Reviews of Coaches' Guide to Team Policies: Codes of Conduct for Creating a Positive Environment and Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports
Early on in Coaches' Guide to Team Policies: Codes of Conduct for Creating a Positive Environment (softcover, $34, American Sport Education Program), Oak Ridge (Tenn.) High School girls' basketball coach Jill Prudden is quoted as saying, "Players need and want guidelines. They need to know the expectations of your team and program." Hence this book, intended to help coaches at all levels create a fair, comprehensive set of rules for players, other coaches, parents, spectators, support staff and media. Almost 200 rules of conduct organized around six guiding moral principles (respect, responsibility, caring, honesty, fairness and citizenship) are presented in two variations - one general and one more specific - allowing coaches to customize them based on team needs.
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With a sobering image of the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Louisiana Superdome on the cover, sports columnist and commentator Dave Zirin's Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports (softcover, $16, Haymarket Books) looks at big-time college and professional sports from a critical, social and cultural perspective. Naturally, the book - which takes its name from a 1989 song by the rap group Public Enemy - addresses the collision of sports and politics at the Superdome in 2005. But Zirin also takes on racism in Major League Baseball, the prevalence of bling in the National Basketball Association, steroid hysteria and the harsh economic realities of hosting the Olympic Games. Confrontational and political, Zirin writes in a no-holds-barred style that's bound to elicit debate.Buy from Amazon
