Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life
by Michael Lewis
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Book Summary Information
Author: Michael LewisEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-05-16
ISBN: 0393060918
Number of pages: 96
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Book Reviews of Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life
Book Review: Will leave you wanting this coach for your children!
Summary: 5 Stars
MONEYBALL by Michael Lewis was one of the best baseball
books that I have ever read . . . so when I saw the author
had another book out, COACH, I made it a point to get
and read that one too . . . and I wasn't disappointed, though
it is radically different from his earlier effort.
MONEYBALL dealt with the economics of professional
baseball as it is played today . . . COACH is the story
of the author's coach when he was in high school who now--because
he hasn't changed his approach--isn't completely understood by
his players or their parents . . . in fact, many even want to
see him replaced.
And that's a shame because as Lewis notes, [he was] "a man trying
to give boys a sense that their lives could be something other than
ordinary."
Others have that same opinion, too, including Peyton Manning who
might be the highest-paid player in pro football:
"As far as the respect and admiration I feel for the man, I couldn't put
it into words. Just incredibly strong. For me, personally, he prepared me
for so much of what I faced at the college and pro level. Unlike some
coaches--for whom it's all about winning and losing--Coach Fitz was
trying to make men out of people. I think he prepares you for life. And, if
you want my opinion, the people who are screwing up high school sports
are the parents. The parents who want their son to be the next Michael
Jordan. Or the parent who beats up the coach, or gets into a fight in the
stands. Here's a coach who is so intense. Yet he's never laid a hand
on anybody."
My only complaint about COACH is that it is quite short--only
91 pages, in fact, in a 5" x 7" format . . . it left me wanting to read
more about Lewis' high school days and how he described
them . . . such as in the following passage:
Graduating from Babe Ruth to the varsity with only the slightest physical
justification ( I now resembled less a scoop of vanilla ice cream than a
rounder Hobbit) meant coping with an out-of-control hormonal arms race.
A few of our players had sprouted sideburns; but the enemy retaliated
by growing terrifying little goatees and showing up at games with wives
and, on one shocking occasion, children. I still had no muscles, and no
facial hair, but I did have my own odor. I smelled, pretty much all the time,
like Ben-Gay. I wore the stuff on my perpetually sore right shoulder and
elbow. I wore it, also, on the bill of my cap, where Fitz had taught me
to put it, to generate the grease for a spitball that might just compensate
for my pathetic fastball. Everywhere I went that year, I emitted a vaguely
medicinal vapor; and it is the smell of Ben-Gay I associate with what
happened next.
Summary of Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life
A story with a big heart about a boy, a coach, the game of baseball, and the game of life.
"There are teachers with a rare ability to enter a child's mind; it's as if their ability to get there at all gives them the right to stay forever." There was a turning point in Michael Lewis's life, in a baseball game when he was fourteen years old. The irascible and often terrifying Coach Fitz put the ball in his hand with the game on the line and managed to convey such confident trust in Lewis's ability that the boy had no choice but to live up to it. "I didn't have words for it then, but I do now: I am about to show the world, and myself, what I can do." The coach's message was not simply about winning but about self-respect, sacrifice, courage, and endurance. In some ways, and now thirty years later, Lewis still finds himself trying to measure up to what Coach Fitz expected of him. 14 illustrationsMotivational Books
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