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Archive for December, 2008
December 21, 2008 at 7:32 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Boosters Always Win! describes the formation and growth of the booster club for the Stanford women's basketball team. The book focuses on the many rewards of supporting women's basketball. Readers will learn why and how to become part of this excitement, and coaches who need to form booster clubs will find the book useful in developing their own organizations.
Customer Review: An insight on how to win without going to war
I enjoyed reading this book. It takes the reader behind the scenes and shows how much effort goes before and behind the actual game. It was a wonderful reminder of the fun I have when I get to attend a women's basketball game. Virgil A. Place, M.D.
Customer Review: Readers of this book win, too.
As an avid fan of college women's basketball for almost thirty years, I found this book enjoyable on several levels. First, it was enlightening to learn some of what it's like inside a national powerhouse women's basketball program; the author's stories brought me inside the excitement of a well respected program. Secondly, the chapters are about Stanford, a university recognized for its scholarship; it grows scholars who happen to be athletes. The narratives about recruitment, coursework, and balance of student and athlete were informative. Thirdly, the details about the boosters who built the Fast Break Club itself were funny and touching. The author brought me along for the ride when she took a tour of the PAC-10 schools, and I was inside the hearts of boosters who traveled in sickness and in health to support their teams, no matter the weather or the time zone. And finally, the author is a good writer and storyteller, her chapters and narratives flow well, the many photos add to the book, and I didn't want to put the book down. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in women's basketball. If you don't have a team to cheer for before you start the book, you will want to find one after you finish reading it!
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December 21, 2008 at 3:21 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Magic Johnson may be the enduring face of Michigan State basketball. Mateen Cleaves came to represent its heart while leading the Spartans to the 2000 national championship. Gregory Kelser, however, personifies the soul of the program. Kelser collaborated with Johnson to lead MSU to its first NCAA title in 1979. Here he discusses his role in the Spartans' victory over Indiana State and Larry Bird and how that game triggered college basketball's surge of popularity that continues to this day. He also provides insight and opinion on the successes, failures, players, personalities, and coaches who came before and after him at Michigan State, including Jud Heathcote, Tom Izzo, Scott Skiles, and Steve Smith.
Customer Review: Slam Dunk
This is an excellent read for any college basketball fan. I was at MSU during the Kelser-Johnson reign and knew a number of players in the book. Kelser filled in many behind-the-scenes stories I'd heard about as well as games and incidents I'd always wondered about. The format is a little ackward, and there's some fairly obvious blowing of one's own horn, but it still delivers what's promised--a behind-the-scenes look at a fascinating team's road to the NCAA championship, potholes, bumps and detours included. I also found interesting contasts to today's game and the 1979 "dawn" of the Final Four's evolution into the National psyche. You don't need to be a Spartan to enjoy this book.
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December 19, 2008 at 6:55 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
UNBEATABLE TEAM--MAYBE. UNBEATABLE READING--FOR SURE! The first novel in Betty Hick's Gym Shorts series is a slam-dunk for newly-independent readers.
Henry and his friends on Rockford Road are a basketball team unstoppable on their driveway court. But without team t-shirts or an official name can they take on The Tigers, a team that plays at the huge YWCA and has a player old enough to shave? Young readers will cheer as The Bats take on a name and stick together to beat the odds.
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December 19, 2008 at 9:40 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Boost your team's point totals—and victory totals—by using the best practice drills from the best coaches!
In WBCA's Offensive Basketball Drills, the top collegiate women's basketball coaches in the nation have put together their most effective offensive practice drills to ensure your offense is always running at peak level. Developed by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association, this book presents drills from legendary coaches such as Tennessee's Pat Summitt, Old Dominion's Wendy Larry, Kansas' Marian Washington, Nebraska's Paul Sanderford, and Clemson's Jim Davis.
Accompanied by detailed instructions and illustrations, each drill describes the purpose, procedure, key coaching points, and possible variations to increase difficulty or competitiveness. The drills are grouped according to a key skill or facet of the offensive attack, making it easy to fine-tune your offense in practice so that it fires on all cylinders during games.
