Play Their Hearts Out
A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $19.99
Publisher Description
“A tour de force of reporting” (The Washington Post) from a Pulitzer–prize winning journalist that examines the often-corrupt machine producing America’s basketball stars
“Indispensable.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Often heart-breaking, always riveting.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Tremendous.”—The Plain Dealer
Winner of the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sportswriting• Winner of the Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Youth Sports
Using eight years of unfettered access and a keen sense of a story’s deepest truths, journalist George Dohrmann reveals a cutthroat world where boys as young as eight or nine are subjected to a dizzying torrent of scrutiny and exploitation. At the book’s heart are the personal stories of two compelling figures: Joe Keller, an ambitious coach with a master plan to find and promote “the next LeBron,” and Demetrius Walker, a fatherless latchkey kid who falls under Keller’s sway and struggles to live up to unrealistic expectations.
Complete with a new “where-are-they-now” epilogue by the author, Play Their Hearts Out is a thoroughly compelling narrative exposing the gritty reality that lies beneath so many dreams of fame and glory.
One of GQ’S 50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century • One of the Best Books of the Year: Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Kirkus Reviews
This edition includes an exclusive conversation between George Dohrmann and bestselling author Seth Davis.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dohrmann, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for Sports Illustrated, spent eight years chronicling the struggles and triumphs of a select group of California youths who chased their dream in his wonderful and immaculately reported first book. Dohrmann largely focuses his work on Demetrius Walker, the hoops phenom who seems destined for stardom at a young age, his travel team from California, and the club's complex and bombastic coach, Joe Keller. Dohrmann began reporting on the book back in 2000, when Walker and many of his teammates were only 10 years old, and followed them through to their high school graduation. Along the way, he shows the brutal nature of "grassroots" basketball, in which coaches can view their players as "investments," the power of sneaker companies in youth basketball, and the cutthroat antics of collegiate recruiting. But this is equally a story about relationships and the sad deterioration of many of them, whether it be among teammates, parents and son, or coach and player. It's a brilliant and heart-wrenching journey, and a cautionary tale to any basketball player who thinks the path to the NBA is a slam dunk.
