Customer Reviews

Don't Flinch - Barry Alvarez: The Autobiography The Story of Wisconsin's All-Time Winningest Coach

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To get a good biography of a sports figure you've got to go beyond the simple statistics of this game or that player and get some understanding about what this coach did or does to take a so-so team and make them the best.

And that's what you get in this book. As he talks about games, because that has to be included, he is also talking about the impact that other activities are having at the same time. Players are leaving, new players must be recruited, coaches are quitting or having to be fired, new coaches hired. Just playing the game is not enough, it's really more like running a business.

Furthermore these other activities have to take place at the same time that games are being played. More than most books, this one is able to interleave all of these activities together.

Alvarez stressed the basics, the fundamentals. But every coach does that. This book explains how he could do that while doing all of the other things that constitute building a whole series of winning teams.

My husband wanted this book for Christmas so I got it for him. He says it is one of the best books he has ever read. He is a diehard college football fan--but not necessarily a Wisconsin fan.

A great read and refreshing to know that hard work, focus and the love and respect of family is still the formula for success.

Barry Alvarez grew up in a hard scrabble Western Pa town and learned life's lessons early. It also shows that while it may not have been an easy road, it can be done. This book contains many stories and messages for any young man thinking of taking the road of football beyond high-shcool. More so it holds a story of one mans philosophy of hard nose, stick to it, don't give up mentality as a kid coming up from nothing to make it in big time college football.

Barry Alvarez came from little but had a lot instilled in him by his family, his friends and his coaches as he came up the ladder from Pee Wee Football to College player and then to coaching. Those coaches and family/friends instilled in him that you can do whatever your heart desires if you work hard enough and don't fear sticking to your guns.

Great read for any football fanatic.

Barry Alvarez is one of the most successful and respected coaches in the history of Wisconsin's college football. He first hired on to take over the University of Wisconsin's substandard college football program with its lackluster collegiate support. What he created over the ensuing years was a UW football program that would win three Rose Bowl engagements in the 1990s and by the time he retired after the 2005 season ended, was one of Wisconsin's all-time success records as a UW football coach. Alvarez became so well respected that a statue in his honor now stands outside the UW football stadium. With the help of Mike Lucas, "Don't Flinch" is the autobiographical story of Coach Barry Alvarez and how he came to accomplish one of the most remarkable stories in college football history. A "must" addition to the Biography and Sports History collections for all Wisconsin community libraries, no Badger fan or college football enthusiast will want to miss reading "Don't Flinch", the truly remarkable, candidly personal and occasionally inspiring story of UW football coach Barry Alvarez!

Coach Alvarez took over a losing program that had lost it's way. In a few short years through hard work, recruiting the right kind of student athletes and putting in a system that everyone believed in, he won the Rose Bowl. Amazing journey for the coach over his entire career. I couldn't put the book down. Badger fans now have a program that they can truly be proud of.

This was a really interesting book written by one of the more successful college coaches in recent memory. He takes you from his humble beginnings in Pennsylvania to his triumphs in the Rose Bowl. I found it particularly interesting because I got to see his perspective on a number of football games I had attended. Well written, it was an easy and enoyable read.

I like reading coach's books. If you're reading a coach's autobiography you can be sure that he was successful. Reading stories about successful people won't make you successful in itself, but you certainly can learn a lot from them.

Some coach's stories, like Mack Brown's "One Heartbeat II" are smarmy, folksy stories about the coach's life philosophy containing stories about overcoming adversity or getting a team to come together to experience that championship season.

A lot of coach's stories wind up in those business-motivational books, but I don't typically read those. Normally the messages they're delivering gets thinned out to the point that they become a manager's catch phrase. Executives buy them, then put them on the bookshelf in their office. Makes them look well-read. I've worked with a lot of executives. I usually make the point of pulling a book or two off out of their library and open it. 90% of them make that cracking sound a hardcover book makes the first time you open it. But I digress.

Coach's stories tend to fall prey to a fair amount of sugar-coating. Not so with "Don't Flinch - Barry Alvarez: The Autobiography". The book starts (after forewards by Lou Holtz and author James Patterson) with Wisconsin's 2006 Capital One Bowl against Auburn. Going into the game, no one gave Wisconsin a chance to win. Alvarez starts by talking about how he would have rather played Alabama. Alvarez played for Nebraska when Alabama beat the Cornhuskers in the 1966 Orange Bowl, 39-28, and relates how Paul "Bear" Bryant arrogantly humiliated the Huskers later at an awards banquet. Alvarez makes it clear that this isn't how he's spent his career. Beating people is one thing. Rubbing their noses in it is another thing entirely, and something that Alvarez doesn't condone. He then goes on to talk about how he handled his underdog status and coached Wisconsin to a win.

That initial story sets the tone for the book. Author Mike Lucas takes us through Alvarez' life, using his Western Pennsylvania background to set the stage for Barry's brand of football - conservative, hard-nosed, and physical. Alvarez played college football at Nebraska under legendary coach Bob Devaney. His first head coaching position was in Lexington, Nebraska where he chose to move instead of taking a job with the FBI. He later moved to Mason City, Iowa in a head coaching position. After being successful there, he went to the University of Iowa as an assistant under Hayden Fry. Later he joined Lou Holtz' staff at Notre Dame, serving as the defensive coordinator on the 1988 Fighting Irish National Championship team.

Along the journey you're treated to the reasons as to why he was successful in each position, and what he learned from the people around him, particularly coaches. All the while his goal remains clear - to be a head college football coach. There are times he strikes you as incredibly stubborn and/or arrogant but completely capable of listening to other people giving good advice.

He notes that during the 1990 1-10 season, there were times at which he would close his office doors and curl up on his couch in a fetal position. He had gotten so used to winning that his body ached from losing. There aren't a whole lot of big-name coaches that would admit that so freely in their autobiography. His wife Cindy plays a prominent role in the book making it clear, supporting him through rough times and sometimes bringing him back down to earth. As his coaching career is nearing it's end Alvarez makes an honest assessment of himself and concludes that it's time to move on, becoming Wisconsin's athletic director.

I liked Barry Alvarez before I read his story. Now I like him even more. The line "Don't Flinch" remains a constant theme throughout the book as Alvarez points out how to respond when the game (football or life) is on the line. Certainly Wisconsin fans should be interested in this book, but I'd recommend Barry's autobiography to anyone who's interested in reading those water-down business motivational books as well. The stories are much more interesting and just as insightful. On top of that, you'd probably finish this book. How many of those motivational books have you finished?