The Book of Coach

January 29, 2013 9:36 PM

"For those who coached under Walsh, Finding the Winning Edge was a study of the genius beyond his playbook. For those who coached against him, it was a window into the mind of their nemesis." -- The Coaching Philosophy of Bill Walsh. The book is now out of print and even a used copy will cost you $1,249.99 on Amazon.
posted by MattMangels (10 comments total)

Those Amazon prices are automatically artificially inflated; I doubt anybody would actually pay that much for it. I've been surprised before, though, I guess.
posted by koeselitz at 10:25 PM on January 29

Yeah, not to take anything away from Coach Walsh's legacy, but a quick scan of recently sold copies on ebay shows a range of $60 to $200.

That said, as a long time Niners fan I'd be very interested in reading this. Walsh's was a class act, and his shadow still looms large over the game.
posted by mosk at 10:48 PM on January 29

Yah I don't get it but prices everywhere on Amazon have gone through the roof. It's because your Baba figured out she can scam a free copy on BitTorrent.
posted by newdaddy at 10:55 PM on January 29

I want to read this.
posted by govtdrone at 4:26 AM on January 30

I would add Weaver on Strategy to the list and I don't even care for baseball. The recently deceased Earl Weaver was an early, if not the first, sports manager to embrace what came to be known as Sabermetrics. A much more affordable read as well...
posted by jim in austin at 5:11 AM on January 30 [1 favorite]

Well, I personally sold a copy before Christmas for $100. It was listing at $75 up at that time. Oh, well. Bought it for $1.61, so I'm still happy with my ROI. Mostly.
posted by thebrokedown at 5:24 AM on January 30

The article is an excellent primer on "How to Drive Yourself Insane." The story of the young coach that's interwoven through the piece -- yeeg. His high school team goes undefeated and wins the championship. When it's all done, the players are miserable and the coaches equally, if not moreso, because their pursuit of Platonic Football leaves them forever dissatisfied and feeling like failures.

A sharp example of "the Pursuit of Excellence" overtaking humanity. Yay. "Those kids sure learned a lot about hard work and greatness!" Yeah, they learned that you're never good enough and that victory provides no joy. Wonderful.
posted by Harvey Jerkwater at 5:44 AM on January 30 [1 favorite]

The $1,249.99 price tag on Amazon is probably a result of algorithmic pricing.
posted by gene_machine at 6:14 AM on January 30 [1 favorite]

This was really interesting to me, thanks for posting it.
posted by DynamiteToast at 7:12 AM on January 30

Walsh never won a Super Bowl with any quarterback not named Joe Montana. Joe Gibbs won three with quarterbacks named Theismann, Williams and Rypien.

Walsh tried to suggest that Gibbs picked his brains; Gibbs retorted they had only met a few times and never discussed football.

The Weaver book is indeed great.
posted by DavLaurel at 3:23 PM on January 30