Put more points on the board this season by improving your team's execution on offense—with WBCA's Offensive Basketball Drills!
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December 17, 2008 at 9:19 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Up-close, behind-the-scenes biography of the winningest coach in college basketball history.
Customer Review: nice companion piece to Smith's memoirs
Nice companion piece to Smith's own memoirs ("A Coach's Life"). A less complete portrait of Smith's inner life and interests off the court than the autobiography, but a more complete, and in many ways a more compelling, account of his public life as coach/power broker of what amounts to a multimillion dollar franchise. In this sense it is more entertaining than Smith's book -- a more open treatment of the recruiting process (including the ones that got away), the management of the Nike contract, the rivalry with Duke etc. Like the Smith book, it at times gets bogged down in season by season recapitulations of win-loss records. It also includes some material (such as a few paragraphs on the murder of Michael Jordan's father) which presumably are worth mentioning, but don't really fit into the thematic or narrative flow, and seem to be inserted in a kind of obligatory fashion. But these are quibbles. Unfortunately, the book ends with Smith's retirement and the installation of his hand-picked successor, Bill Guthridge, and, as a consequence, misses the surely interesting story of Guthridge's resignation two years later, and Smith and Guthridge's apparent inability to again stage manage the selection of the next long-run leader of the Carolina men's basketball program. Nevertheless an interesting and worthwhile read.
Customer Review: As a life long fan, the greatest book I've read.
I have been a tarheel fan for my whole life, I met "THE MAN" as a kid. He is just as portrayed in the book. This was a book that I could not put down. The best book I've read. Great work Art.
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December 17, 2008 at 1:08 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Soul of the Game is the soul of basketball, a celebration in images and voices that captures the players, the games, the shots, and the moves of the urban playground. From John Huet, the premier sports photographer who brought his look to the Nike "Trash Talk" ads, here are 100 powerful black-and-white, large-format portraits of Arkansas Red, Jackie Jackson, Nate Archibald, and Earl "The Goat" Manigault, playing on the most famous courts from Rucker Park in New York to Crenshaw High in L.A. Soul of the Game is a passionate tribute to streetball, as it's better known-a game played with hustle, flair, attitude, and athleticism. Poetry and hip-hop writing from the players themselves fill in this street hoops history with personal insights.
Customer Review: Sorry, I regret buying it.
Just some information about the street legends. Good quality paper and cover and some advertorial kind of pictures.That's all. I am very sorry but it is a wrong choice for me at least.
Customer Review: A must for all Basketball Players...
'Soul of the Game' is strictly a bestseller in my book. Thebook tells of where the most famous players came from: The streetcourts. This book is an inspiration to basketball players everywhere,including the pros. This a must read and should be honored as thebest in photography.
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December 16, 2008 at 8:33 am · Filed under Uncategorized
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December 14, 2008 at 2:50 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Knotting is a traditional art that?s fun to learn. This book shows kids how to make both simple and intricate knots with rope, cord or twine. Then they can find out how to use these knots to make amazing stuff. Soon they?ll have knotting all tied up!
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December 13, 2008 at 4:26 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
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December 12, 2008 at 10:29 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
When Cuba Conquered Kentucky is a classic underdog tale of a basketball team from a tiny Kentucky high school that in 1952 won the state championship against supposedly stronger teams from much bigger schools.
