Release Date: March 10, 2026
In youth and collegiate basketball, coaches today face increasing pressure—expectations to win, to perform, and to manage young athletes navigating intense competition at earlier ages. Middle schoolers and high school players are learning the game while also learning how to handle mistakes, adversity, and pressure. When coaches struggle with emotional regulation, that tension is felt throughout the team. Too often, moments meant to teach perseverance, composure, and teamwork become moments of frustration instead.
This scene has been the norm for far too long.
The Call Beyond the Game is a powerful invitation to break that cycle. It shines a bright, unflinching light on the culture shaping youth basketball today and offers a hopeful, game-shifting path toward something better. Rather than condemning, this book brings clarity, compassion, and conviction. It challenges adults—coaches, parents, mentors, and program leaders—to pause, reflect, and confront a difficult truth: somewhere along the way, we drifted far from the game James Naismith intended.
Naismith created basketball as a tool for building discipline, self-control, respect, teamwork, and strong moral character. He believed the game was a divine gift, something meant to develop the whole person—not just the athlete. Yet in today’s youth sports landscape, his values are often overshadowed by “winning at all costs,” sideline rage, and a culture obsessed with status, money, and perfection.
This book is more than a critique—it is a call to rise.
Drawing from heartfelt experience, leadership wisdom, and real-world stories, Coach Will L. Vance empowers readers to reclaim the true purpose of the game. The Call Beyond the Game offers practical tools, guiding principles, and mindset shifts designed to help coaches restore integrity, model calm under pressure, and create environments where young athletes feel both challenged and supported.
At its core, this book is about mindset-realignment—of coaches, of mentors, of players, and of the game itself. It invites readers to embrace a higher standard of leadership: to teach resilience over reaction, character over conflict, and growth over winning.
Whether you’re a parent, coach, athletic director, mentor, or teen leader finding your own voice, The Call Beyond the Game offers the inspiration and strategies needed to build better people, not just better players. It reminds us that when adults lead with intention, young athletes learn how to face adversity with confidence, humility, and heart—long after the final buzzer sounds.
Release Date: March 10, 2026
In youth and collegiate basketball, coaches today face increasing pressure—expectations to win, to perform, and to manage young athletes navigating intense competition at earlier ages. Middle schoolers and high school players are learning the game while also learning how to handle mistakes, adversity, and pressure. When coaches struggle with emotional regulation, that tension is felt throughout the team. Too often, moments meant to teach perseverance, composure, and teamwork become moments of frustration instead.
This scene has been the norm for far too long.
The Call Beyond the Game is a powerful invitation to break that cycle. It shines a bright, unflinching light on the culture shaping youth basketball today and offers a hopeful, game-shifting path toward something better. Rather than condemning, this book brings clarity, compassion, and conviction. It challenges adults—coaches, parents, mentors, and program leaders—to pause, reflect, and confront a difficult truth: somewhere along the way, we drifted far from the game James Naismith intended.
Naismith created basketball as a tool for building discipline, self-control, respect, teamwork, and strong moral character. He believed the game was a divine gift, something meant to develop the whole person—not just the athlete. Yet in today’s youth sports landscape, his values are often overshadowed by “winning at all costs,” sideline rage, and a culture obsessed with status, money, and perfection.
This book is more than a critique—it is a call to rise.
Drawing from heartfelt experience, leadership wisdom, and real-world stories, Coach Will L. Vance empowers readers to reclaim the true purpose of the game. The Call Beyond the Game offers practical tools, guiding principles, and mindset shifts designed to help coaches restore integrity, model calm under pressure, and create environments where young athletes feel both challenged and supported.
At its core, this book is about mindset-realignment—of coaches, of mentors, of players, and of the game itself. It invites readers to embrace a higher standard of leadership: to teach resilience over reaction, character over conflict, and growth over winning.
Whether you’re a parent, coach, athletic director, mentor, or teen leader finding your own voice, The Call Beyond the Game offers the inspiration and strategies needed to build better people, not just better players. It reminds us that when adults lead with intention, young athletes learn how to face adversity with confidence, humility, and heart—long after the final buzzer sounds.
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![FACILITATOR BUNDLE: JAMES AND HIS WISH FOR GOLDFISH, CARS, AND STARS [CLASSROOM SET]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/636fc621981a7861d528a2fd/8a437d27-fe37-463d-96a3-d991bfe0faec/JamesAndHisWishForGoldfishCarsAndStars--FacilitatorSet--Classroom.png)
