Howard Ferguson’s book The Edge used motivational quotes from professional athletes to inspire a generation of future athletes to reach their full potential and maximize their success.

Now, Joe Behm’s and Andy Smith’s All-In: Playbook to Become a Student-Athlete Role Model strives to achieve similar goals.

The Edge, written in 1982, inspired the book. Behm and Smith use motivational quotes from pro athletes like Tom Brady and famous political figures like Sir Winston Churchill to help student-athletes achieve success on and off the field.

All-In focuses on five pillars, principles it outlines to help student-athletes become model citizens. The pillars are smart, strong, respectful, commitment and honor.

Behm and Smith say these broad categories can be fitted to a student-athlete’s core values.

All-In also stresses the importance of “All-In thinking,” which focuses on creating balance: athletes living a healthy lifestyle and succeeding in areas other than athletics. The idea of all-in thinking is to help student-athletes take advantage of lifelong opportunities.

It’s important for aspiring pro athletes to be well-rounded individuals. The average NFL career is about 3.3 years  The average NBA career is about 4.8 years.  Since pro careers are generally brief, athletes must be competitive off the field as well as on. All-In helps them do this, as the five pillars help breed success in any endeavor.

The hard copy version of the book can be bought at http://www.all-inathletes.com/purchase. The e-book version can be purchased on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and iTunes for $3-$5.