Playmakers


Book Description

The story of a modern NFL that can’t get out of its own way—and can’t stop making money In recent decades, the NFL has simultaneously become an athletic, financial, and cultural powerhouse—and a League that can’t seem to go more than a few weeks without a scandal. Whether it’s about domestic violence, performance-enhancing drugs, racism, or head trauma, the NFL always seems to be in some kind of trouble. Yet no matter the drama, the TV networks keep showing games, the revenue keeps rising, and the viewers keep tuning in. How can a sports league—or any organization—operate this way? Why do the negative stories keep happening, and why don’t they ever seem to affect the bottom line? In this wide-ranging book, Mike Florio takes readers from the boardroom to the locker room, from draft day to the Super Bowl, answering these questions and more, and showing what really goes on in the sport that America can’t seem to quit. Known for his constant stream of new information and incisive commentary, Florio delivers again in this book. With new insights and reporting on scandals past and present, this book will be the talk of the League—whether the League likes it or not.




The Playmaker's Advantage


Book Description

Discover the next frontier in sports training—improving your mental game, no matter your age or experience—and how to become the Playmaker, both in your professional and personal life. Coaches search for it. Parents dream of it. Fans love it. Athletes want it. The playmaker on any sports team possesses it: an elusive, intangible quality combining anticipation, perception, and decision-making skills. This quality raises their game above the competition and allows them to pass when no one else can, anticipate the movement of opponents, avoid costly mental mistakes, and ultimately, hold the team together. Now, for the first time, cognitive science research is revealing the secrets of the playmaker’s keen sense of awareness. Just as tests of speed, strength, and agility have provided a baseline of physiological biomarkers, coaches can now capture cognitive metrics including attention, pattern recognition, anticipation, and the ability to take quick, decisive action during the chaos of competition. The Playmaker’s Advantage is a groundbreaking book that will educate athletes of all ages about this essential creative capability in an accessible, easy to understand method.




Timeless Toys


Book Description

The book Why Didn't I Think of That! includes the passage "If a toy has magic, when people see it they say, 'Oooh! What is that?' . . . It appeals to the kid in everybody." That same kind of magic captures "the kid in everybody" when they pick up Timeless Toys: Classic Toys and the Playmakers Who Created Them. Timeless Toys represents one of the finest documentaries and displays of modern toys ever written. Author Tim Walsh, a successful toy inventor himself, reveals a world of commerce, toys, and wonder that is equally fun, fascinating, and nostalgic. Readers of every age and background will find it impossible to pick up this book, turn a few pages, and not become spellbound by its insightful stories and the personal memories that the text and 420 brilliantly colored photographs bring forth. Slinky, Lego, Tonka trucks, Monopoly, Big Wheel, Frisbee, Hula Hoop, Super Ball, Scrabble, Barbie, Radio Flyer Wagons: All of these and many, many more are featured in this fascinating tome, along with the toys' histories, insider profiles, and rare interviews with toy industry icons. It's simply magic!




PlayMakers Repertory Company


Book Description

"This book traces the trajectory of the first fifty years of PlayMakers Repertory Company (PRC). As you will read in the pages that follow, when Tom Haas and Arthur Housman conceived of PlayMakers Repertory Company in 1975, they created a unique institution, a professional theatre company not only located on the campus of a major research university, but one embedded within UNC's Department of Dramatic Art. That combination of professional artistic achievement coupled with the highest quality theatrical training characterizes PlayMakers Repertory Company from its inception to the present day. Then as now, the core of the resident company--composed of faculty who are both teachers and practitioners--along with the graduate students in the Department's three MFA programs, is constantly supplemented by the best directors, designers, and performers working in the field today. Graduate students receive professional training during the day from teachers who become their collaborators at night both off and onstage. Undergraduates learn from faculty members who are constantly moving back and forth between the classroom and the stage, with the knowledge gained in one realm sparking creativity in the other"--




Stick Fly


Book Description

The affluent, African-American LeVay family is gathering at their Martha’s Vineyard home for the weekend, and brothers Kent and Flip have each brought their respective ladies home to meet the parents for the first time. Kent’s fiancée, Taylor, an academic whose absent father was a prominent author, struggles to fit into the LeVay’s upper-crust lifestyle. Kimber, on the other hand, is a self-described WASP who works with inner-city school children, fits in more easily with the family. Joining these two couples are the demanding LeVay patriarch, Joe, and Cheryl, the daughter of the family’s longtime housekeeper. As the two newcomers butt heads over issues of race and privilege, long-standing family tensions bubble under the surface and reach a boiling point when secrets are revealed.




