Its summer and that means some extra time for reading. I'm sure like all basketball fans, my love of the game transcends other aspects of my life. In my case when it is time to read, I very well may read a book about basketball to get my mind off teaching and coaching basketball.
I'm not talking about coaching handbooks, or drill lists, or manuals (although I've got a shelf of those too). I'm talking about some good inspirational basketball thoughts and stories. So here is my current list of top 5 basketball books you may want to check out for the first time or even again in no particular order:
Values of the Game - Bill Bradley
A collection of thoughts and essays from former pro, princeton grad and US senator Bill Bradley on the values and lessons learned through basketball. Great thoughts, stories and memories from some of the greats of the game past and present while focusing on the character lessons players, coaches and any basketball fan should be embracing.
To Hate Like This is to Be Happy Forever [A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the DUKE-NORTH CAROLINA RIVALRY] - WILL BLYTHE
The title really says it all. An in depth, laugh at loud, "Oh my god! Really . . " and thought provoking look at college basketball's greatest rivalry. I sports writer from a die hard Tarheel family takes a year of to examine everything that makes this rivalry transcend school and region to be an internationally notorious one. He goes through a whole season watching games, meeting coaches, interviewing die hard fans and following every aspect of the rivalry possible, backdropped by his family's personal relationship in this saga.
Transition Game: How Hoosiers went Hip Hop - L. Jon Werthem
Basketball was born in Springfield Mass. Its home and heartbeat has always been the state of Indiana. This book examines how factors that are changing our world (gloablization, multiculturalism, etc) have done the same to the game of basketball in the state of Indiana. It is a warm walk down memory lane following the history of the state of Indiana, the state of the game, and the state of the world through interlaced stories of familiar basketball faces and legends up to contemporary day basketball in Indiana.
Eagle Blue: A Team, a Tribe, and a High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska - Micheal D'Orso
Coaches, players and fans all seem to think that no other place has quite the problems or has to deal with issues that their team has to overcome. Try being the coach in Fort Yukon. This book follows a year in with the basketball team in Fort Yukon, Alaska. Fort Yukon is a small native community above the arctic circle deep in the Alaskan wilderness. The only way to travel is snowmobile, getting to games means a plane trip which may or may not be cancelled by -50 degree weather, kids growing up with the struggles and pressures of trying to be regular teenagers in toady's world, members of their tribes culture/heritage and working to try to win a state championship. This book has everything you could ask from a story of a team for a season to bring some perspective to your own world of basketball.
Winning Sounds Like This: A season with the women's basketball team at Gallaudet University, the world's only university for the deaf. - Wayne Coffey
What most people love about sports (in particular basketball) has something to do with the pressure, overcoming adversity, seeing life lessons played out in a microcosm, and the thrills of the unexpected. Well imagine trying to win at a NCAA university in the capital city of the United States, and by the waty - your team is all hearing impaired. A wonderful story of a season with some of the most special athletes, coaches, playing high level basketball at arguably the most unique university and culture in the world. If you need to know what basketball, winning, and the power of sport really are - read this book!
(Honorable mention should go to The Last Amateurs. A story following a season in the the only Division 1 basketball conference that does not offer sports scholarships.)
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