Basketball

Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph

“Lots of people have dreams, but C. Vivian Stringer is the dream—a coalminer’s daughter who believed when her Poppa told her there was no obstacle she could not surmount. And she lives that dream, teaching others to rise up to meet challenges, turning underdogs into champions again and again—on and off the court. This is the quintessential American story, of a woman and of a family pulling together against the odds. Standing Tall offers an important message of hope to so many.”
—John Chaney, Hall of Fame college basketball coach


At a time when heroes are too rare, C. Vivian Stringer sets a shining example. She has time and again shown character, fortitude, and heart, both on and off the hardwood, and in the face of unbearable loss. In Standing Tall, she shares her remarkable life story, inspiring us to find this fortitude within ourselves.

“Work hard, and don’t look for excuses,” Stringer’s parents told her, “and you can achieve anything.” But her faith and perseverance would be tested many times. A gifted athlete, she had to fight for a place on an all-white cheerleading squad in the sixties. In 1981, just as her coaching career was taking off, her fourteen-month-old daughter, Nina, was stricken with spinal meningitis. Nina would never walk or talk again. Still grieving, Stringer brought a small, poor, historically black college to the national championships—a triumph hailed as “Hoosiers with an all-female cast.” In 1991, her husband, Bill—her staunchest supporter, the father of her children, and the love of her life—fell dead of a sudden heart attack, but that same year, she led yet another young team to the Final Four. Through these dark times and others—including her bout with cancer, shared here for the first time—Stringer has carried her burdens with grace. Given her history, it was no surprise that she led her team to respond to Don Imus’s slurs with dignity and courage.

Standing Tall is a story of quiet strength in the face of punishing odds. Above all, it is an extraordinary love story—love for the game, for the players she has coached, for her close-knit family, and for the husband she lost far too soon. It will resonate long after the last page.

Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich

Book Description
Pistol is more than the biography of a ballplayer. It's the stuff of classic novels: the story of a boy transformed by his father's dream--and the cost of that dream. Even as Pete Maravich became Pistol Pete--a basketball icon for baby boomers--all the Maraviches paid a price. Now acclaimed author Mark Kriegel has brilliantly captured the saga of an American family: its rise, its apparent ruin, and, finally, its redemption.

Almost four decades have passed since Maravich entered the national consciousness as basketball's boy wizard. No one had ever played the game like the kid with the floppy socks and shaggy hair. And all these years later, no one else ever has. The idea of Pistol Pete continues to resonate with young people today just as powerfully as it did with their fathers.

In averaging 44.2 points a game at Louisiana State University, he established records that will never be broken. But even more enduring than the numbers was the sense of ecstasy and artistry with which he played. With the ball in his hands, Maravich had a singular power to inspire awe, inflict embarrassment, or even tell a joke.

But he wasn't merely a mesmerizing showman. He was basketball's answer to Elvis, a white Southerner who sold Middle America on a black man's game. Like Elvis, he paid a terrible price, becoming a prisoner of his own fame.

Set largely in the South, Kriegel's Pistol, a tale of obsession and basketball, fathers and sons, merges several archetypal characters. Maravich was a child prodigy, a prodigal son, his father's ransom in a Faustian bargain, and a Great White Hope. But he was also a creature of contradictions: always the outsider but a virtuoso in a team sport, an exuberant showman who wouldn't look you in the eye, a vegetarian boozer, an athlete who lived like a rock star, a suicidal genius saved by Jesus Christ.

A renowned biographer--People magazine called him "a master"--Kriegel renders his subject with a style that is, by turns, heartbreaking, lyrical, and electric.

The narrative begins in 1929, the year a missionary gave Pete's father a basketball. Press Maravich had been a neglected child trapped in a hellish industrial town, but the game enabled him to blossom. It also caused him to confuse basketball with salvation. The intensity of Press's obsession initiates a journey across three generations of Maraviches. Pistol Pete, a ballplayer unlike any other, was a product of his father's vanity and vision. But that dream continues to exact a price on Pete's own sons. Now in their twenties--and fatherless for most of their lives--they have waged their own struggles with the game and its ghosts.

Pistol is an unforgettable biography. By telling one family's history, Kriegel has traced the history of the game and a large slice of the American narrative.

