After writing about football (A Civil War, 1996) and golf (A Good Walk Spoiled, 1995), bestselling author Feinstein returns to his true love, college basketball in the ACC. With such perennial superpowers as Duke and North Carolina, the Atlantic Coast Conference is the place to go for particularly dramatic and hard-fought hoops glory. Last season's ACC, the subject of Feinstein's book, had no shortage of drama, with Duke's head coach Mike Krzyzewski coming back from a year of surgery and burnout, UNC legend Dean Smith aiming for the record as winningest basketball coach in college history, and Wake Forest senior star Tim Duncan eschewing an early exit to the pros. Feinstein was given unprecedented access: Seven of the league's nine head coaches allowed him to attend all practices, locker-room sessions, and staff meetings, and two others permitted him unusually lengthy interviews. As he has proven repeatedly, this writer knows how to use such access to great advantage, finding the telling moment or detail, reading the mindset of participating athletes and coaches with uncommon astuteness. This volume is no exception. Moreover, he pulls off the difficult feat of keeping nine narratives moving relatively seamlessly. The coaches are the primary focus here, and Feinstein is particularly good at conveying the exhausting pressures of a high-profile coaching job in which everything one does is subjected to endless media scrutiny and public comment. Regrettably, one wishes that he had devoted more attention to the sociology of big-college sports. By avoiding some of the political and social ramifications, Feinstein ends up with a volume that feels a bit thinner than his best work. On the other hand, since Smith's surprising retirement announcement in October, the book does take on the added luster of recounting the final season of a remarkable career. Whatever this book's shortcomings, Feinstein still has a great shooting touch, and this one is a three-pointer from downtown. Swish! (For a look at Hoosier high-school hoops, see William Gildea's Where the Game Matters Most, p. 1685.) (Book-of- the-Month Club selection; author tour)
Pub Date: Jan. 2, 1998
ISBN: 0-316-27740-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1997
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.
NBA legends Bird and Johnson, fierce rivals during their playing days, team up on a mutual career retrospective.
With megastars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and international superstars like China’s Yao Ming pushing it to ever-greater heights of popularity today, it’s difficult to imagine the NBA in 1979, when financial problems, drug scandals and racial issues threatened to destroy the fledgling league. Fortunately, that year marked the coming of two young saviors—one a flashy, charismatic African-American and the other a cocky, blond, self-described “hick.” Arriving fresh off a showdown in the NCAA championship game in which Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans defeated Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores—still the highest-rated college basketball game ever—the duo changed the course of history not just for the league, but the sport itself. While the pair’s on-court accomplishments have been exhaustively chronicled, the narrative hook here is unprecedented insight and commentary from the stars themselves on their unique relationship, a compelling mixture of bitter rivalry and mutual admiration. This snapshot of their respective careers delves with varying degrees of depth into the lives of each man and their on- and off-court achievements, including the historic championship games between Johnson’s Lakers and Bird’s Celtics, their trailblazing endorsement deals and Johnson’s stunning announcement in 1991 that he had tested positive for HIV. Ironically, this nostalgic chronicle about the two men who, along with Michael Jordan, turned more fans onto NBA basketball than any other players, will likely appeal primarily to a narrow cross-section of readers: Bird/Magic fans and hardcore hoop-heads.
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-547-22547-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.
A basketball legend reflects on his life in the game and a life lived in the “nightmare of endlessly repetitive and constant pain, agony, and guilt.”
Walton (Nothing but Net, 1994, etc.) begins this memoir on the floor—literally: “I have been living on the floor for most of the last two and a half years, unable to move.” In 2008, he suffered a catastrophic spinal collapse. “My spine will no longer hold me,” he writes. Thirty-seven orthopedic injuries, stemming from the fact that he had malformed feet, led to an endless string of stress fractures. As he notes, Walton is “the most injured athlete in the history of sports.” Over the years, he had ground his lower extremities “down to dust.” Walton’s memoir is two interwoven stories. The first is about his lifelong love of basketball, the second, his lifelong battle with injuries and pain. He had his first operation when he was 14, for a knee hurt in a basketball game. As he chronicles his distinguished career in the game, from high school to college to the NBA, he punctuates that story with a parallel one that chronicles at each juncture the injuries he suffered and overcame until he could no longer play, eventually turning to a successful broadcasting career (which helped his stuttering problem). Thanks to successful experimental spinal fusion surgery, he’s now pain-free. And then there’s the music he loves, especially the Grateful Dead’s; it accompanies both stories like a soundtrack playing off in the distance. Walton tends to get long-winded at times, but that won’t be news to anyone who watches his broadcasts, and those who have been afflicted with lifelong injuries will find the book uplifting and inspirational. Basketball fans will relish Walton’s acumen and insights into the game as well as his stories about players, coaches (especially John Wooden), and games, all told in Walton’s fervent, witty style.
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1686-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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