Walking off the court or field for the last time, whether you're a high school athlete or a professional, can be a traumatic experience. You go from a world where sports takes up most of your time and thoughts to a place where you are going to be assessed and measured on a set of skills you may not have developed yet. Yet the skills you developed as an athlete-perseverance, being a team player, showing up on time, putting on a game face-can get you through the process of figuring out a game plan for the rest of your life. This book isn't just for athletes, but for anyone going through any major transition, from being a stay-at-home parent headed back into the work force, to changing jobs or careers, to life changes like divorce or losing a parent. The principles presented here can guide you through all kinds of transition. Leonard Wheeler loved playing professional football, but he knew that his football career wouldn't last forever. He did all he could to prepare for the day when he could no longer play. Even so, when his career-ending injury happened, he struggled. After learning from his own mistakes, he developed winning techniques to help others find their path beyond the locker room. This book also features leadership and transition advice from a variety of NFL, NBA, WNBA executives and former players, including Dale Davis, Eugene Robinson, Charlotte Smith, Troy Vincent, Andre Collins, Tracy Perlman, Felicia Hall Allen, and Hardy Nickerson. Former NFL player Leonard Wheeler has been motivating athletes, executives, and major corporations around the world for fifteen years. He has served organizations including the NBA, Capital One, MasterCard, and the USO as a dynamic speaker and executive coach. He is an entrepreneur and an active Regional Director for the NFL.

One of the significant benefits of participation in any athletic program is the life lessons of lasting value that can be learned. In this emblem book, Bret Hall, a soccer player, and Brian Oxley, a wrestler, have teamed up to share some of the life lessons they have learned through their experiences in the athletic arena. While these lessons were learned through the grit and sweat of tough athletic competition, their impact goes far beyond the locker room. In fact, they even reach beyond the physical realm into the moral and spiritual realm, penetrating deep into the soul.

NFL head coach Mike Smith lead one of the most remarkable turnarounds in NFL history. In the season prior to his arrival in 2008, the Atlanta Falcons had a 4–12 record and the franchise had never before achieved back-to-back winning seasons. Under Smith’s leadership, the Falcons earned an 11–5 record in his first season and would go on to become perennial playoff and Super Bowl contenders earning Smith AP Coach of year in 2008 and voted Coach of Year by his peers in 2008, 2010 and 2012. You Win in the Locker Room First draws on the extraordinary experiences of Coach Mike Smith and Jon Gordon—consultant to numerous college and professional teams—to explore the seven powerful principles that any business, school, organization, or sports team can adopt to revitalize their organization. Step by step, the authors outline a strategy for building a thriving organization and provide a practical framework that give leaders the tools they need to create a great culture, lead with the right mindset, create strong relationships, improve teamwork, execute at a higher level, and avoid the pitfalls that sabotage far too many leaders and organizations. In addition to sharing what went right with the Falcons, Smith also transparently shares what went wrong his last two seasons and provides invaluable lessons leaders can take away from his victories, success, failures and mistakes. Whether it’s an executive leadership team of a Fortune 500 company, a sports team, an emergency room team, military team, or a school team successful leaders coach their team and develop, mentor, encourage, and guide them. This not only improves the team, it improves the leaders and their relationships, connections, and organization. You Win in the Locker Room First offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at one of the most pressure packed leadership jobs on the planet and what leaders can learn from these experiences in order to build their own winning team.

Life is full of ups, downs, highs and lows. It is also replete with game changing moves that can shift a situation in your favor and impact your journey. Sometimes that impact is realized immediately, and at other times the awareness comes later. Either way, game changing moves are powerful. Throughout this book, you will learn life lessons from the locker room and beyond. Chad Parks will share valuable wisdom he has acquired through sports. He provides valuable principles that will inspire and give you confidence for the road ahead so you can experience your own positive game changing moves.

Life is full of ups, downs, highs and lows. It is also replete with game changing moves that can shift a situation in your favor and impact your journey. Sometimes that impact is realized immediately, and at other times the awareness comes later. Either way, game changing moves are powerful. Throughout this book, you will learn life lessons from the locker room and beyond. Chad Parks will share valuable wisdom he has acquired through sports. He provides valuable principles that will inspire and give you confidence for the road ahead so you can experience your own positive game changing moves.

If it happened in Minnesota sports in the last forty years, Dave Mona was there. Working the sports beat for print and radio, covering the big stories and the ones others missed, rubbing shoulders with the stars and introducing the rookies, Mona is a longtime fixture on the sports scene. Join Dave Mona as he revisits a lifetime of vignettes, each one a window onto Minnesota’s sports world. As he recounts his days reporting on the Twins and the Gophers, sparring with Sid Hartman on their Sports Huddle radio program, and preparing his award-winning pregame vignettes for Gopher football, Mona takes readers behind the scenes to meet celebrities and characters like Hartman, Billy Martin, Rod Carew, Dave Moore, Halsey Hall, Molly Ivins, and many more. A wonderful story of life around the locker room, his book is also a portrait of a remarkable personality and a fascinating aspect of Minnesota’s cultural world.

A collection of ghost stories collected from baseball players, stadium personnel, umpires, front-office folks, and fans, whichexplores the sometimes amusing and sometimes spooky connection between baseball and the paranormal.