Former Cal QB Mike Pawlawski Set To Release New Book This Week

Mike Pawlawski has quite a story to tell. Now a successful businessman and former star college quarterback at the University of California-Berkeley and an Arena Football League champion – he’s currently the analyst on California Golden Bear radio telecasts – Pawlawski was in and out of the hospital as a sickly child growing up in Southern California. Despite enduring breathing and lung issues, he still found himself excelling at sports, and he’d eventually be diagnosed with cystic fibrosis after his college career ended.

But after his long career in the Arena League and quaterbacking the Albany Firebirds to the 1999 Arena Bowl championship, he’s gone to be an outdoors TV show host – we profiled him back in 2014 and also chronicled a pig hunting trip he took with fellow Cal quarterback alum and current Detroit Lions star Jared Goff in 2016 – and a motivational speaker in addition to his radio duties at his alma mater.

Tomorrow, Pawlawski is releasing a new book, Every Day Great: The Playbook For Winning At Everything. The book can be purchased now on Amazon Kindle. It will be available in paperback and hardcover for purchase starting tomorrow.

We talked him to recently and will run the interview and a book excerpt from a crazy outdoor adventure in Alaska in our November issue. But you can pick up the book starting tomorrow at various retail websites. It’s part triumph story of a somewhat marginal recruit – one Bay Area sportswriter opined that Pawlawski wasn’t athletic enough to be a worthy starter for the Golden Bears, but he led Cal to one of its best seasons ever in 1991 – and part self-help tutorial for what he’s accomplished on and off the field.

“From the doctors who saw me when and people who saw me as a sickly kid, they probably think I overachieved. But it’s all about your belief structure, and if you believe that you can accomplish it and are willing to put in the effort and adapt, then you’re not overachieving; you’re just maximizng your human potential, which is really the point of the book,” he says. “That’s the thing that people need to remember, we’re going to adapt as long as we’re willing to push against resistance if we’re willing to face the tough times.”

Follow Pawlawski on Instagram (@mikepawlawskicoach).