George Herbert Allen (–1990)

George Allen was a long time football coach, and the first coach in decades to have any extended success coaching the Washington Redskins (Vince Lombardi coached them to a winning record in one season, other than that, the Redskins had losing records for the fifteen years prior to Allen becoming their head coach; Allen never had a losing season for the Redskins). This book describes Allen's philosophy and methods.

Allen was famous for his obsessive level of preparation and attention to detail and this is evident through the book. He often cites even the trivial things as being worth practicing, since people sometimes mess those up - for example he writes about how he would have his team line up for very short field goals and practice them at the end of each practice, on the grounds that he had seen teams miss even something so basic as an extra point. He offers tips on not wasting any time going to far as to suggest putting some hand weights near the phone so that you could get a quick workout during your telephone conversations.

The advice offered is certainly in keeping with the public character of George Allen, and I found a fair amount of it useful. The idea that one should pay attention to detail all the time, so as to not let a minor oversight prevent you from reaching your goal is probably the dominant theme of the book, and it is a good one. Some of the material here is a little over the top, but Allen seems to have mellowed a little by the time he wrote the book (as coach of the Redskins, he ate little other than peanut butter and ice cream, because they could be eaten fast so he could coach more; he was also paranoid about other teams spying on his practices), so there isn't too much that seems excessive. While the advice isn't particularly stunning in its revelations, it is solid and useful, and presented in a straightforward, entertaining manner using concrete examples.

As a final note: George Allen is also the father of former Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator George Allen, Jr. I would argue that Junior's political implosion was in part due to his lack of preparation (he didn't research the word Macaca before using it in public), so it seems like the father's lessons were lost on the son.… (más)