Best Sports Books: 50 Picks Recommended by CEOs

Andre Agassi tells how a violent father drilled him from early childhood, how three lost major finals preceded his 1992 Wimbledon title, and how he came back as the oldest world number one. Peter Reinhardt sees it as a study of the mental strength a lonely game demands.

Jon Krakauer joined Rob Hall’s guided Everest expedition for Outside magazine in 1996 and reached the summit just before a storm killed eight climbers, and he blames competition among guiding firms for weakened safety. Holger Seim names it as his favourite adventure story.

Daniel James Brown follows a Depression-era University of Washington eight, sons of loggers and farmers, past elite eastern and British crews to Olympic gold in Berlin, with abandoned teenager Joe Rantz at its center. Satya Nadella has recommended it.

Bill Walsh explains how he turned the San Francisco 49ers from the worst franchise in sports into a dynasty through high standards, ethics and coaching as teaching, with former players adding their view. Garrett Moon gives it first to newly promoted managers.

William Finnegan treats surfing as an addiction and a lifelong study, from boyhood in California and Hawaii to years chasing waves across the South Pacific, Asia, Australia and Africa. Paul Graham says it splits a reader’s life into before and after.

David Epstein, then at Sports Illustrated, tests how far genes and training each explain athletic success, questions the 10,000-hour rule and travels to Jamaica to ask why its sprinters dominate. Gabriel Coarnă says it changed what he would tell a child about sporting dreams.

Sam Sheridan trained in muay Thai in Bangkok, took a professional bout and then tested himself against jiu-jitsu, boxing and mixed martial arts champions, asking how it feels to land and take punches. Andrew Huberman says he really enjoyed it.

Michael Lewis explains how the West Coast offense and one fearsome linebacker made the left tackle among the most valued players in football, and follows Michael Oher from a crack-addicted mother’s home to Ole Miss. Malcolm Gladwell calls it the best book Lewis has written.

Sam Walker scored thousands of teams across many sports, singled out sixteen and traced their dominance to one kind of captain with seven traits, such as doggedness and emotional control. Eric Ries found it fascinating.

Phil Jackson recounts how he won eleven championships in Chicago and Los Angeles by blending Zen, Native American thought and psychology, from getting his top scorer to put the team first to guiding a teenage star toward leadership. Ryan Holiday calls it his favourite leadership book in years.

David Halberstam profiles Belichick, an uncharismatic coach always a step ahead of rivals, tracing how his Wesleyan education and years with the Giants, Cleveland and the Patriots shaped his approach to football. Ryan Holiday says it influenced him greatly.

Haruki Murakami writes about training for the New York City Marathon, an ultramarathon in Hokkaido, a run from Athens to Marathon and a triathlon, and about how running supports his writing. Anant Jain, a distance runner himself, was delighted by it.

Arnold Schwarzenegger tells how a first look inside a gym set him on the road to Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia titles, then adds a photographed four-day weight training program with diet advice. Ramit Sethi and David Senra list it.

Maria Sharapova recalls hitting balls on drab courts in a small Russian town, moving to Florida with her father and seven hundred dollars, winning Wimbledon at seventeen and serving a doping suspension. Yaro Starak adds it to the tennis lives he has read.

Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik report how the Astros and Red Sox used high-speed cameras, radar and analytics to develop players into champions, and how undersized hitters became MVPs. Nate Silver says it finally gives player development the attention stat analysts denied it.

Raymond Arsenault follows Ashe from Jim Crow Richmond to UCLA, the Davis Cup and Wimbledon, then through his activism and the transfusion that left him HIV-positive. Barack Obama has it on his reading list.

Timothy Gallwey argues that the real contest in tennis happens in the player’s head, and teaches a relaxed concentration that trusts the body instead of fussing over grip or footwork. Coaches, politicians and musicians have since borrowed the method.

Tyler Hamilton tells Daniel Coyle the story of his years in professional cycling, including the doping, lies and cover-ups he took part in as a teammate of Lance Armstrong on U.S. Postal. Peter Attia read it in one sitting.

Actor Michael Rapaport, who gave up NBA dreams at fifteen, turns his fandom into rants about athletes, teams and jerseys, insisting LeBron will never be Mike and leaving statistics out in favour of hustle. Charlamagne Tha God found it hilarious.

James S. Hirsch tells how middleweight contender Rubin Carter was convicted of three murders he did not commit, the part race played, and the Canadians who set out to prove his innocence. Ryan Holiday links his refusal to give up himself in prison to Stoic ideas.

Jack Johnson, the first African American heavyweight champion, recounts his fights up to beating Jim Jeffries in Reno in 1910, writing for French readers more openly about race than he likely would have at home. Ryan Holiday found it full of strategies and anecdotes.

Sam Sheridan questions trainers, champions, a wrestling great and an ultrarunner about how fighters stay devoted through long years in the gym, plan and adapt in a bout, and stay tough through pain. Ryan Holiday read it alongside A Fighter’s Heart and liked both.

Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian open with the 2009 crash that exposed the golfer’s infidelity and draw on hundreds of interviews to trace his father’s role, his dominance and his collapse. Ryan Holiday talked about it more than anything else he read that year.

John McPhee builds a book around one 1968 US Open semifinal, alternating stroke-by-stroke play with profiles of Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner to take up race, class and politics. Tim Ferriss says he loves it.

