Successful Coaching Paperback - 2012

Rainer Martens, PhD, has coached at the youth, high school, and collegiate levels and has studied sport as a research scientist. The founder and president of Human Kinetics, he also started the American Sport Education Program, the largest coaching education program in the United States. An internationally recognized sport psychologist, Martens is the author of more than 80 scholarly articles and 17 books. He has also been a featured speaker at more than 100 conferences around the world and has conducted more than 150 workshops and clinics for coaches and athletes at all levels.

After receiving his PhD in physical education from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in 1968, Martens was a member of its faculty for 16 years. A past president of the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education, he has been recognized for his contribution to sport by the National Recreation and Park Association and by his induction into the National Association for Sport and Physical Education Hall of Fame. He has received Distinguished Alumni awards from Hutchinson High School, Emporia State University in Kansas (where he earned a bachelor's degree), the University of Montana (where he earned a master's degree), and the University of Illinois.

Martens continues to enjoy sport today, especially senior softball. He has been playing slowpitch softball for 45 years and currently plays for and coaches the most successful senior slowpitch team in the United States, the Florida Legends. In 2009, he was inducted into the National Senior Softball Hall of Fame. Martens and his wife, Julie, live in Ormond Beach, Florida.