What You’re Made For: Powerful Life Lessons From my Career in Sports by George Raveling and Ryan Holiday (Portfolio, 2025)

Reviewed by Elizabeth Stice



If you are not a big basketball fan, you may not have heard of George Raveling. Maybe you are aware that he played at Villanova, coached at Washington State, Iowa and USC, that he was a very important figure at Nike and ran Jordan’s basketball camp—or maybe you remember him as a minor character in the 2023 film Air with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. In the film, he’s the good friend of Sonny Vaccaro (Damon), who happens to have the original copy of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech” and who also dispenses good advice. Raveling’s real life is even more interesting than it appears in Air and this book draws on that life and its lessons to offer some words of wisdom to all readers, even if they will never be signed by Nike.



George Raveling has lived an interesting life. He grew up poor in Washington, D.C., went away to Catholic boarding school on a scholarship, and played basketball at Villanova. His time in college and professional basketball overlapped with a golden age and he had/has relationships not only with Michael Jordan, but Wilt Chamberlain, John Wooden, and Jerry West, among others. He was one of the first black players many white college players played with or against and he helped oversee the integration of international players into today’s NBA. No wonder Michael Jordan takes him seriously and wrote a foreword to this book.



Beyond basketball, George Raveling is a big reader and a lifelong learner. He is curious about the world and about people. He is always reading a few books and taking notes on them—he doesn’t just read, he studies. Though he is in his eighties, he continues to seek out new conversations and ideas. He is committed to serving others. He has always been a helper, but he is intentionally trying to be a “servant” to others in his remaining years. No wonder Ryan Holiday respects him and co-authored this book.



Americans love coaches. “Put me in coach, I’m ready to go,” sang CCR. We believe coaches are on to something. Everyone wants to play under someone like Knute Rockne, who could inspire you to “win one for the Gipper.” Hoosiers is a classic film. Hank Hill reveres Tom Landry. We’ll take insurance advice from Nick Saban. Many of the most beloved and charismatic television characters in recent years have been coaches. How iconic was Kyle Chandler as Coach Taylor on Friday Night Lights? How memorable is Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso? People believe they can draw real-life wisdom from those shows. Americans are so into coaches, we’ll hire them for anything: sports, singing, life… Michael Lewis has talked about coaching in numerous Against the Rules podcasts.



On the whole, coaching is a respectable profession, filled with people who generally make the world a better place. Yes, our trust in coaches is sometimes misplaced. College football coaches sometimes bail on their teams. Bobby Knight choked a couple of players. The Last Chance U football coaches all ultimately disappointed us, but basketball has been different so far. Coaches help people become more proficient at something—even excel. Coaches build teams. Coaches motivate. Good coaches care about more than athletics. Good coaches care about their athletes as people. Coach Taylor on Friday Night Lights helped boys become men. George Raveling was the kind of coach, and is the kind of person, who cares about people and helps them become what they were made to be.



And that is the question at the center of Raveling’s book: What were you made for? Across the chapters, Raveling shares stories from his life and insights from his experiences and offers a set of answers to that question. For example, made to serve others, made to keep hope alive, made to study books, made to reach your outer limits, made to bring people with you, etc. By the end of the What You’re Made For, you have a compelling outline of “the good life”—one which includes personal fulfillment and achievement but which is not entirely centered on the self and which aims to improve the lives of others and better the world.



What You’re Made For is not a very long read, but it is a good read. It is not as programmatic as John Wooden’s pyramid of success, but it is much more alive. This book is filled with stories and anecdotes and book recommendations that readers will likely enjoy and relay to others. When it comes to the kind of thing that fits under the “self help” category—this is the right type of book. It has no schemes, no clever strategies, no silly self-actualization plans. This book is full of straightforward, reality-based advice on how to live a good life—not how to become a millionaire or win the girl of your dreams or become a girl boss. It’s the kind of thing you wish more college students would consume instead of endless podcasts.



This book is an opportunity to learn from someone who is advanced in years and wisdom and willing to share. In fact, that might be one of the best ways to describe it: it is a book which believes in wisdom. It draws on a life well-lived. Like Raveling himself, What You’re Made For can be a helpful guide to many and it’s an enjoyable book even if you don’t know or care much about basketball.





What You’re Made For will be released in March 2025.



Elizabeth Stice is a professor of history and assistant director of the honors program at Palm Beach Atlantic University. When she can, she reads and writes about World War I and she is the author of Empire Between the Lines: Imperial Culture in British and French Trench Newspapers of the Great War (2023). She enjoys playing and watching basketball, but she has never been good at it.

I really thought I would enjoy this book, but I struggled through it. It wasn’t a chronological timeline of his life, rather advice from his life with his career scattered throughout it.

One of the coolest things about him that I probably knew but didn’t know was after Dr. Martin Luther King gave is famous “I Have a Dream” speech, George was there as security and he asked him for the copy afterwards, and King said of course. Raveling was offered money to sell it, but he donated it to Villanova University and occasionally, the school will loan to museums.

I did enjoy reading his basketball stories with Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Bill Walton, John Wooden, and Bobby Knight – just to name a few.