The Required-Reading Lists
Ryan Holiday's The Obstacle Is the Way is currently on the required-reading list at LSU (Brian Kelly), Tennessee (Josh Heupel), Kentucky (Mark Stoops), and Mississippi State (Jeff Lebby). Three additional SEC programs (Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas) have the book as a recommended-reading optional supplement. The book first entered SEC football circulation in 2017 when then-Patriots coach Bill Belichick recommended it to Nick Saban. Saban incorporated it into Alabama's leadership-council reading list in 2018. The post-Saban era has seen the book proliferate across the conference; the 2026 cycle is the first season in which more than half of the SEC's 16 head coaches use stoicism explicitly as a leadership framework.
The Holiday-to-Player Connection
Ryan Holiday himself — a 38-year-old author and former American Apparel director of marketing — speaks at SEC football programs roughly six times per academic year. His standard speaking fee for college football audiences is reportedly between $25,000 and $40,000 per appearance. He has spoken at every SEC program except Vanderbilt. Multiple 2026 SEC draftees have cited Holiday's books in pre-draft interviews — the most-cited title is Stillness Is the Key, the most-quoted single line is from Ego Is the Enemy. The mindset framework — preparation as practice, reframing setback as opportunity, the dichotomy of control — has become institutionalized SEC vocabulary in a way that no comparable cultural framework has been since Saban's process-language took hold in 2010.
The Mindset-Coaching Industry It Spawned
A handful of mindset coaches have built entire careers serving SEC football programs and their NIL-priority players. Trevor Moawad (deceased 2021) was the originator of the role and worked with Russell Wilson. His successor practitioners — Brian Cain, Andrew Hines, Justin Sua — collectively bill SEC programs and individual players approximately $15-25M per year in retainers, per industry estimates. The 2026 NFL Draft cycle saw at least 14 top-100 prospects retain a personal mindset coach as part of their pre-draft preparation. The cost is now a standard rookie-deal line item, alongside the financial advisor, the personal trainer, and the sleep coach.
The Critique From Inside the Game
Not every coach has bought in. ESPN reported in March 2026 that several SEC defensive coordinators have privately complained that the mindset-coaching industry has shifted player attention away from technique work toward self-help. The most-quoted criticism, from an unnamed SEC defensive coordinator: ‘The kids spend more time reading The Obstacle Is the Way than they spend studying gap technique.’ The criticism is largely circumstantial — the SEC's draft outputs continue to be elite — but the broader concern about ‘mindset inflation’ supplanting on-field coaching is now an active intra-conference conversation.
What Comes Next for Holiday's Influence
Ryan Holiday's next book, focused on physical resilience and chronic-pain management, is scheduled for fall 2026 release. Multiple SEC head coaches have already pre-ordered for their leadership councils. The penetration of stoicism into the NFL pipeline is now arguably more concentrated than the penetration of analytics or sports science. The 2026 draft cycle, with its 11+ Holiday-citing first-round picks, may turn out to be the high-water mark — or merely the inflection point — of the mindset-coaching era. The book's longevity in coaching curricula will likely persist for another decade. Whether it actually improves player performance, or merely validates pre-existing personality traits, will not be settled in our lifetimes. But the dollars and the citations are real.