ITL175: This New Book Addresses the Growing Problem within Youth Sports—with Special Guest, Jerry Jenkins
In the Loop with Andy Andrews
Matt Lempert
4.9 • 614 Ratings
🗓️ 7 March 2015
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s episode, we sit down again with Jerry Jenkins to talk about and the surprising backstory behind New York Times Bestseller, The Matheny Manifesto.
Baseball is my favorite sport probably because I wanted to be a baseball player.
- One of my earliest breaks in writing was when my boss came into my office and said, “Would you want to help write a biography with Hank Aaron? I don’t really know that much about football...”
- People hear that I’ve written for Nolan Ryan, Walter Payton, Joe Gibbs, and Mike Singletary, but Mike Matheny is as classy a guy as I’ve ever worked with.
Mike was asked by some parents to coach a little league team.
- He wrote a letter to the parents, telling them that if he was going to coach the team, they needed to back off during games.
- In it, he wrote that “the biggest problem with youth sports today is the parents.”
- The letter ended up going viral and posted in locker rooms around the country. People referred to it as The Matheny Manifesto.
In the book, Mike tells this story about getting hit in the face with a 95 mile per hour fastball.
- He lost 8 teeth and didn’t even fall down.
- When he came back from the hospital he said, “I want to play tomorrow night.”
- Now when his players want out of a game they say, “Are you going to tell him you have an ‘owie?’ ”
There are plenty of other amazing stories in The Matheny Manifesto.
If you want to become a writer, Jerry’s blog is must read material. He teaches writers the little-known secrets behind writing an amazing book and getting it published. Click here to get Jerry’s top 5 most crucial writing tips for free.
Questions for Listeners
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- Phone: 1-800-726-ANDY
- E-Mail: InTheLoop@AndyAndrews.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to In the Loop, a unique opportunity to see life from a different perspective |
| 0:06.5 | with New York Times bestselling author, Andy Andrews. Now here's your host, David Loy. |
| 0:13.1 | Hello and welcome once again to In The Loop with Andy Andrews. I'm your host, David Loy and |
| 0:19.1 | Andy we have once again with us today, our good friend, |
| 0:22.1 | Jerry Jenkins. And I am so excited about this. Jerry, are you there? I'm here. Good to be with you again. |
| 0:27.8 | Awesome. Great, great, great. Well, Andy, we did a very unique and what I thought was a very |
| 0:33.9 | interesting episode just a few minutes ago, actually, talking about the art |
| 0:39.1 | of writing and the journey that both you and Jerry have been on. But there are some other |
| 0:44.4 | more specific similarities that the two of you share. I know that you're both avid sports fans. |
| 0:50.0 | Jerry, you are the most sought after sports biographer of all time. |
| 0:56.6 | You've done some of the biggest names ever. |
| 0:58.5 | But you're also just, aside from being a great writer, you just love sports and specifically |
| 1:03.3 | baseball. |
| 1:04.2 | Is that right? |
| 1:05.2 | Yeah, baseball is my favorite sport, probably because I wanted to be a baseball player. |
| 1:08.8 | And one of my earliest breaks in writing, I had written, I think, three books when I was in my early 20s. |
| 1:16.6 | And my boss came into my office. |
| 1:19.4 | I was working for a Sunday school publisher, actually. |
| 1:22.5 | And he said, would you want to help write a biography of Hank Aaron? |
| 1:29.9 | And I was speechless. |
| 1:32.7 | And I said, I said, Hank Aaron, are you serious? |
| 1:35.6 | And he said, yeah, he said, I've been asked to write an inspirational book on Hank Aaron. |
... |
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