Values of the Game

Rating:
Summary: Balancing Ethics & the Desire to Win
Review:

Whether you work primarily with individuals or with organizations, Bill Bradley's new book can be a great source of inspiration and enlightenment. Ostensibly this book is merely a set of ten essays on the values the former US Senator and Rhodes Scholar lived by when he was a star professional basketball player for the New York Knicks. However, Values of the Game can be read on another level: as an allegory on how one can balance ethics and the desire for achievement.

Bradley's ten values are the following: Passion, Discipline, Selflessness, Respect, Perspective, Courage, Leadership, Responsibility, Resilience, and Imagination. Each of these is presented through a series of personal anecdotes from Bradley's career on the court, surrounded by terrific photos of the sport's many legendary super-stars, both male and female.

One of the most moving photos is in the "Courage" essay, in which Michael Jordan is pictured at the end of the fifth game of the 1997 NBA Finals, when he led his team to victory despite playing with a high fever. Bradley weaves his text around this theme by telling stories of how players--including himself--learned perseverance and inner calm in the face of tremendous pressure and challenge.

Just having completed a year of study and reflection at Stanford's prestigious think tank, the Hoover Institute, Bradley's comments on leadership are eloquent and quotable: "Leadership means getting people to think, believe, see, and do what they might not have without you. It means possessing the vision to set the right goal and the decisiveness to pursue it single-mindedly. It means being aware of the fears and anxieties felt by those you lead even as you urge them to overcome those fears. It can appear in a speech before hundreds of people or in a dialogue with one other person--or simply by example."

Although Bradley has been mentioned as a potential presidential candidate in the 2000 election, he steers clear of partisanship and political grandstanding. Instead, we find a book that delivers a calm, consistent message on values through the lenses of an assertive, convincing and sensitive man. As such it can be valuable tool for one's self-development as well as for coaching others. Positive but not overly idealistic, packaged in a beautiful format, Values of the Game provides practical tools for right living.

Rating:
Summary: Great, but not quite a book
Review: All the positive things the other reviewers have said are true. This book is inspirational and uplifting, and it gives good insight into what makes Bill Bradley Bill Bradley.

Alas, though, there's not much to it. My complaint is that it's not substantive to be a book. There aren't many pages, the margins are big, and there's lot of space between the lines. This would have made a substantive magazine article, but it's hardly a book.

Rating:
Summary: Great, but too short
Review: All the positive things the other reviewers have said are true. This is an inspiring book filled with positive values, and it gives valuable insight into how Bill Bradley thinks and feels.

But the book is extremely brief -- it's about a half-hour read. It would make a terrific magazine article, and such an article alone would be worth the cost of the magazine. But there just aren't enough words there to be worth the cost of a book, even at a discount price.

Rating:
Summary: Hard Lessons From The Hardwood
Review: Bill Bradley has led a remarkably distinguished and successful life -- an All-American at Princeton, an Olympic gold medallist, a Rhodes Scholar, a two-time world champion as a member of the New York Knicks, a Hall-of-Famer, a Senator for 18 years, and a Presidential candidate. Not to mention author, educator, husband, father, and Eagle Scout. It's been a full life.

In "Values of the Game," Bradley credits much of his success to the game of basketball and the life lessons he learned on the court. Passion, discipline, selflessness, respect, perspective, courage, leadership, responsibility, resilience, and imagination -- these are the qualities that separate the celebrated players from those who have been forgotten. And those same values that brought success on the court can do the same in life.

Full of brilliant photographs and Bradley's own recollections and insights, "Values of the Game" is a real treat for anyone who loves and respects the game of basketball. Bradley obviously does. He peels away all the greed, glamour, fame and infamy that clouds the NBA today and shows us the bare essence and beauty of this uniquely American game, reminding us why we ever liked the sport in the first place.

Rating:
Summary: About the Book
Review: Bill Bradley, U.S. Senator from New Jersey from 1979 to 1997 and a member of two championship New York Knicks teams, returns to the scene of his first career, and his first great passion, basketball. Things have changed since his championship days--the shorts are longer and the salaries higher--but what separates winners and losers remains very much the same: No collection of players, no matter how good, can win unless they form a team. And no team can succeed unless it shares common values, among them courage, discipline, resilience, respect, and an unmitigated passion for the game.

In ten essays, filled with intensely personal observations and reflections, Bradley revisits the basketball court with the fire of the competitor and the eye of the writer, and explores these qualities in action: the dynamics of teammates on the court and off; the pure love of the game that leads to the unselfish pass or the screen away from the ball; the individual courage to risk the last-second shot, to face a hostile crowd, to say "I blew it"; the responsibility to teammates, coaches, and fans to stay in shape, play hard, and honor the game.

Values of the Game is illustrated with more than one hundred twenty dramatic photographs of players, coaches, and classic games, culled from the NBA archives and the author's personal collection: from legends such as Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson, and Bob Cousy, through the brilliant Magic Johnson/Larry Bird years to young stars such as Grant Hill and Glen Rice, and of course the greatest ever, Michael Jordan.

In his best-selling Life on the Run, Bradley offered fans a fascinating account of the day-in day-out experiences of an NBA star. In Values of the Game, he shifts his thinking to a larger universe. He pulls back the curtain once again, letting us in on basketball's secrets--many of which, it turns out, extend to life beyond the hardwood court.

About the Author
Bill Bradley was a three-time basketball all-American at Princeton, Olympic gold medalist, Rhodes scholar, member of the New York Knicks from 1967 to 1977 and two-time NBA champion; he was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1982. He served as United States senator from New Jersey from 1979 to 1997. Since leaving the Senate, he has been affiliated with Stanford University, the University of Maryland, and Notre Dame. Mr. Bradley is the author of Life on the Run, The Fair Tax, and Time Present, Time Past. He is married and has one daughter.

Table of Contents

Foreward by Phil Jackson
Introduction

Passion
*Pure Pleasure, Pure Joy

Discipline
*The Virtuous Circle

Selflessness
*"Help Someone Else, Help Yourself"

Respect
*Giving and Getting

Perspective
*Balancing Act

Courage
*"Putting it on the Line"

Leadership
*Bringing Out the Best

Responsibility
*No Excuses-None

Resilience
*"Meeting With Triumph and Disaster"

Imagination
*Dreaming up the Game

Rating:
Summary: Bill Bradley in NOT the "reader" on this audiotape!
Review: Contrary to what it says at the top of Amazon's page for the audiotape version of this book, Bill Bradley is NOT the "reader." Someone named John Randolph Jones is the reader. This is a big issue for me, as I wanted to be able to hear Bradley speak these well-worded essays on life. Too bad HighBridge didn't get him to do that. AND too bad Amazon.com didn't cathch this fact and write "read by other" at the top of the page for this product.

Rating:
Summary: Bill Bradley in NOT the "reader" on this audiotape!
Review: Contrary to what it says at the top of Amazon's page for the audiotape version of this book, Bill Bradley is NOT the "reader." Someone named John Randolph Jones is the reader. This is a big issue for me, as I wanted to be able to hear Bradley speak these well-worded essays on life. Too bad HighBridge didn't get him to do that. AND too bad Amazon.com didn't cathch this fact and write "read by other" at the top of the page for this product.

Rating:
Summary: This book is all about respect.
Review: I loved this book because it really made you think about respect, to the other players, to the coaches, and to everyone involved. Any Basketball fan would enjoy this book because it really shows the values of Basketball. Besides respect, it also has chapters about conditioning, passion etc. I think these chapters are important too, but respect is the key. I gave this book 4 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Lessons for Life
Review: I own the paperback edition of this book and feel it is an excellent value. The book, made up of ten essays on such topics as "passion", "discipline", "responsibility", "resilience", and more, is a great gift for young and old alike. For the young it will teach them the tradition values of the game and the lessons we can take from it. For the old it reaffirms our belief system that this game of basketball is very special and can prepare you to deal with many of life's challenges. The book begins with an essay on passion. The pure pleasure, pure joy of basketball. Lets face it, there is something special for those of us who love the game. The squeak of the sneakers, the bounce of the ball, the swish of the net. It is something that keeps many of us playing in over thirty (over forty?) pick up leagues or taking backyard jump shots well beyond our prime. And as you work on your game, work to get better, your practice builds confidence, and confidence builds success. What a valuable lesson! As Bradley points out "winning was fun, but so was the struggle to improve. This is one of the lessons you learned from the game:basketball was a clear example of virtue rewarded."

Rating:
Summary: Values that everyone remembers learning through sports
Review: I received this book from my future father-in-law for Christmas, whose only request was that I loan it to him when I finished. Having only known Bill Bradley as a senator, I was very interested in finding out more about his previous life in the NBA. I sat down on a Saturday afternoon to read a few pages, and before I knew it, a few hours had passed and I had finished the entire book. The lessons that Senator Bradley speak of ring very true to what I heard as a young athlete. I just wish that I had listened then the way I have learned to now. I found it fascinating to read about Senator Bradley's approach to the game, his knowledge of it, and most importantly, his respect and passion for it. I would say that this book is a must read for all young athletes, for the knowledge and values gained from it extend beyond the hardwood to all courts, fields, and more importantly, life in general.