The Books That Shaped Me

by Brendan Horton

Have you ever stumbled upon a book—or an article, blog, or movie—that feels like it was created just for you? For some, it might be War & Peace, for others Harry Potter or The Hunger Games. For me, it was Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis.

It was Spring 2005. I was a junior at the University at Albany, majoring in Mathematics with a concentration in Statistics, but at my core, I was just a massive sports fan and a fantasy sports junkie. Moneyball had come out a few years earlier and was getting a ton of buzz, so I brought it with me on a family trip to the Dominican Republic. I started it on the plane and couldn't put it down. It perfectly blended my love for sports and numbers with this radical new way of thinking—using data to challenge every sacred cow of sports wisdom. Strikeouts aren’t bad? Batting average isn’t that important? It was the first time I had read a book purely for pleasure, and it hit me with a realization: reading could actually be fun.

That book launched a two-decade journey through the world of sports analytics. I devoured articles, studies, blogs, and books about sabermetrics, Bill James, predictive modeling, and the power of data in shaping athletic performance. Books like Fantasyland by Sam Walker, Betaball by Erik Malinowski, and Astroball by Ben Reiter followed—each of them expanding the Moneyball philosophy into other sports and further fueling my obsession. The most recent addition to the list was The Expected Goals Philosophy by James Tippett, which explores how advanced stats are revolutionizing soccer. Apparently, my reading niche is “using new advancements, technologies, and data to win at sports.”

Today, there are entire college majors dedicated to Sports Analytics. A coworker's son is studying it at Syracuse University—and if this path had existed when I graduated John Jay in 2002, there’s no doubt in my mind it’s what I’d be doing now. If only I were born in 2004, not 1984.

After I began teaching in 2008, I stumbled on another game-changer: Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. It was the closest I’d come to that Moneyball feeling—smart, compelling, and entertaining. I quickly devoured the sequels SuperFreakonomics and Think Like a Freak. The first sequel delivered. The second? Didn’t leave much of a lasting impression.

Then came a book that directly impacted my approach as a soccer coach: Possession: Teaching Your Team to Keep the Darn Ball by Dan Blank. It was a name I didn’t recognize—though ironically, we’d been handing out an excerpt from that very book (The Power of Possession) to our Varsity players for years. I bought the book in June 2019—probably while killing time during Regents proctoring—and it absolutely nailed everything I believed about the game. It put into words what I’d long held in my head. Reading it was like reading something I wish I had written (if only I had the writing chops). Since then, I’ve worked through several of Dan Blank’s other titles—Soccer iQ, High Pressure, Shutout Pizza—all worth reading, but none packed quite the same punch as Possession. For me, Blank is the must-read author for soccer coaches. A distant second? Peter Prickett, particularly Soccer's Principles of Play—essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the game at a deeper, more tactical level.

In 2018, Coach Seipp handed out 25 copies of The Winner Within by Pat Riley and had the entire Varsity team read it during pre-season. Naturally, I bought my own copy and followed suit. Chapters were followed by quizzes on Google Forms. I’m sure many players hated it (and I’m sure some bailed out completely), but for those who went “All In”—one of the book’s key themes—I truly believe it made a lasting impact. That book, and the process of reading it together as a team, may have been the seed that led me to many of the books I’ve picked up since.

Lately, the books I spend the most time with are the ones aimed at motivating young people—part psychology, part self-help. They all have a similar message, just packaged through different lenses. Titles like Tim Grover’s Relentless, Joshua Medcalf’s Chop Wood Carry Water, Pound The Stone, and Hustle, and even Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***—they all resonate with the same core idea: how to push through, how to grow, how to see beyond yourself. I read them in hopes of passing those lessons on to the students and athletes I work with—but I’d bet a psychologist could tell you there’s something deeper going on in my draw to those stories, too.

So, if you’ve ever wondered why I coach or teach the way I do—why I believe what I believe, push what I push, or ask for what I ask—don’t blame me. Blame the books! That’s what we do these days anyway, right?