"Why Pistol?" I'm asked that all the time.Pete Maravich became famous in the late 1960s, while setting scoring records at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. I'm not a son of the South. Nor, at 44, do I have any meaningful recollection of basketball's boy wizard in his floppy-socked prime. I grew up in the Seventies, on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan, a few blocks from Madison Square Garden. I was a fan of the Knicks and their star guard, Walt "Clyde" Frazier. In terms of basketball style, Clyde and Pistol were antithetical. Frazier's flamboyance--I recall committing his "wardrobe stats" to memory--was not apparent on the court. Rather, he was celebrated as a dogged defender. His game was wise, economical, his gaze expressionless. Maravich, by contrast, was considered a head-case. His eyes were sad--even a kid could see that. Still, there was a distinct exuberance in the way he moved. No one moved like that, before or since.

Continue reading "Why Pistol?"

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Pistol is more than the biography of a ballplayer. It's the stuff of classic novels: the story of a boy transformed by his father's dream -- and the cost of that dream. Even as Pete Maravich became Pistol Pete -- a basketball icon for baby boomers -- all the Maraviches paid a price. Now acclaimed author Mark Kriegel has brilliantly captured the saga of an American family: its rise, its apparent ruin, and, finally, its redemption.

Almost four decades have passed since Maravich entered the national consciousness as basketball's boy wizard. No one had ever played the game like the kid with the floppy socks and shaggy hair. And all these years later, no one else ever has. The idea of Pistol Pete continues to resonate with young people today just as powerfully as it did with their fathers.

In averaging 44.2 points a game at Louisiana State University, he established records that will never be broken. But even more enduring than the numbers was the sense of ecstasy and artistry with which he played. With the ball in his hands, Maravich had a singular power to inspire awe, inflict embarrassment, or even tell a joke.

But he wasn't merely a mesmerizing showman. He was basketball's answer to Elvis, a white Southerner who sold Middle America on a black man's game. Like Elvis, he paid a terrible price, becoming a prisoner of his own fame.

Set largely in the South, Kriegel's Pistol, a tale of obsession and basketball, fathers and sons, merges several archetypal characters. Maravich was a child prodigy, a prodigal son, his father's ransom in a Faustian bargain, and a Great White Hope. But he was also a creature of contradictions: always the outsider but a virtuoso in a team sport, an exuberant showman who wouldn't look you in the eye, a vegetarian boozer, an athlete who lived like a rock star, a suicidal genius saved by Jesus Christ.

A renowned biographer -- People magazine called him "a master" -- Kriegel renders his subject with a style that is, by turns, heartbreaking, lyrical, and electric.

The narrative begins in 1929, the year a missionary gave Pete's father a basketball. Press Maravich had been a neglected child trapped in a hellish industrial town, but the game enabled him to blossom. It also caused him to confuse basketball with salvation. The intensity of Press's obsession initiates a journey across three generations of Maraviches. Pistol Pete, a ballplayer unlike any other, was a product of his father's vanity and vision. But that dream continues to exact a price on Pete's own sons. Now in their twenties -- and fatherless for most of their lives -- they have waged their own struggles with the game and its ghosts.

Pistol is an unforgettable biography. By telling one family's history, Kriegel has traced the history of the game and a large slice of the American narrative.

Can I Keep My Jersey?: 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond

He’s been called a journeyman. Even Paul wouldn’t dispute that classification. Regardless, Bill Simmons, ESPN.com’s “The Sports Guy,” has said of Paul Shirley, “We could finally have an answer to the question ‘What would it be like if one of our friends was an NBA player?”

There’s no denying that Paul Shirley is the closest thing pro basketball’s got to Odysseus. In Homeric fashion, he has logged time practically everywhere in the roundball universe, from six NBA cities to pro leagues in Spain and Greece to North America’s pro ball Siberia, the minor leagues. Hell, he’s even played in the real Siberia. And in Can I Keep My Jersey?, Shirley finally puts down roots long enough to deliver one of the great locker-room chronicles of the modern age.

With sharp elbows and an even sharper wit, Shirley–whose writings have been described as “wildly entertaining” by The Wall Street Journal–drops hilarious commentary, revealing which teams have the best cheerleaders (he’s spent many a time-out watching them ply their trade), why Christ is rapidly becoming every team’s “sixth man,” and even the best ways to get bloodstains out of your game uniform, using only an ordinary bar of soap and a hotel bathroom sink.

