A Coach's Life
My 40 Years in College Basketball
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- 9,99 €
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- 9,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
Legendary University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith tells the full story of his fabled career, and shares the life lessons taught and learned over forty years of unparalleled success as a coach and mentor.
For almost forty years, Dean Smith coached the University of North Carolina men's basketball program with unsurpassed success- on the court and in shaping young men's lives. In his long-awaited memoir, he reflects on the great games, teams, players, strategies, and rivalries that defined his career, and explains the philosophy that guided him. There's a lot more to life than basketball- though some may beg to differ- but there's a lot more to basketball than basketball, and this is a book about basketball filled with wisdom about life. Dean Smith insisted that the fundamentals of good basketball were the fundamentals of character- passion, discipline, focus, selflessness, and responsibility- and he strove to unite his teams in pursuit of those values.
To read this book is to understand why Dean Smith changed the lives of the players he coached, from Michael Jordan, who calls him his second father and who never played a single NBA game without wearing a pair of UNC basketball shorts under his uniform, to the last man on the bench of his least talented team. We all wish we had a coach like Dean Smith in our lives, and now we will have that chance.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Largely conforming to the standard sports autobiography, former University of North Carolina basketball coach Smith recalls his career and the way it dovetailed with the evolution of college basketball over the second half of this century into a big business and media zoo. The writing is talky and easygoing, punctuated by sly humor: "I liked the '60s, but I liked them a lot better after we won a few ball games." Of meeting Michael Jordan, who played for him at UNC, Smith casually notes: "I know I'm supposed to say he was surrounded by a golden light, but the truth is, he wasn't." The son of schoolteachers, Smith writes sincerely about teaching his young, talented players the "issues" involved in basketball and in life, especially race. In a chapter called "I may Be Wrong But!" Smith reveals some of the personal and political beliefs he so tightly guarded during his career. He articulates his faith in God and his political disagreements with the Christian Coalition (relevant because Smith was long the most popular man in a state that elects Jesse Helms to the Senate) and his discomfort with athletes who appear to believe that God cares who wins a basketball game. Although Smith indulges in some stock homilies and bromides about "life fundamentals," he come off as man with compassion, modesty and honesty, as well as competitive drive.
