The Book On Sports: All Sports Books: Finding Their Stride: A Team of Young Runners Races to the Finish

Pont teaches English at a small, co-ed private school in Pennsylvania, where she also coaches the co-ed cross-country team. It's a quirky squad--Moravian Academy's strength is its brains, not its brawn--and the eclectic group that Pont takes on would just as soon burn the midnight oil, paint a picture, or perform on stage as cover a distance of ground. Naturally, they're the league doormats, wandering egos in search of cohesion. Over the course of one magnificent season, Pont finds ways to wake within them a dormant love of sport and competition, and they bloom, racing as a unit toward a Hollywood ending. After the season is over, after the accolades and prizes have been dispensed, after a long run of her own, Pont manages to supply an almost mystical meaning to what she--and they--have done: "I stop in front of my door, bend over, hands on knees, and breathe deep. My run over, I wonder, what does the Hindu desire after she has plunged into the Ganges? Hope to do it again." In the end, it's that simple. The humor, beauty, and depth that Pont puts into her stirring chronicle make the journey as rousing as its conclusion and its inevitability more renewing than trite. --Jeff Silverman

Product Description

Sally Pont is an outstanding runner who writes, and a brilliant writer who runs. In the tradition of Friday Night Lights, Finding Their Stride is the story of her year coaching a co-ed cross country team. It is a heartwarming tale of wonderful kids doing what they love, and doing it well; and it is a surprising story of triumph. At Moravian Academy, a small, independent school of 247 students, runners are not sports gods. They're outsiders, artists and actors, the scholarship kids who have side jobs and study far into the night. Whenever they excel, it's for the pleasure of it. Rich and poor, immigrant and entitled, these young men and women jump off the page, from Sally's raucous pre-season spaghetti dinner through the heart-stopping end of the season. Each week, Pont takes us to a new meet, with the girls and boys running separate races. As we watch the season unfold, the girls begin to find a new stride, and by the end, they're running on air. Up the hills and around the curves of every practice and race, Sally Pont is there, running along with them, encouraging, understanding, and comforting them. She loves the team, and we do, too. We also come to love the writer, not only for her gifts, but for her great heart. The long-distance race is a mythic archetype, cutting to the heart of who we are. This book, in which young women emerge as stars under the tutelage of a caring coach, adds new dimension to that myth.