Eight must-read books for coaches & administrators in 2025

Books are great resources to teach coaches and athletic administrators about philosophy, leadership, and team building. We regularly speak with athletic administrators who assign books to their coaching staff or coaches who require their captains to read about becoming role models.

But what books are best?

Below is a synopsis of the 8 book recommendations.

• The Leadership Secrets of Nick Saba: How Alabama’s Coach Became the Greatest Ever

  In The Leadership Secrets of Nick Saban, senior sports editor and SEC Insider for Alabama Media Group, John Talty, highlights the keys to Saban’s winning strategy and offers readers a blueprint for paving their own paths to success using the esteemed coach’s leadership lessons.

  Through original interviews and never-before-heard anecdotes, Talty charts Saban’s journey to college football’s mountaintop and reveals some of the magic behind what keeps him atop it. You’ll get an inside look at what it’s like to work or play for Coach Saban, including the mottos and motivation strategies he uses to inspire his organization.

• The Way of a Champion: Pain, Persistence, and the Path Forward

  Long before Paul Rabil had become lacrosse’s most acclaimed player, the sport’s first million-dollar man, and the co-founder of the Premier Lacrosse League, he always strove for greatness.

  The Way of The Champion is the synthesis of everything Rabil learned on his path to becoming one of the greatest lacrosse players of all time. But this is not merely a sports book. It is a guide to embodying a champion’s mindset — in sports, in business, and in relationships.

• Draft Day: How Hockey Teams Pick Winners or Get Left Behind

  Doug MacLean, former NHL coach, general manager, team president, and one of the game’s biggest personalities, reveals how teams build for greatness—or fail to—on hockey’s most anticipated day. A Moneyball for hockey.

  Entertaining and informative, with never-before-told details from some of the biggest moments in NHL history, Draft Day is for every hockey fan who wonders how their team develops that hard-to-define winning chemistry, year after year.

• Run to the Road: Coaching to Overcome Fear

  Run to the Roar, written by Paul Assaiante and James Zug, is the story of a coach who succeeds in recruiting young men from around the world, getting them to work as a team, managing personalities, calming egos, and encouraging daily effort and focus under pressure.

  The focus of the book is a single match-Trinity vs. Princeton at the 2009 national championships. Within this framework, we learn how Assaiante drives his players to achieve unparalleled success.

• Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’tToo many workplaces are driven by cynicism, paranoia, and self-interest. But the best ones foster trust and cooperation because their leaders build what Sinek calls a “Circle of Safety” that separates the security inside the team from the challenges outside.

  Sinek illustrates his ideas with fascinating true stories that range from the military to big business, from government to investment banking.

• Win Forever: Live, Work, & Play Like a ChampionPete Carroll is one of college football’s most successful coaches. While his book has plenty of behind-the-scenes stories featuring some of the most famous names in sports, it’s really about Carroll’s approach to leadership, whether he’s organizing anti-gang rallies or chatting with at-risk youth in LA’s inner city neighborhoods. Win Forever holds valuable insight for coaches, executives, teachers, and leaders of all kinds.

  » ALSO SEE: 4 traits developed through football

• The Mindful Athlete: Secrets to Pure Performance

  Michael Jordan and countless other NBA stars credit George Mumford with transforming their game. A widely respected public speaker and coach, Mumford shares his story and strategies in The Mindful Athlete. His proven techniques transform the performance of anyone with a goal, be they an Olympian, weekend warrior, executive, hacker, or artist.

• Athletic Director’s Survival Guide
  For junior and senior high school athletic directors and assistant administrators, this practical resource written by Mike Koehler and Nancy Giebel provides hundreds of tested strategies and reproducible materials to help increase visibility and build leadership skills.

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