Duke Women's Basketball Coach Joanne P. McCallie will sign copies of her first book, "Choice Not Chance," at the Gothic Bookshop on West Campus on Wednesday April 18, from 4 to 7 p.m.
Over her 20-year coaching career, McCallie has developed and refined the "Choice Not Chance" philosophy, training her players and other youngsters how to think and focus on making correct choices in life. "Choice Not Chance" highlights the lessons she has learned and passed on to her teams and to other youngsters through the Choice Not Chance youth clubs she has created in every city where she has coached.
"The little choices you make daily are the choices that matter most," McCallie tells youth. "If you can make great little choices, sometimes the bigger choices aren't so difficult to make."
McCallie completed the book before the 2011-12 season, in which she led Duke Women's Basketball to their first ACC regular season championship since 2007, an appearance in the Elite Eight round of the NCAA national tournament, and was selected as the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Coach of the Year for the second time in three years.
The book chronicles McCallie's life from her youth in Maine through the beginning of her fifth season at the helm of Duke Women's Basketball. The details of McCallie's story include her experience as a student-athlete at Northwestern University, her work in downtown Chicago following graduation, her time as an assistant coach at Auburn University, and her first NCAA Division I head coaching job at the age of 26.
Kevin White, director of athletics at Duke, said McCallie is an exceptional leader both on and off the court, and her enthusiasm for basketball, and Duke, is contagious.
"Her passion comes through clearly in the pages of "Choice Not Chance," White said.
The hardback book is available at the Gothic Bookshop at 20 percent off the list price of $24.95.