Bench Rules: A Guide to Success On and Off the Bench

BENCH RULES tells the inspirational story of Kevin Christensen, a former high school star, who finds himself banished to the end of the bench on his college basketball team. While navigating the turbulent emotions that come from being a little used reserve, he realizes the important role he plays on his team. Eventually, he finds joy and meaning in that role, and in doing so, he transforms his basketball career into a story of triumph against the odds.

There have been many books praising the greatness of the select few, but BENCH RULES is a guide for the other guys. Accented by stories from his playing career, Christensen shows us ten different ways a person can contribute to a team without scoring a single point, or even playing a single minute, on game day. From superstar down through last player on the bench, the ideas in this book are valuable to everyone who desires to become the best player, teammate and person they can be. BENCH RULES is the blueprint for those who want to become champions both on and off the court.

From The Press Democrat article on BENCH RULES and author Kevin Christensen:

Kevin Christensen has written a book for you, for us, about how to gain value and accomplishment from a situation that apparently offers so little of each. After all, what relevance can a Kobe Bryant autobiography have; none of us share a smidgen of the skill of one of the top 10 talents to ever play basketball. Unless we like playing voyeur and, really, how long is the shelf-life on that one?

But no one has written, until now, what to do when you not only don't start, you don't even play. You're the last man on the bench and the other team knows it.

“Bench Rules” is timeless and limitless. It can be applied to any sport; in fact, it can be applied to life. Who among us has not been at the end of the bench, discouraged, depressed?

From basketball coach Steve Finamore, writer of "See the Ball" basketball blog: A few weeks ago an author from the West Coast recently published an amazing book; he was kind enough to send one my way.

I was blown away!

It was so good, I thought I would write a review.

Kevin Christensen has put together a marvelous book titled, Bench Rules: A Guide to Success On and Off the Bench.

You want a book that puts you right in the middle of the action? Well, Kevin has done a great job in telling his audience of his experience as a college basketball player who finds himself coming off the bench for his college basketball team.

I love how he writes about personal situations in the game and how he deals with them.

We can all agree that it sucks coming off the bench, no one is ever happy with this role but Kevin took this opportunity and instead of complaining, he made the best of it.

In Bench Rules Kevin has sections covering Belief, Extra Work, Never Quitting, Consistency and many others, relevant to your improvement as a basketball player.

My favorite part of the book starts on page 71 where Kevin explains his “love for the game.” He writes about his favorite team, the Sacramento Kings…great stuff!

To conclude, do yourself a favor if you are looking for an excellent read this summer; get your hands on this book and I bet you will not put it down.

Kevin Christensen is a former basketball player and coach from Sonoma State University. While there Kevin went from being the last player on the bench to an all-conference selection on the 2005-06 championship team. He followed up his collegiate playing career by playing professionally in Vienna, Austria. Kevin currently serves as the assistant athletic director and head girls and boys varsity basketball coach at Sonoma Academy in Santa Rosa, California.