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The Assist: Hoops, Hope, and the Game of Their Lives | 
 enlarge | Author: Neil Swidey
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
Buy Used: $4.03
You Save: $21.97 (84%)
New (32) Used (20) from $4.03
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 260036
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 376
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.4
ISBN: 1586484699
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.323620974461
EAN: 9781586484699
ASIN: 1586484699
Publication Date: January 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Jack O'Brien, the impossibly demanding basketball coach at Charlestown High School in Boston, has led his team to five state championship titles in six years. Less talked about is O'Brien's other winning record: Nearly every one of the players who stuck with his program—poor kids growing up in high-crime neighborhoods and saddled with the lousy educational system available in urban America—managed to get to college. But O'Brien is no saint. Saints give without expecting anything in return. O'Brien needs his players and their problems as much as they need him.
Revolving around fascinating, complex characters, The Assist is a captivating narrative of a basketball team in pursuit of a championship that also drills down into the legacy of desegregation and explores issues of education, family, and race. O'Brien is a middle-aged white guy coaching an all-black team playing in an all-white neighborhood that three decades ago was at the center of the busing wars dividing cities across the country—a time and place indelibly described in J. Anthony Lukas's powerful book Common Ground. It's the inspiring story of a man who makes a difference, and of boys surmounting nearly impossible odds; it is also the story of the ones who don't make it, and why.
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| Customer Reviews:
I was up until 3:30 this morning reading this book! May 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I almost couldn't put the book down. Finished it in three nights. Anyhow, the writing style is fantastic and the story is compelling. Lots of ups and downs. The best part is that the book is about real people. Definately read this book.
Not Just a Basketball Book April 19, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is not just a book about basketball. Ask anyone who ever played a sport, and they can probably tell you how much their coach influenced their life. At a time in life when boys are becoming men, a positive male role model, whether it be a parent, coach or a teacher, can make all the difference. Neil Swidey's insider's view of the lives of the players, their families and Coach O'Brien was both heartwarming and disturbing. But this is not unique to Boston. All over the country, we continue to spend money building more jails instead of improving our schools, after school programs and parks. This is a good read for young or old. And not just men.
This is not good book - it is a great book March 26, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book juxtaposes basketball and real life. In doing so Swidey provides a multiple perspectives.
Sometimes the reader is present almost as a fellow team member during very private times in the coaches and player's lives; both on and off the court. You know what music they are listening to - the complex dynamics that are playing out under the surface - what they are thinking during emotionally charged situations. The author has an uncanny ability to bring the reader into these young adult's lives.
Other times Swidey provides a 360 helicopter vantage point that allows the reader to see all character's points of view at the same time; and an ability to see how relatively small events in the present; have big consequences as events unfold.
From either point of view the story is compelling. While based around a basketball coach and his team's on and off court struggles - it is more accurately about a good but flawed man's attempt to help good but flawed kids navigate their urban maze.
incredible story perfectly captured January 26, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
I am not usually a reader, but I had a hard time putting this book down. Swidey does an excellent job capturing what has been an incredible story in Boston over the past few years. It's about basketball but, it is also about so much more. He describes how the aftermath of school desgregation in Boston has left the public schools in crisis, and how having someone who cares can make such a huge diffrence.
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