Customer Review: Good Effort by a Woman who Knew Nothing About Era Basketball
The author, a junior college professoress, is a good writer, but her knowledge of basketball, and the absence of a proof reader, makes this otherwise neat book sometimes excruciating. The faux pas range from some gratuitious editorializing to innocent, perhaps, but nevertheless excruciating misobservations, e.g., e., she thinks that a basketball backboard, sometimes bankboard, or the area of the net, basket, or goal, is properly described as "goalposts." Her efforts to be adjectivially writerish are sometimes downright absurd, i.e., Doodle Floyd's shooting "lighting" up the scoreboard with "windmill" hookshots from all parts of the floor. Nonsense, he may have shot them from all around what used to be shaped as a key, but not all over the floor, for crying out loud ! Sheeeeeeeeeeeeesh -- betcha none of them were from behind the ten second line! In numerous little ways the authoress gnashes a minimally knowledable person of era basketball. e.g., at the time the ball could be taken out rather than a freeshot taken when a foul was committed, at least in, I think it was the last two minutes of a game or half. In a game in which Cuba was behind, the author seems surprised that the opponents took the ball out of bounds rather than shoot free throws when fouled. Of course they did ! The reason they were fouled was to obtain a turnover. If the team fouled missed a free throw there was a chance for a turnover. A team ahead likely would be interested in freezing the ball. Of course, for crying out loud, they would take the ball out of bounds rather than shoot a free shot. Several times the authoress comments on players shooting a "jump shot". No, not likely. They may not have shoved it up two handed from the waist or chest, and they may have shot running one hand shots, or one hand set shots, maybe be from the waist, and maybe with a pumping motion, but if she thinks they were shooting "jump" shots in the form of modern jump shots, that notion is almost as erroneous as that of players posting themselves under the "goalposts". Describing the Cuba gym, she mentions a "box" office adjoining the coach's office. A what ? Was this an office for boxes ? It would hardly have been a press box one wouldn't think. And then there was a player who drove for lay up and missed although he "tossed" it up. And, a shot is a shot, not a throw, unless someone throws it instead of shooting it. I wonder if there are some films somewhere which show these boys of the mid-century as they were. playing as they did ? Or if the authoress has any idea of how the game looked then ? Aside from not knowing what game must have appeared like, the authoress has produced a neat book in which one can grasp the tenor of life as experienced by its participants. Yet, I hungered for more of the very genre of insights she provided, such as pictures, verbally and actual pictures, of the participants away from the court. I would like to have seen more of this, the front of Harper's, a picture of the ball court there, the community as it was. And I searched the pictures that were vainly trying to grasp the Cuba gym. And I wonder if they dressed in a dressing room with showers, or in a class room ? Did they have JV preliminary games ? Or junior high games ? They gym was suggested by the authoress to be under regulation dimensions. Personally, the smallest gym I ever seen (not saw) was a junior high gym at Flint in Morgan County Alabama, the ceiling was in play and was just a few feet higher than the top of the wooden backboard, the end boundaries were painted half on the court and half on the wall at one end and on the stage at the other, and at the stage end the out of bounds line actually went up the steps on one side. Basketball courts vary in width and length, but the foul line is always ten feet from the goal (not the "goalpost"). Courts vary in length and width. I don't think there was any such animal as an unoffical court. Nevertheless, the authoress has provided a good story and an absorbing read about a happy collection, a synchronicity of capable youths and a coach who both taught and allowed the ablity of these boys of the mid-century to flow out of them. A remarkable story.
Customer Review: When Cuba Conquered Kentucky is a fine American adventure!
Basketball was a passion in Kentucky & every highschool, no matter its size, organized a team to play game after game, traveling miles in all sorts of vehicles & weather. In Cuba, Kentucky, an isolated rural town around which three rivers poured & flooded, a group of rambunctious 8th grade boys became inspired by Coach Jack Story's dream of winning the 1952 state basketball championship & the American Dream. To a lesser degree yet with as much passion, the girls in the school fought & conspired to form a cheer leading troupe. In their long skirts & neck high Peter Pan blouses, they added their energy to the fever pitch. Marianne Walker has told their stories with enthusiasm including insights from a time before over-the-counter medicines; when most everyone raised their own food; many were share-croppers & there were no funded school programs; school bussing & television. In a time when radio was king, not everyone had telephones & sports writers were the revered messengers of the marathon games for which just about every person would turn out. Fascinating read! Do check out my full review.
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