Insightfully assessing a famed coach and his celeb-adjacent squad’s rise and fall.
A SoCal sports powerhouse.
This look at the dominant mid-2000s USC football program succeeds on multiple fronts, coupling multifaceted character studies with memorable tales of excess, dysfunction, and controversy. Center stage is Pete Carroll, who coached the Trojans to consecutive national championships. His players call him a “psychological ninja” and “a big-ass kid.” Per the author’s diligent reporting, both characterizations fit. Burke depicts a football lifer who rejects the industry-standard “authoritarian” model. Carroll’s approach, informed by applied psychology ideas that emerged in the 1960s, foregrounds fun. More than once, we see him try to keep practice loose by staging “morbid” pranks simulating untimely deaths. After mediocre coaching stints in the NFL, Carroll’s USC winning percentage topped 83%. The staff’s “good cop,” he employs full-throttle assistants. One strips naked during a pep talk; another tackles a curfew-breaking player in a hotel. Burke presents a rounded portrait of Carroll, who has since returned to pro ball. A prominent former player describes the coach as “sneaky,” and some of Burke’s other sources say Carroll’s oversight was too lax. Burke’s reporting includes an ex-USC athlete’s claim that he supplied steroids to players and glimpses of hard-partying Trojan stars. Burke wrings an impressive amount of drama from accounts of old ballgames, including one considered among the best-ever college tilts. He has an occasional tin ear, however, casually describing rape allegations against L.A. Lakers legend Kobe Bryant as “an icky scandal.” The Trojans’ accomplishments were tarnished when the NCAA levied stiff penalties after finding that a star player accepted cash and other prohibited compensation. Since-adopted rules permit college athletes to earn money, and to the delight of its many critics, the NCAA’s commitment to “false amateurism” backfired, Burke correctly notes, rendering it largely “powerless.”
Insightfully assessing a famed coach and his celeb-adjacent squad’s rise and fall.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781538772584
Page Count: -
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.
A future basketball Hall of Famer’s rosy outlook.
Curry is that rare athlete who looks like he gets joy from what he does. There’s no doubt that the Golden State Warriors point guard is a competitor—he’s led his team to four championships—but he plays the game with nonchalance and exuberance. That ease, he says, “only comes from discipline.” He practices hard enough—he’s altered the sport by mastering the three-point shot—so that he achieves a “kind of freedom.” In that “flow state,” he says, “I can let joy and creativity take over. I block out all distractions, even the person guarding me. He can wave his arms and call me every name in the book, but I just smile and wait as the solution to the problem—how to get the ball into the basket—presents itself.” Curry shares this approach to his craft in a stylish collection that mixes life lessons with sharp photographs and archival images. His dad, Dell, played in the NBA for 16 years, and Curry learned much from his father and mother: “My parents were extremely strict about me and my little brother Seth not going to my pops’s games on school nights.” Curry’s mother, Sonya, who founded the Montessori elementary school that Curry attended in North Carolina, emphasized the importance not just of learning but of playing. Her influence helped Curry and his wife, Ayesha, create a nonprofit foundation: Eat. Learn. Play. He writes that “making reading fun is the key to unlocking a kid’s ability to be successful in their academic journeys.” The book also has valuable pointers for ballers—and those hoping to hit the court. “Plant those arches—knees bent behind those 10 toes pointing at the hoop, hips squared with your shoulders—and draw your power up so you explode off the ground and rise into your shot.” Sounds easy, right?
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780593597293
Page Count: 432
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Basketball fans will enjoy Pippen’s bird’s-eye view of some of the sport’s greatest contests.
The Chicago Bulls stalwart tells all—and then some.
Hall of Famer Pippen opens with a long complaint: Yes, he’s a legend, but he got short shrift in the ESPN documentary about Michael Jordan and the Bulls, The Last Dance. Given that Jordan emerges as someone not quite friend enough to qualify as a frenemy, even though teammates for many years, the maltreatment is understandable. This book, Pippen allows, is his retort to a man who “was determined to prove to the current generation of fans that he was larger-than-life during his day—and still larger than LeBron James, the player many consider his equal, if not superior.” Coming from a hardscrabble little town in Arkansas and playing for a small college, Pippen enjoyed an unlikely rise to NBA stardom. He played alongside and against some of the greats, of whom he writes appreciatively (even Jordan). Readers will gain insight into the lives of characters such as Dennis Rodman, who “possessed an unbelievable basketball IQ,” and into the behind-the-scenes work that led to the Bulls dynasty, which ended only because, Pippen charges, the team’s management was so inept. Looking back on his early years, Pippen advocates paying college athletes. “Don’t give me any of that holier-than-thou student-athlete nonsense,” he writes. “These young men—and women—are athletes first, not students, and make up the labor that generates fortunes for their schools. They are, for lack of a better term, slaves.” The author also writes evenhandedly of the world outside basketball: “No matter how many championships I have won, and millions I have earned, I never forget the color of my skin and that some people in this world hate me just because of that.” Overall, the memoir is closely observed and uncommonly modest, given Pippen’s many successes, and it moves as swiftly as a playoff game.
Basketball fans will enjoy Pippen’s bird’s-eye view of some of the sport’s greatest contests.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982165-19-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
