The Education Of A Coach - Hardcover

David Halberstam (1934-2007) was the author of twenty-two books, including fifteen bestsellers. Born in New York City, Halberstam spent much of the 1960s as a reporter for The New York Times, covering the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement. His Vietnam reporting earned him both a George C. Polk Award and a 1964 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Vanity Fair dubbed Halberstam "the Moses of American journalism," and the subjects of his books reflect his passion and range: war, foreign policy, history, and sports. The Best and the Brightest (1962), his sixth book, a critique of the Kennedy administration's Vietnam policy, became a #1 bestseller. His next book, The Powers that Be, a study of four American media companies, was hailed by The New York Times as a "prodigy of research." Many of Halberstam's books explored themes in professional sports, including bestsellers The Teammates, a portrait of the friendship between baseball players Ted Williams, Dominic DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Bobby Doerr, and The Education of a Coach, a profile of New England Patriots' Coach Bill Belichick.

David Maraniss is an associate editor at the Washington Post. He is the winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. He has written four New York Times bestsellers: They Marched Into Sunlight (Vietnam), When Pride Still Mattered (Vince Lombardi), First in His Class (Bill Clinton), and Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero. The author lives in Washington, DC, and Madison, Wisconsin.

Bill Belichick is now coach of the New England Patriots football team. His teams have won three of the past five Super Bowls, and he was an assistant coach on champion teams twice before. In this book, journalist David Halberstam examines what makes Belichick, never a pro athlete himself, successful. He explores Belichick's childhood (his father was a successful collegiate coach) and early professional coaching career. Halberstam's straightforward journalistic style translates well to audio, making listening easy to follow. His language is clear, and he reduces complicated technical football discussions to terms even non-football fans can understand. The abridgment is almost seamless for most of the audio. Large chunks of Belichick's most recent accomplishments have been cut, which is wise since that's the part listeners are most likely to know already. Eric Conger reads with clarity and authority and resists trying to sound like a TV commentator. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine