What You’re Made For. George Raveling and Ryan Holiday.

 

What You’re Made For.   George Raveling and Ryan Holiday.  

Powerful Life Lessons from My Career in Sports.  

Teachers teach, coaches coach, preachers preach and so on as the saying goes.    George Raveling has done a little bit of each as a player, a coach, an administrator, a parent and now an author of his third book.   Raveling, co-author of What You’re Made For, was a long-time college basketball coach, teacher of young men and influential to many others along the way throughout his illustrious career and lengthy, perpetually growing life.  He skillfully teamed up with the renowned author Ryan Holiday, who happens to be a guru for stoicism.   

At first glance the book might hint at stories told about Raveling’s coaching experiences at universities such as Washington State, Iowa and USC.    While there are some examples of this sprinkled throughout the book, this manuscript is focused more on explaining life lessons and how to be our best selves, servants, friends and team builders among many other desired pursuits and duties.   The author, eighty-seven years young at the time of the book writing, seems to have the energy and ambition of a person just warming up to an everlasting life span.  And he seems to want everybody to know this as well.   Each of the twenty-one chapters ends the same with a reminder this is “what we are made for”.

Despite the book blending life lessons with some coaching exploits, the author is an interesting person in his own right also serving as a Nike executive for several decades, well acquainted with luminaries such as Phil Knight and Sonny Vacarro.   In addition, the Washington DC native has also coached Olympic and international teams developing relationships with superstar players like Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Kobe Bryant and even going way back to Wilt Chamberlain but also forming deep relationships with coaches such as Bobby Knight and Al Severance, the coach who recruited and guided him at Villanova. 

Most of the chapters are engaging and interesting.   Perhaps the most resonating was the section titled ‘To study books”.    As an avid book reader and amateur book reviewer naturally, this section was attention grabbing.    Raveling tells the reader to get their hands on whatever reading material they can at all times.    Keep plenty of books at home and in a variety of rooms.    He preaches to always have one book available whenever we do leave home.   When standing in line we should be advancing in one of our current books.     George Raveling even takes it a step further by asserting the use of blank pages in our books with notes and questions and even noting key words and concepts.   Follow up each new finding by researching even more books pertaining to those topics in more detail.     He would probably tell me to broaden my horizons by reading more books about other topics than sports but that is a commitment for another time.        

Arguably one of the most interesting facts about the book was the coaches’ experience in attending the I have a dream speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King in 1963.  Raveling, who admits attending the March on Washington was a suggestion of a friend’s father the day before the event, ends up working a volunteer role that happened to put him right next to the podium where Dr. King would deliver his legendary speech.    What makes this story even more intriguing is how Raveling asked Dr. King upon execution of the speech for the document.    According to the author, King seemed to nonchalantly hand him the paper with the speech’s content on it without exception.    Raveling claims to have held it for many decades and refused to sell it citing that the speech was NOT his to give away to another person.    (The book reports that the document has since been donated to a museum that rotates its display throughout selected regions of the country)

Twenty-one chapters fall into nearly two hundred pages for this heavily fueled book of self-improvement, resiliency and reflection.    There is likely a lesson for any reader to obtain somewhere along the way.    The tone of some chapters comes across as didactic at times and some of the principles overlap a bit from section to section.    However, the author’s enthusiasm will likely overcome any waning from the reader by urging one to win the day and finish the book and perhaps even read it again for augmenting.   A quick perusing of his X page reveals one important tenant after another, leading one to believe that Coach Raveling will continue echoing the good word.       Ever the teacher, always a coach.  

 

·       You might like to read this book if you are interested in George Raveling.

·       You might like to read this book if you are interested in reading about basketball coaches.

·       You might like to read this book if you are interested in seeking conduct of life stories and lessons.  

Read more about the authors on X:   https://x.com/GeorgeRaveling   &  https://x.com/RyanHoliday