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‘Red Rubber Ball’ Bounces into Youth Market
What is it that excites you, makes you smile and fuels your dreams? This is the question author Kevin Carroll urges children to contemplate in his new inspirational workbook, What’s Your Red Rubber Ball?!: Discover Your Inspiration and Chase It for a Lifetime, co-published by Disney Press and ESPN Books. The book, which contains fold-outs, journal pages and self-discovery activities and features red rubber texturing on its cover, lands this month with a 100,000-copy first printing.
The genesis of the title is an actual ball that Carroll played with as a boy, which helped him discover his athletic ability and a passion for sports. That ball fueled Carroll’s personal and professional dreams and, he insists, “it saved my life.” Born in a Philadelphia suburb in 1958, he, along with his two brothers, moved in with their grandparents after their parents abandoned them. The local playground became what he calls “my sanctuary—a magical environment where my worries, shame and low self-esteem disappeared.”
During 10 years of active duty in the Air Force, Carroll spent a good deal of time playing soccer. He went on to study sports medicine and worked as an athletic trainer for high school and college athletic teams, eventually becoming the head trainer for the Philadelphia 76ers. He then went to work for Nike, where he was responsible for inspiring employees. “It was my job to push their creativity and potential to the limit,” he says.
Carroll first delivered his motivational message—to identify what it is that inspires you and pursue it throughout your life—on the page in Rules of the Red Rubber Ball: Find and Sustain Your Life’s Work, which he self-published in 2004. He brought copies to speaking engagements, including those he conducted in conjunction with ESPN. “A copy of the book landed on the desk of Sandy DeShong at ESPN Books, which was just starting up,” the author explains, and they negotiated a book deal soon after. Released in 2005, the ESPN Books edition has more than 120,000 copies in print…
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What’s your Red Rubber Ball?!
Image courtesy of Barnes & Noble
From My ESPN Blog:
WYRRB?! – A Series of Fortunate Events
From an idea to on the shelves and on the web, “What’s Your Red Rubber Ball?! discover your inspiration and chase it for a lifetime” is my latest book effort that I’ve been pursuing for over two years. Today, July 22, my second book will be released. Each time I think about my printed and bound words being easily accessible to the public, I get an oh-so-familiar visceral response. It’s a feeling of being scared and exhilarated that settles right in the deep recesses of my stomach and makes me uncontrollably lurch forward and double over. I used to get that feeling before stepping into the starting blocks at a track meet (see Track Town USA post). All sorts of madness and questions were running through my head as the release date drew closer – is it any good; did I deliver the message I wanted; will it be inspiring; will the reader “get it”; will I sell enough books to please my publisher (ESPN Books/Disney Publishing); will more than friends and family purchase it – this is a BIG worry considering that my book will be competing against more than 150,000 titles published this year.
Online book description: In a boldly designed, highly energetic book, Kevin Carroll leads readers through a series of exercises designed to help them discover their Red Rubber Ball—a dream to chase for a lifetime. With a cardboard box to be decorated, punch-out inspiration cards, a removable dream statement, and gatefold pages that can be written on, this engaging new book offers tweens and teens a fun, accessible way to think about their hopes and dreams.
So, how did I get to this point?! Well, here’s my tale of how a series of fortunate events unfolded to create this opportunity to publish another book with the Worldwide Leader In Sports. This moment is equally filled with a anxiety, exuberance, and satisfaction:
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What’s your Red Rubber Ball?!
Books by KC
