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moogen's review against another edition
3.0
This got a great review in the New York Times. But it's not in the league of Friday Night Lights or Play Their Hearts Out. Still an interesting enough read.
liralen's review against another edition
3.0
I got the side-eye from three different classmates yesterday when they saw me reading this: 'Doesn't seem like your kind of thing,' two of them said. It is and it isn't. I read it mostly because O'Brien was a guest lecturer for a research course I took last year, he was interesting, and I wanted to see what he'd done with a book-length project. I know very little about basketball. I care very little about basketball. This really didn't do much to change either of those, though frankly I think it would have been a tall order.
In Outside Shot, O'Brien follows a successful high school team in Kentucky through a year in the sport. Theirs is an struggling region without a lot of prospects, and for a lot of these boys basketball represents something bigger, and a possibility of something bigger. O'Brien is a journalist, and he brings great detail and context to the story. It's not just about the coach or the team or the school or the sport; it's also about the area's economic struggles and, sometimes, successes. All that background goes a long way to answer the question 'why care about a high school basketball team?'
Not as successful for me were two things: first, there were just too many times when I wasn't sure who was being talked about. Scott County plays a lot of teams, and they're all referred to by school name and mascot...so Scott County is not just Scott County but 'County' and 'the county' and 'the Cardinals' and 'the Cards', all piled up against other teams with multiple monikers. Add to that a pile of men named 'Billy' and I just...could have used a map sometimes.
And second...I'm still not sure, at the end of the day, what's on the line for these boys. They're lauded as one of the best teams in the state; some teachers dismiss classes early when the senior basketball players publicly commit to colleges. They're treated as a huge deal. But I look at the follow-up at the back of the book, and I wonder, are these four years of high school their glory days? How many of them are banking on basketball to earn scholarships to college? I'm not really sure how good the team is in the grand scheme of things, since they win a lot but also don't ever seem to gel as a team. Their win/loss ratios have nothing to do with the writing (what a gamble for a writer—to commit to a story without knowing how it will play out, and to have to figure out how to tell the story regardless), but I'm not sure if my fogginess on their relative strength has to do more with the book or more with my lack of understanding of the world of basketball.
In Outside Shot, O'Brien follows a successful high school team in Kentucky through a year in the sport. Theirs is an struggling region without a lot of prospects, and for a lot of these boys basketball represents something bigger, and a possibility of something bigger. O'Brien is a journalist, and he brings great detail and context to the story. It's not just about the coach or the team or the school or the sport; it's also about the area's economic struggles and, sometimes, successes. All that background goes a long way to answer the question 'why care about a high school basketball team?'
Not as successful for me were two things: first, there were just too many times when I wasn't sure who was being talked about. Scott County plays a lot of teams, and they're all referred to by school name and mascot...so Scott County is not just Scott County but 'County' and 'the county' and 'the Cardinals' and 'the Cards', all piled up against other teams with multiple monikers. Add to that a pile of men named 'Billy' and I just...could have used a map sometimes.
And second...I'm still not sure, at the end of the day, what's on the line for these boys. They're lauded as one of the best teams in the state; some teachers dismiss classes early when the senior basketball players publicly commit to colleges. They're treated as a huge deal. But I look at the follow-up at the back of the book, and I wonder, are these four years of high school their glory days? How many of them are banking on basketball to earn scholarships to college? I'm not really sure how good the team is in the grand scheme of things, since they win a lot but also don't ever seem to gel as a team. Their win/loss ratios have nothing to do with the writing (what a gamble for a writer—to commit to a story without knowing how it will play out, and to have to figure out how to tell the story regardless), but I'm not sure if my fogginess on their relative strength has to do more with the book or more with my lack of understanding of the world of basketball.
chuckri's review against another edition
2.0
Some chapters, particularly those dealing with historical background, were fairly interesting, but for the most part this story could have been written about almost any high school team in the country. Other teams wouldn't, obviously, have as much basketball talent, but all high school teams have players who go through as much or more than the Scott County players in this book. Also, even though Coach Hicks has a lot of high school wins, I just don't see him as having the qualities of a coach who realizes there is more to being a coach/teacher than wins and losses. Never once did he talk to his kids about their lives outside of basketball. He didn't show a concern for developing character or for teaching any life-long lessons through his sport.
I kept expecting some theme to develop in this story, but it never came. The story mostly chronicles what happened during one season of high school basketball. None of the characters show any growth or development. The chapters on parents trying to redshirt their middle school kids and on athletes transferring schools provided great opportunities to expand the scope of the book. But all we got instead was repeating meaningless comments or conversations some of the characters had. This book is much overrated.
I kept expecting some theme to develop in this story, but it never came. The story mostly chronicles what happened during one season of high school basketball. None of the characters show any growth or development. The chapters on parents trying to redshirt their middle school kids and on athletes transferring schools provided great opportunities to expand the scope of the book. But all we got instead was repeating meaningless comments or conversations some of the characters had. This book is much overrated.
clambook's review against another edition
3.0
Well researched, especially the backdrop of Scott County. Game chapters feel too long. Love to see an addendum in a couple years on how the kids turn out.
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