From sharing the court with Kobe and Shaq to perusing the food court at some mall in a bush-league burg; from taking pregame layups to getting laid out by a stray knee from an NBA power forward; from hopping a limo to the team’s charter jet to dashing to catch the van home from a B-league game in Tijuana, Shirley dishes on what it’s like to try to make it as a professional athlete. Can I Keep My Jersey? is a rollicking, thoughtful, even thought-provoking insider’s look at a pro baller’s life on the fringe. Like Jim Bouton’s Ball Four or John Feinstein’s A Season on the Brink, Shirley’s odyssey deserves to find a home on every sports fan’s bookshelf.


From the Hardcover edition.

My Losing Season

PAT CONROY—AMERICA’S MOST BELOVED STORYTELLER—IS BACK!

“I was born to be a point guard, but not a very good one. . . .There was a time in my life when I walked through the world known to myself and others as an athlete. It was part of my own definition of who I was and certainly the part I most respected. When I was a young man, I was well-built and agile and ready for the rough and tumble of games, and athletics provided the single outlet for a repressed and preternaturally shy boy to express himself in public....I lost myself in the beauty of sport and made my family proud while passing through the silent eye of the storm that was my childhood.”

So begins Pat Conroy’s journey back to 1967 and his startling realization “that this season had been seminal and easily the most consequential of my life.” The place is the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, that now famous military college, and in memory Conroy gathers around him his team to relive their few triumphs and humiliating defeats. In a narrative that moves seamlessly between the action of the season and flashbacks into his childhood, we see the author’s love of basketball and how crucial the role of athlete is to all these young men who are struggling to find their own identity and their place in the world.

In fast-paced exhilarating games, readers will laugh in delight and cry in disappointment. But as the story continues, we gradually see the self-professed “mediocre” athlete merge into the point guard whose spirit drives the team. He rallies them to play their best while closing off the shouts of “Don’t shoot, Conroy” that come from the coach on the sidelines. For Coach Mel Thompson is to Conroy the undermining presence that his father had been throughout his childhood. And in these pages finally, heartbreakingly, we learn the truth about the Great Santini.

In My Losing Season Pat Conroy has written an American classic about young men and the bonds they form, about losing and the lessons it imparts, about finding one’s voice and one’s self in the midst of defeat. And in his trademark language, we see the young Conroy walk from his life as an athlete to the writer the world knows him to be.


From the Hardcover edition.

Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior

An inside look at the higher wisdom of teamwork from Chicago Bulls' head coach Phil Jackson. At the heart of the book is Jackson's philosophy of mindful basketball -- and his lifelong quest to bring enlightenment to the competitive world of professional sports, beginning with a focus on selfless team play rather than "winning through intimidation". Sacred Hoops is not just for sports fans, but for anyone interested in the potential of the human spirit.

An inside look at the higher wisdom of teamwork from Chicago Bulls' head coach Phil Jackson.At the heart of the book is Jackson'sphilosophy of mindful basketball -- and his lifelong quest to bring enlightenment to the competitive world of professional sports, beginning with a focus on selfless team play rather than "winning through intimidation".Sacred Hoopsis not just for sports fans, but for anyone interested in the potential of the human spirit.

Don't Let The Lipstick Fool You: The Making of a Champion

A three-time Olympic gold medalist, three-time MVP of the WNBA, and the first woman ever to dunk in a professional basketball game, Lisa Leslie is considered one of the greatest players in the history of women's basketball. Now in her own words, she points the spotlight onto her remarkable life off the court, where being a confident champion was not always simple.

As a child growing up in South Central Los Angeles, Lisa was timid, awkward, and over six feet tall in the sixth grade. Opponents challenged her, and she struggled to overcome self-imposed fears and limitations. But as her interest in basketball grew, she toughened both her game and her resolve. She also learned she could retain her femininity and throw a few elbows too.

Still there was a nagging notion that girls--even tall girls and especially pretty ones - could not play well. At the same time, Lisa's home life, though loving, was unstable. Lisa never knew her father. Her mother worked as a traveling truck-driver to support the family, leaving Lisa to shuffle between relatives. Lisa's beloved older sister seemed only to torment her, harbor hidden jealousies, and would later go on to steal her identity and almost ruin her finances. And as a young woman, it would take two broken engagements before Lisa finally found the love of her life.