Jerry Kramer, a Packers lineman in his tenth season, kept a diary of 1967 from training camp to Super Bowl II, including his key block in the Ice Bowl and a close view of coach Lombardi. Tyler Cowen says it set him thinking about character, habits and teamwork.

Katrin Davidsdottir describes moving from gymnastics into CrossFit, failing to qualify for the 2014 Games and using that setback to rebuild her training and mindset before winning in 2015 and 2016. Mat Fraser, once her training partner, endorses it.

Buzz Bissinger sits in the dugout with Tony La Russa through a three-game Cardinals and Cubs series, showing how pitchers’ quirks, video and retaliation decide games as much as numbers do. Sam Yagan read it while weighing data against gut instinct.

Pete Sampras, number one for 286 weeks, writes about putting the game ahead of everything, an early loss to Stefan Edberg, falling ill during a long match with Alex Corretja and his rivalry with his friend Agassi. Yaro Starak includes it among the tennis biographies he recommends.

Jim Bouton kept a diary of his 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros, telling what players kept quiet, from amphetamines to womanizing, and angering the commissioner. Nick Loper recommends it to baseball fans.

Kara Douglass Thom collects athletes’ accounts of a first Ironman, the swim, ride and marathon done in one day, frank about preparation, nutrition and gear and about both the misery and the joy. Mark Moses has it on his list.

Roland Lazenby draws on Jordan’s coaches, teammates, family and decades of covering him to set famous moments such as The Shot and The Flu Game beside his ruthless, gambling side. Yaro Starak calls it solid and underrated.

Michael Lewis follows the Oakland Athletics, a poor club that competed with rich rivals by trusting on-base and slugging numbers over scouts’ instincts, a method that changed front offices across baseball. Scott Keyes recommends it.

Dr. Judd Biasiotto, who says he came last at his first seven powerlifting meets, credits mental training rather than drugs for reaching world class and explains the methods he used. Pavel Tsatsouline recommends it for learning to switch full power on and off.

Rod Laver tells how a small red-haired left-hander from rural Australia won the Grand Slam in 1962 and 1969 as tennis moved from amateur to professional, and writes about his stroke and his late wife. Yaro Starak includes it among the tennis biographies he recommends.

Phil Jackson, then coaching the Chicago Bulls, explains how he drew on Zen and Native American thought to make players think as a group, control anger while still playing hard and put the me in service of the we. AnneMarie Schindler recommends it.

Bruce Lee’s notes on the martial art he was developing, begun in 1970 while he was sidelined by a back injury and assembled after his death, set out a way of thinking about fighting rather than a manual. Dan Lok recommends it.

Christopher Clarey follows Federer from a hot-tempered teenager to a lasting symbol of greatness on the tennis court, a player loved around the world who stayed fiercely private. David Senra lists it.

Coach Jason Koop argues that ultramarathons need their own periodized training rather than extra miles, covering energy systems, fueling, race-day crises and course guides to races such as Western States and Hardrock. Robert Hajnal says it changed how he trains.

Eric J. Horst sets out an evidence-based program for climbers, from finger strength and power-endurance to periodization, technique, mental training and injury prevention, built on decades of coaching. Tudor Teodorescu was working through it as part of his own development.

Mike Tyson recounts being bullied in Brooklyn, becoming the youngest heavyweight champion and losing it all to partying and crime, then rebuilding through a stage show, film roles and family. Nick Janetakis says it motivates him endlessly.

John McEnroe follows his climb up the professional tennis ranks and the outbursts that made him notorious, including the 1981 Wimbledon line behind the title, and his later life as father and commentator. Yaro Starak includes it among the tennis biographies he recommends.

Mainly a business memoir, it tells how Phil Knight, coached in track by Bill Bowerman, sold imported Japanese running shoes from his car and built the company that became Nike. Andre Agassi, who wore the gear for years, says he never knew the story behind it.

Mainly about how skill is built in any field, Daniel Coyle’s study visits talent hotbeds such as Caribbean baseball fields and credits deep practice, ignition and master coaching. Rupert Murdoch sums it up as greatness grown the hard way.

Mainly a book on performance in any field, it comes from Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness, who coaches Olympic athletes, and pairs athletes’ stories with research on alternating hard work and rest. Ryan Holiday values how it joins physical and mental performance.

Mainly a guide to swordsmanship and strategy, Miyamoto Musashi’s five scrolls cover training, technique, timing in combat and the right state of mind, and insist on practice over reading. Ryan Holiday reads it as a manual on the discipline needed to win.

Josh Waitzkin, a chess prodigy who later became a Tai Chi Chuan world champion, writes mainly about learning itself, using his matches and bouts to show how to turn losses into progress. Chris Oliver calls it phenomenal.

Mainly a guide to teamwork at work and at home, it draws on Pat Riley’s years leading championship players in professional basketball. Ryan Holiday counts it among the best coaching and leadership books he read that year.

Matthew Syed, a two-time Olympian, uses psychology and neuroscience to weigh talent against practice, with cases such as a Reading street that produced a run of table tennis stars and skaters who fell most often. Melody Hossaini was drawn in by its sporting examples.

Mainly a memoir about mental toughness, it follows David Goggins from an abusive, overweight youth to elite military training and records in endurance events, and sets out his 40% Rule. Barbara Oakley calls it astonishing.

John Wooden draws on 41 years of coaching and notebooks kept since 1948 for a book mainly about leading organizations, built on his Pyramid of Success and 12 Lessons in Leadership. Jim Sinegal calls the pyramid the place where it all starts.