miscbrah's review against another edition
5.0
Excellent book!! This book begins as a biography and leads into Mr. Pitino defending himself in regards to his wrongful termination as head coach of Men's Basketball team of the University of Louisville.
This book starts off slow form his youth going to the 5 star camps, his love of basketball, college career at the University of Massachusetts, and how he got his start in coaching at Hawaii. Pitino was the youngest head coach in the NCAA at 24 years old. He discusses how he had led Boston College, Providence College, New York Knicks, Kentucky Wildcats, and Louisville to greatness. In this book he divulges his coaching philosophy, how he connects to his players, and ultimately the state of college basketball as it is today. Along this journey you really learn about Mr. Pitino and his character and values.
Around the halfway point into the book is when you start to learn about the recruitment scandal and how Mr. Pitino was unjustly fired. He goes into a lot of detail of how the shoe companies control everything from grassroots basketball up until the Pro's. Kids are under a lot of pressure to pick schools that are sponsored by the same shoe company that sponsors their AAU team. There is a lot of money in youth basketball being thrown around to say the least. Agents and their runners are involved too. There are definitely some murky gaps in the youth basketball scene due to the scale of revenue involved in the game. All you need to do is just target the right 5 star or 4 star prospect and you're set to be living a very comfortable life if you're the agent, youth basketball coach, or shoe company executive.
Near the last third of the book, Mr. Pitino reveals what happened to the board of the University and how it led to his termination. This part of book gets into a lot of local Kentucky politics. It's hard to verify what he is saying but I don't necessarily doubt him. There is a theory that he posits involving the Governor of Kentucky and John Schnatter, owner of Papa Johns. It's a messy political affair to say the least and I'll leave it to the reader to learn more about this. But this is a primary reason for him being fired.
Overall, this book is great and a fairly quick read. You can probably finish it within 9 days just reading 20-30 minutes a day. Once you pick it up it's hard to put down. Great book, especially for those that follow college basketball and the NBA.
This book starts off slow form his youth going to the 5 star camps, his love of basketball, college career at the University of Massachusetts, and how he got his start in coaching at Hawaii. Pitino was the youngest head coach in the NCAA at 24 years old. He discusses how he had led Boston College, Providence College, New York Knicks, Kentucky Wildcats, and Louisville to greatness. In this book he divulges his coaching philosophy, how he connects to his players, and ultimately the state of college basketball as it is today. Along this journey you really learn about Mr. Pitino and his character and values.
Around the halfway point into the book is when you start to learn about the recruitment scandal and how Mr. Pitino was unjustly fired. He goes into a lot of detail of how the shoe companies control everything from grassroots basketball up until the Pro's. Kids are under a lot of pressure to pick schools that are sponsored by the same shoe company that sponsors their AAU team. There is a lot of money in youth basketball being thrown around to say the least. Agents and their runners are involved too. There are definitely some murky gaps in the youth basketball scene due to the scale of revenue involved in the game. All you need to do is just target the right 5 star or 4 star prospect and you're set to be living a very comfortable life if you're the agent, youth basketball coach, or shoe company executive.
Near the last third of the book, Mr. Pitino reveals what happened to the board of the University and how it led to his termination. This part of book gets into a lot of local Kentucky politics. It's hard to verify what he is saying but I don't necessarily doubt him. There is a theory that he posits involving the Governor of Kentucky and John Schnatter, owner of Papa Johns. It's a messy political affair to say the least and I'll leave it to the reader to learn more about this. But this is a primary reason for him being fired.
Overall, this book is great and a fairly quick read. You can probably finish it within 9 days just reading 20-30 minutes a day. Once you pick it up it's hard to put down. Great book, especially for those that follow college basketball and the NBA.
christine_queenofbooks's review against another edition
Pitino: My Story begins with an acknowledgement of the scandal that (almost?) ended Rick Pitino's career. After a hat-tip toward that (and shoving some blame the shoe companies' way), the book goes back in time to the beginning of Pitino's career.
Written by Pitino, with Seth Kaufman, he claims this book is "about telling the truth." And I think it is. But it's Pitino's truth - not anyone else's. That means that parts read as braggy to me. However, he's also deferential to those who taught him and helped him along the way. Content-wise, I enjoyed the anecdotes, but could have done without the typical platitudes (e.g., "hard work makes anything possible"). I did appreciate Pitino admitting how he'd do certain things differently, in hindsight.
The writing style itself is pretty choppy. The chapters are divided into 1-5 page mini-sections. This might work for some readers - I imagine it's easier to put down and pick back up this way - but annoy others.
Overall, a good read for basketball fans.
(Full disclosure: I read the first 35%, then set it down - not sure if I'll go back and finish it, or not. There's just so little time in a day, and I might prefer to watch a basketball game than read about Pitino's entire career and opinions on the scandals. I do think that's more about me not being a Pitino super fan and less an indictment of the book.)
Written by Pitino, with Seth Kaufman, he claims this book is "about telling the truth." And I think it is. But it's Pitino's truth - not anyone else's. That means that parts read as braggy to me. However, he's also deferential to those who taught him and helped him along the way. Content-wise, I enjoyed the anecdotes, but could have done without the typical platitudes (e.g., "hard work makes anything possible"). I did appreciate Pitino admitting how he'd do certain things differently, in hindsight.
The writing style itself is pretty choppy. The chapters are divided into 1-5 page mini-sections. This might work for some readers - I imagine it's easier to put down and pick back up this way - but annoy others.
Overall, a good read for basketball fans.
(Full disclosure: I read the first 35%, then set it down - not sure if I'll go back and finish it, or not. There's just so little time in a day, and I might prefer to watch a basketball game than read about Pitino's entire career and opinions on the scandals. I do think that's more about me not being a Pitino super fan and less an indictment of the book.)
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