Richly researched and textured writing that reveals the humanity of the author’s subjects.
A senior writer for ESPN The Magazine debuts with a collection of his explorations of sports-world notables who reached—or are reaching—the ends of their careers.
Thompson’s abundant strengths as a long-form journalist are evident on nearly every page. He is a relentless researcher and sensitive interviewer, a writer who tries to understand the factors that made his subjects who they are—or were. In an essay about Muhammad Ali, for example, Thompson engages in a seemingly endless pursuit of one of Ali’s very first opponents, a man who vanished from the grid. The author pursues the end-of-career stories of Michael Jordan and, later, Tiger Woods and helps us see the connections between the two, who are friends. He also chronicles the lives of people far less celebrated—e.g., Tony Harris, a college basketball star whose paranoia sent him into the jungles of Brazil, where he was found dead. Wright is particularly incisive in his essays on coaches, including Bear Bryant (Alabama football), Pat Riley (NBA) and Urban Meyer (who just completed his final football season at Ohio State)—all three of whom have had to deal with the end of their glory years. There are some longer, more complicated pieces here, too—the story of the New Orleans Saints, the Super Bowl, and Hurricane Katrina—and of football at the University of Mississippi when James Meredith broke the color line in 1962. Thompson also deals with the rugged family dynamics of Ted Williams and, in a brief piece, the angst and celebration in Chicago when the Cubs finally won the World Series in 2016. He ends with an emotional piece about his own late father. Though he’s sometimes a little quick on the draw with his identifications of motives and causes, his gritty determination makes it easy to forgive.
Richly researched and textured writing that reveals the humanity of the author’s subjects.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-14-313387-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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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