Fans of college roundball, parochial or not, will enjoy Gasaway’s lively history.
Of hoops, hopes, holy orders, and habits.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that Catholic schools are good at college basketball,” writes ESPN basketball analyst Gasaway. It’s not so much that God is on their side but that over more than a century, Catholic schools such as Gonzaga, Xavier, Seton Hall, Villanova, and Georgetown have put their sports energies into basketball, sometimes forgoing football in the process. Granted, Loyola University Chicago had a 98-year-old nun named Sister Jean to cheer on the players when they reached the 2018 Final Four. “We pray hard,” she told the author, “and we pray before every game. Sometimes it’s only a prayer. Sometimes I give the scouting report then.” As Gasaway notes, there are some 250 Catholic colleges in the U.S., and 20% play Division 1 ball. What distinguishes many of these schools is consistent excellence in coaching, which, along with the prowess of its players, is what took schools like Seattle University to an unprecedented “four straight appearances at the NCAA tournament” in the 1950s and lands schools like Gonzaga high in the running today. Gasaway covers the lows as well as the highs, including a point-shaving scandal that shook Seton Hall in 1961, lending the school the nickname “Cheatin’ Hall” for some time after, and rivalries between Catholic high schools that spilled over into college, as when Georgetown froze out Washington’s DeMatha High for four decades owing to a coach’s grudge. The highs make up for those bad patches, and they’re appropriately mysterious and sometimes miraculous. As Gasaway concludes at the end of his survey of Catholic playing from the time of James Naismith on, “If there is a specifically Catholic secret sauce for basketball success, it remains elusive.”
Fans of college roundball, parochial or not, will enjoy Gasaway’s lively history.Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5387-1710-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Twelve
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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