful former mayor and is well worth the time and money if you are a Buffett fan, Key West tourist, Red Raider fan, pirate, old movie fan or McMurry Indian in need of a laugh. Very entertaining although the first two chapters I found tedious but probably only because I know a lot of excitement was coming. Captain Tony led a very colorful life and I recommend this book highly.

Oh yea the co-author Brad Manard is a school superintendent from Iowa.

Book Review: Bear – The Hard Life and Good Times of Alabama’s Coach Bryant

admin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:40:41 +0000

This is an older book first published in 1974 by Sports Illustrated. Personally this is one of my favorite books about a high profile coach in our business. As a coach early in my career I asked my father what would be a great book to read to give me insight into the crazy football profession. His answer was this book on Bear Bryant written by the man himself.

The book not only talks about football but the path that delivered Coach Bryant from Moro Bottom, Arkansas to the sport and some amazing stories that he choose to share with us. Everyone knows the success and the value that Coach Bryant had on the game of football but the inside stories will provide entertainment value to the reader.

Chapter Eight – “The first thing a football coach needs when he is starting out is a wife who is willing to put up with a whole lot of neglect. The second thing is at least a five year contract. He needs five years so he can set up his program and surround himself with people who are winners, people who believe in what he is trying to do. And so he can weed out the hangers-on and the politicians who can’t help.”

Well said back in the early 1970’s and could not be truer in today’s football world. Bear’s book is filled with stories from early life in Arkansas, to the Bluegrass state of Kentucky and on to the Crimson Tide. Of course when Coach Mumme was at Kentucky there was always the talk of how we ran off Bear Bryant after he won the SEC championship and so did Rupp (basketball coach). How you ask? They gave Rupp a Cadillac with whitewall tires and Bear got a cigarette lighter! Straight from the book a story that had been told in Lexington was put to paper in Bear’s book.

I could go on and on and to this day this book sits on the shelf in my office. Now to find this book may take a little work. The first place to look is on Amazon where I found mine for $3.99. Good Luck and happy reading.

Book Review: “Play the Next Play” by June Mumme

admin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:24:33 +0000

This is a biography about the Mumme Family and a wife/mother’s triumph over breast cancer. Cancer is a devastating and severe disease that affects families across the nation in some capacity. Breast Cancer cases will reach almost 200,000 this year, however due to awareness and medical advancements the mortality rate is declining. June Mumme is a survivor and now a huge advocate for cancer research. In the past two seasons at New Mexico State University, June has helped implement the “Tough Enough to Wear Pink” drive. Thru her efforts in the community and state over $700,000 was raised to go toward breast cancer research. The Tough Enough to Wear Pink was also incorporated into the football games where players and coaches wear pink during the game to support the cause.

So as our first review we spotlight June Mumme’s accomplishments and honor all of those who have lost loved ones to this terrible disease.