Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine Review
The book is extremely well written and contains brutally honest commentary that I imagine interested parties will be shocked to see in print. It's clear that this book was born from an eight-year journey and not something slapped together by a busy writer collecting a quick advance, ala the last 6 John Feinstein books.
As the review said, the author did a tremendous job juggling the various hats of social critic, journalist and storyteller. His account of the high stakes youth basketball scene was meticulous. His access to the principals and ability to get them talking was amazing.
One element that is greatly disturbing is how the author stood by with his notepad and recorder and watched these young athletes become manipulated by a completely delusional, egotistical, corrupt individual, Joe Keller - the main character in the story along with his athlete, Demetrius Walker. While I understand the tenets of good journalism are to not interfere with the story line, this was one occasion where the guy along for the ride for 8 years might have provided an important voice of reason to parents and kids who were being manipulated. It's hard to get past this sentiment even as I greatly appreciated the story and kept turning the pages. It's comforting to know that almost all of the boys ended up okay - if you judge merely by the escalation of their basketball careers into the college ranks.
I guess the author and readers will have to be content with the thought that the publication of this story may help prevent the cycle from perpetuating in youth sports
Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine Feature
- ISBN13: 9780345508607
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine Overview
Eight years of unfettered access, a keen sense of a story’s deepest truths, and a genuine compassion for his subject allow Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist George Dohrmann to take readers inside the machine that produces America’s basketball stars.
Hoop dreams aren’t just for players. The fever that grips college basketball prospects hoping to strike big-time NBA gold afflicts coaches, parents, and sneaker executives as well. Every one of them has a stake in keeping America’s wildly dysfunctional, incredibly lucrative youth basketball machine up and running—no matter the consequences.
In Play Their Hearts Out, George Dohrmann offers an up-close and unforgettable look inside the maw of that machine. He shares what he learned from his years spent embedded with a group of talented young recruits from Southern California as they traveled the country playing in elite Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) events. It’s a cutthroat world where boys as young as eight or nine are subjected to a dizzying torrent of scrutiny and exploitation. Coaches vie to have them on their teams. Sneaker companies ply them with free shoes and gear. “All-star camps” are glorified cattle auctions, providing make-or-break opportunities to secure the promise of an elusive college scholarship.
At the book’s heart are the personal stories of two compelling figures: Joe Keller, an ambitious AAU coach with a master plan to find and promote “the next LeBron”—thereby paving his own path to power and riches; and Demetrius Walker, a fatherless latchkey kid who falls under Keller’s sway and struggles to live up to the unrealistic expectations his supposed benefactor has set for him. As their fortunes take shape and the pressure mounts—Demetrius finds himself profiled in Sports Illustrated at age fourteen, while Keller cultivates his business empire—Dohrmann weaves in the stories of numerous other parents, coaches, and players. Some of them see their prospects evaporate as a result of poor decisions and worse luck. Others learn how to thrive in a corrupt system by playing the right angles.
Written with incomparable detail and insight, Play Their Hearts Out is a thoroughly unique narrative that reveals the inner workings of an American game, exposing the gritty reality that lies beneath so many dreams of fame and glory.
Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine Specifications
Amazon Best Books of the Month, October 2010: Each year, millions of grammar school athletes swarm fields and courts armed with little more than an infectious love for their games. These endeavors represent the purity of sport, as kids are allowed to be kids and compete outside the demands of lucrative contracts and extensive media coverage. Yet sadly, as George Dohrmann's Play Their Hearts Out demonstrates, such a paradise is fading fast in today's corporate sports world. Dohrmann provides a first-hand account of the rise of a nine-year-old basketball phenom and the grassroots programs that both helped and hindered his dreams of superstardom. To call this story a cautionary tale is to sell it short, as Play Their Hearts Out is an unflinching look at the increasing need for hype in youth athletics. Fans of the brilliant Hoop Dreams documentary are advised to add this book to their cart immediately, as Dohrmann's masterful ability to remove himself from the plotline achieves an honesty that leaves any and all judgments to the reader. --Dave Callanan
Photographs from Play Their Hearts Out
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