Yet overcoming tremendous doubts are what paved the way to Lisa's greatest achievements--scoring 101 points in the first half of a high school basketball game; signing with Wilhelmina Models and appearing in Vogue magazine; and of course traveling the world and winning championship after championship...after championship.

Today, Lisa is a beautiful, poised, assertive, six-foot-five-inch basketball powerhouse. Her elegance and charm have made her a favorite with fans, the fashion world, and even Hollywood. With hard-won candor and self-assurance, Lisa Leslie shares her empowering story about finding grace under pressure, balancing a life of contradiction without losing yourself, and exceeding expectations--including your own--by playing like a girl.

They Call Me Coach

The legendary coach talks about his life, his players, and his winning philosophies in this bestselling autobiography

John Wooden's dedication and inspiration made him America's "winningest" coach. His beliefs in hard work and preparedness brought the UCLA Bruins an unparalleled 10 NCAA basketball championships. Now in this bestselling autobiography--with a Foreword by Hall-of-Famer Bill Walton--the college basketball legend reflects on his record-breaking career, his life behind the scenes, and how his top players went on to shape and change the NBA.

From the everyday basics to important life lessons ("It's not how tall you are, but how tall you play"), Wooden shares his worldly wisdom on and off the court to offer a personal history of an unforgettable time in college basketball, answering the most-asked questions about his life, his career, and the players who made his teams unbeatable.

"They Call Me Coach is grass-roots Americana, a story bigger than basketball. One of those rare sports books that is must reading for everyone."
--Chicago Tribune

"What Knute Rockne was to football, Connie Mack to baseball, and Wilbur and Orville Wright to flying, John Wooden is to basketball. This book captures the full flavor of the man, the philosophies that work in life, and the philosophies that work on the court. I commend it to people who want to succeed at either--or both."
--Los Angeles Times

Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made

One of the finest nonfiction writers in any lineup, Halberstam likes to alternate what he's deemed his serious work--books like The Best and the Brightest, The Fifties, and The Children--with his sporting interludes, though in his hands, sports are much, much more than fun and games. Books like The Breaks of the Game and October 1964 use sports as a prism. Culture, race, society, and history are all filtered through it, and Halberstam refocuses--and interprets--what comes out the other side.

That he would now turn his considerable abilities to exploring Michael Jordan is not surprising. Halberstam loves hoops, and Jordan not only defines the game, he defines an era. His fame crosses international borders as easily as he dribbles past half-court lines. In focusing on Jordan--as athlete and force of nature--and his osmosis from a young hoop dreamer to product pitchman to the world, Halberstam is really examining intangibles like myth and legend, celebrity and fame, wealth and image, excellence and genius, race and style, the qualities of heroism and the pursuit of perfection. "That there had been even one Michael Jordan seemed in retrospect something of a genetic fluke," he writes, "and the idea that anyone would arrive in so short a span of time and do what he did both on and off the court seemed highly unlikely." But the phenomenon that is Jordan did just that.

Understanding, even admiring, what he did, how he did it, and what it means in a basketball context and a larger one is Halberstam's goal, and, despite Jordan's lack of cooperation--or maybe because of it--Halberstam's muscular prose and thinking scores powerfully. Yet, there is a wistfulness, in the end, to Playing for Keeps; the game doesn't seem as much fun and collegial as it used to for Halberstam, and Jordan, great as he may be, emerges with less of the historic grace exhibited by Jackie Robinson, Ali, and Arthur Ashe than with a quality that Halberstam deems the athlete-explorer "in terms of going beyond previously accepted limits of what was humanly possible, and somehow by dint of physical excellence and unmatched willpower, pushing those limits forward that much more." Dazzling, certainly, but not necessarily heroic. Playing for Keeps is also available on audiocassette. --Jeff Silverman

From The Breaks of the Game to Summer of '49, David Halberstam has brought the perspective of a great historian, the inside knowledge of a dogged sportswriter, and the love of a fan to bear on some of the most mythic players and teams in the annals of American sport. With Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls he has given himself his greatest challenge and produced his greatest triumph. In Playing for Keeps, David Halberstam takes the first full measure of Michael Jordan's epic career, one of the great American stories of our time. A narrative of astonishing power and human drama, brimming with revealing anecdotes and penetrating insights, the book chronicles the forces in Jordan's life that have shaped him into history's greatest basketball player and the larger forces that have converged to make him the most famous living human being in the world.