Unstoppable


Book Description

Where do you fall on your organization's performance spectrum? Unstoppable is performance-enhancing manual for those who are ready to change the world. Regardless of talent or skill set, there are four types of people in every organization: Undertakers, Caretakers, Play Makers, and Game Changers—but value is definitely not equal across the board. Game changers move things forward with relentless energy, effort, attitude, and excellence. They elevate those around them, inspire exceptional performance, and drive their organization to the top. This book is designed to help you rise to the challenge and become the Game Changer your organization needs. Candid insights from dozens of coaches, managers, CEOs, journalists, entrepreneurs, and other elite performers reveal the qualities that make some people stand out, and the underlying theme is mindset. While talent is a great head start, it is merely potential. Undeveloped and erratically-wielded talent holds little value for an organization. The key to high performance is an intentionally cultivated mindset of success, backed by the bold action it takes to make things happen every day. This book delves deep into the elite performance paradigm to help you work at the highest levels. Learn what separates the playmakers from the game changers Step up your performance with a simple five-step process Transform your thinking and develop an unstoppable toughness Be the best at what you do, and elevate your entire organization The performance spectrum is not about classifying your coworkers; it's about self-assessment, self-reflection, and self-improvement. Everyone has star quality, even if it is buried deep inside. Unstoppable helps you uncover your potential, and upgrade your performance to become the best.




Amazon Playmakers Holiday Colouring Book


Book Description

Welcome to the Amazon Playmakers Holiday Colouring Book! The Amazon Playmakers are ten special children from across the country, chosen by Starlight Children's Foundation, and recruited by Amazon Australia as official toy testers for the holidays. This year's Amazon Playmakers have combined forces (and imaginations!) with acclaimed illustrator Mitch Revs to create this limited-edition colouring book, full of their own unique concepts. They've told Mitch all about their 'dream toy' and he has brought their wonderful imaginations to life for this colouring book. For every Amazon Playmakers Holiday Colouring book that is purchased during this year's Black Friday and Cyber Monday Shopping Events, Amazon Australia will donate $1 to the Starlight Children's Foundation, up to $50,000 in addition to $40,000 worth of toys, games, crafts and gift cards. 50,000 copies of the colouring book have been made available. Even if not sold, Amazon has agreed to a total donation of $50,000 to Starlight Children's Foundation.




The Playmaker


Book Description

While working as an apprentice in a London theater company in 1597, fourteen-year-old Richard Malory uncovers a mystery involving the disappearance of his father and a traitorous plot to overthrow Queen Elizabeth. Reprint.




The Playmaker Project


Book Description

When winning at all costs becomes too expensive. Eddie Alonso, a former pro soccer star, whose career was ended by a violent and intentional assault, is now a reluctant high school science teacher and varsity coach in St. Cloud, MN. When two of his favorite student players are recruited by an upstart Finnish soccer club owned by an eccentric tech billionaire with a secretive cognitive training program run by Dr. Anna Lehtinen, Eddie is suspicious of the motives but resists the urge to get involved. But when Benny Gilbert calls Eddie from Finland to let him know of some strange personality changes of Peter Borg, his best friend, Eddie’s fears are confirmed. Eddie finally jumps into action, but not before an enigmatic, Russian investor has targeted Peter as a star recruit for his own St. Petersburg soccer club. But there are other plans beyond sports for the neuroscience experiment now embedded into Peter’s head. Eddie and Anna must unite to save Peter before he is brainwashed into cooperating with a revengeful agenda. The action races from Minnesota to Finland to Russia and back home. In the end, Eddie needs to know if his dream was lost for a reason, as he and Anna try to make sure this new technology is preserved for compassion, not corruption.