Book Review: Rules of the Red Rubber Ball

I must admit, I have been waiting for this book since May. A friend who works with Nike recommended the book and though I searched the Internet, I failed to find a copy. So, this book has an underground following, as though it was jsut recently released, many have read the book or listened to Kevin Carroll. I also must confess that I sat down in the bookstore, read the entire book and then bought the remaining copies. 

Rules of the Red Rubber Ball is refreshing in its simplicity. It is located under self-help in the book store, but could easily be found in the autobiography, sports, or business sections. 

Author Kevin Carroll is a former Athletic Trainer for the Philadelphia 76ers; he also worked for Nike and is a consultant and public speaker through his company, Katalyst. Among other things, a recent ESPN.com article credited Carroll with the rubber bracelet craze, which started at Nike and became a worldwide phenomenon thanks to Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow. 

Carroll uses the red rubber ball of his youth as a metaphor for his life path to success. He intertwines his life story with the rules he follows to produce an 82 page handbook that leaves space for you to answer questions posed by the book. 

While his rules and his mantra are nothing revolutionary, his ability to illustrate his path to success using the rules and the creative packaging make the Red Rubber Ball a far more engaging self-help book than most others. The book features picture, pages that fold out, color, words written backwards and upside-down and other neat packaging tricks which scream Nike and ESPN, which makes sense, as he is a former Nike employee and his publisher is ESPN Books. 

Red Rubber Ball is advertised as an adult's version of  Dr. Seuss' Oh, the Places You'll Go!, which isn't too far-fetched. It captures the imagination and forces the reader to think about his life, his choices, his path and his happiness. While reading the book, and seeing how Carroll uses different situations as learning experiences, the reader surveys his own life decisions and ponders the passion or lack thereof in his own life.