For the Love of the Game : My Story

It's not easy imagining a volume capable of capturing the grace, the joy, the flamboyance, and the wizardry of Michael Jordan, but this hybrid--melding autobiography, celebration, spectacular photography, and cutting-edge graphics--comes awfully close. Like Jordan driving the lane, it's a thing of beauty; harder to analyze than it is to admire, accept, gaze at, and enjoy.

As befits the ultimate star in a game that has marketed itself with perfect razzle-dazzle, For the Love of the Game is as visually brash as it is glitzy. In page after stunning page, Jordan traces his ascension from college star to object of worldwide adoration. While most of the focus is, of course, on the NBA, there are significant side trips into baseball, the 1992 Olympic Dream Team, his advertising omnipresence, his family, and even his privacy. On the surface, the pictures--and their presentation--are more than enough to preserve and praise the Jordan legend, but For the Love of the Game has something more. It has Michael Jordan.

Jordan's text is everything the flashy images are not; it is straight, thoughtful, and revealing. At times, the relationship of word and image is breathtaking, especially on a particular pair of two-page layouts. In the first, Jordan asks, "When does jumping become flying?" His answer, framed by photos that would turn Superman green with envy, indicates that Jordan is genuinely amazed by his own talents. The second is his reflection on "The Shot," his buzzer-beater over Cleveland's Craig Ehlo to win game 5 in the 1989 playoffs. The story is told in 24 pictures taken over the final three seconds. Below that is a chart of 25 of Jordan's game-winning shots. But it's this Jordan observation that pulls the image and text together: "I never considered the negative consequence of missing the last shot in a game." It's an attitude that defines the man, and For the Love of the Game reflects it with a stylish combination of elegance, power, and beauty. (Want more Jordan? Check out an image from his book. © 1998 by Rare Air, Ltd. Text copyright © 1998 by Michael Jordan. Photo credit: Walter Iooss, Jr) --Jeff Silverman

For 13 brilliant seasons Michael Jordan danced the dance of greatness across hardwood floors of basketball arenas from New York to Los Angeles to Barcelona and Paris. With a warrior's heart and an artist's grace, Jordan long ago transcended the sport to become one of the 20th century's global icons.

On the court, his almost mythic flair for the spectacular prompted former Los Angeles Laker superstar Magic Johnson to say simply, "There's Michael, then there's all the rest of us."

Off the court, Jordan's ability to alter markets and drive the business of his marketing partners is unprecedented.

Through it all, Jordan showed the world that greatness, true greatness, comes from the inside out. He remains perhaps the greatest practice player in the history of sports, his desire to improve upon his own example legendary. When critics questioned his all-around ability, he became the game's most dominant defensive player at his position. When teams decided to close down the lane and eliminate drives to the basket, he became a deadly jump shooter. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson had the most successfully teams of the 1980s but never won more than two consecutive championships. The Bulls won three straight--twice.

In For the Love of the Game, Jordan takes us through the wonder of his career on the court and away from the game. From the dream that preceded the game-winning shot against Georgetown in the 1982 NCAA Finals to the methodical dissection of the Utah Jazz prior to his game-winning shot in Game 6 of the 1998 Finals, Jordan pulls back the curtain on one of the most remarkable lives this century.

The Game of My Life: A True Story Of Challenge, Triumph, and Growing Up Autistic

The incredible true story of one high school student's determination to triumph against the challenges of autism-and his opponents on the basketball court...

On February 15, 2006, the Greece Athena Trojans high school basketball team took the court for the final game of the regular season. With four minutes and nineteen seconds left on the clock, and the Trojans nursing a comfortable lead, the coach sent Jason McElwain-an autistic student and the team manager-to the scorer's table. He scored twenty points, including a school record six three- pointers. J-Mac, as McElwain became known, was carried off the court on his teammates' shoulders, and a videotape of the game quickly found its way onto national television, making J-Mac a household name.

An inspiration to people everywhere, Jason McElwain's amazing accomplishment was broadcast on CN, ESPN, and local newscasts across the country, moving President Bush to tears with his courage and determination. The Game of My Life is one of the few books written by an autistic author-a riveting chronicle of how J-Mac overcame a lifetime of adversity.