Title/Author:
“Play
Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit and the Youth Basketball Machine”
by George Dohrmann, narrated by Emily Rose Speer
Genre/topics:
Basketball,
youth sports, audio book
Published:
October 2,
2010
Length:
434 pages
Rating:
4 of 5 stars
(very good)
Review:
The world
of youth basketball, also known as grass roots basketball, has produced some
great players who had success in the professional game such as Tyson Chandler. It has also produced stories of players who
were expected to go far in their basketball careers at the age of 11 and 12 and
buckled under the pressure of great expectations. The story of one coach and his team of
players in Los Angeles is told in this interesting book by George Dohrmann. I was expecting stories like this about the
players, but all of the main characters in this book were important to the
story.
Coach Joe
Keller is the main man of this tale, wanting to put together the best group of
kids ages 10 and 11 and keep them together through high school in order to gain
fame, fortune and to be the one to produce the next great player. Keller thought he had that player in
Demetrius Walker, a young impressionable boy who, like many other players, sees
his coach as his father figure. What follows is a story that will make the
reader cheer, laugh, but mostly shake his or her head when it is revealed just
how far Keller goes to ensure that Walker is noticed and hyped as much as
possible.
There is
considerable discussion about the role that shoe companies such as Nike, Adidas
and Reebok play in the grassroots game. There are rankings of players online,
recruiting of these players as early as age 9, and deals made in order to bribe
parents into allowing their children to play on these teams. Keller paid rent for more than one of his
player’s living accommodations – if that player wasn’t spending most of his
time at Keller’s house. He did that and
more for Walker’s family. Walker was
good enough to have his picture on the cover of Sports Illustrated. What happens eventually to him and some of
his teammates made me keep on listening to the book.
The narration provide by Speer for the audio book was very good as she told the story of young men and their interactions in a manner that you didn’t realize the gender difference or that it was a woman speaking language and phrases that young men share only with other young men. I felt that by listening to instead of reading this book, I was able to stay connected to the basketball players. I was cheering for them to all have happy endings by the end – whether that happened is something that I will not give away here. If one wants to learn more about the inner workings of youth basketball, this is an excellent source of information for that topic.
Pace of the book:
It moves along
very well. The story stays on track as the author rarely veers off topic on
side stories. They are all about Coach
Keller, his team, his players or their families.
Do I recommend?
Yes – although
be prepared for some melancholy stories as not all of the boys have successful
endings. If the reader wants to learn
more about grass roots basketball, both the good and the ugly, this book covers
it all.
Audio book
Buying Links:
No comments:
Post a Comment