The Matheny Manifesto

It may seem surprising to many that I'm not a big reader.
I like reading, but I'm not real fond of reading fiction and I sometimes have a hard time finding different nonfiction books that I'm willing to stay with to the end. I picked up a book to read on vacation and grabbed another one off of my bookshelf to read when I finished the first. It's a good thing! I made it through the first in no time and feel compelled to share it with you.

The Matheny Manifesto: A young manager's old-school views on success in sports and in life
It's written by Mike Matheny and Jerry Jenkins.

For those of you that are baseball fans, yeah, it's that Mike Matheny.
For those of you that are Cardinal fans, whether you like him as a manager or not, you've got to admire his character and integrity.
For those of you that are thinking, "I'm not interested in reading a book about baseball or a book written by a jock," this is not that book.

A few years ago, Mike Matheny responded to a group of parents that asked him to coach their kids' baseball team. He responded by writing them a letter -- a five page letter, calling a meeting and reading them the letter.
The letter went viral. It was all over the internet. There were links to it on Facebook, Twitter and everywhere you can imagine. It became much more than a letter to a small group of parents and became known as The Matheny Manifesto.

His philosophy on coaching baseball was to teach lessons of character and lessons that would help the boys in life as well as to teach a love of the game of baseball.

I would say that the book is a good read for anyone.
It is a must read for parents of kids in sports.
It is a must read for coaches of kids.
Really, it's a good read for anybody that is a parent and it is written so that even kids that are involved in youth sports will gain much from reading it.

It's about life.
It's about developing personal character and integrity. It's about respecting others and respecting yourself. It's about guarding your reputation and controlling your emotions. In many ways, it isn't about baseball or coaching at all. It's about parenting and growing up.

It's about shifting from the showboating, smack talking, win at any cost athletics (or living) back to playing the game well for the love of the game and being good sports -- win or lose.

The Matheny Manifesto
Get it.
Read it.
Live it.

John <><