Tri Bourne, Travis Mewhirter publish new book: Playbook of Champions

In February of 2018, Tri Bourne had an idea.

“We can make a Tim Ferriss book,” he said then, “like Tools of Titans, where he takes notes from all the people he’s interviewed and we can make a volley book.”

Bourne doesn’t remember having that idea, which isn’t all that surprising. He has a comical habit of forgetting the score of his own matches, much less off-hand ideas during a podcast five years ago. But something about that comment, made at his kitchen table at his old condo in Redondo Beach while we were podcasting with Brittany Hochevar, was sticky to me. We were barely three months into hosting SANDCAST, our then-new podcast, so I knew it would take a number of years and interviews before we had enough to compile a worthwhile book.

Six-plus years and 300-plus interviews later, we now have a book that I’d say is very much worthwhile.

Playbook of Champions: The habits, routines, and stories of Olympians, champions, and world class athletes is out today. You can get it at all the usual places one purchases books, namely Amazon. It is one of the coolest books that is currently sitting on my shelf, more than half a decade’s worth of wisdom from the greatest players to ever touch a volleyball, distilled into 352 pages.

In those pages, you will find the hysterical and distinctly old school stories of Mike Dodd and Sinjin Smith, Karch Kiraly and Tim Hovland, and you will uncover distinctly new school wisdom from April Ross and Taylor Crabb, Anders Mol and Alix Klineman. You will laugh at the memories of Chris ‘Geeter’ McGee, and perhaps smile softly at the words of Eric Zaun, which seem especially (and maybe surprisingly) wise and prescient now that he’s gone.

It’s a book not just for volleyball players or fans, or even athletes. It is a study of world-class performers, ranging from the players to the coaches to the legends to the entrepreneurs in our lovely little community. Nuggets can be gleaned from the many gold medalists within those pages, such as the winning mindset of Kent Steffes, to men who have never made a main draw, like Ed Keller or Greg Delgado, but who possess a tremendous and unique perspective on life and sport.

It’s a different book from any other that I’ve written. Even to describe it as something…