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The Assist: Hoops, Hope, and the Game of Their Lives
Contributor(s): Swidey, Neil (Author)

ISBN: 1586486667 ISBN-13: 9781586486662
Publisher: PublicAffairs

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Binding Type: Paperback - See All Available Formats & Editions
Published: November 2008
Annotation: Revolving around fascinating, complex characters, "The Assist" is a riveting portrait of a driven basketball coach at an iconic high school and of his players, each struggling to rise above the many forces pulling them down.

Additional Information

BISAC Categories:
- Sports & Recreation | Basketball
- Biography & Autobiography | Sports
- Self-help | Motivational & Inspirational

Dewey: 796.323

Lexile Measure: 1080(Not Available)

Physical Information: 1.1" H x 5.5" W x 8.4" L (1.05 lbs) 392 pages

Features: Illustrated, Price on Product, Price on Product - Canadian, Table of Contents

Awards: Iowa High School Book Award, Nominee, Young Adult, 2011
Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award, Nominee, Grades 9-12, 2010

Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.

Publisher Description:
Jack O'Brien, the impossibly demanding basketball coach at Charlestown High School in Boston, has led his team to five state championship titles in six years. Less talked about is O'Brien's other winning record: Nearly every one of the players who stuck with his program -- poor kids growing up in high-crime neighborhoods and saddled with the lousy educational system available in urban America -- managed to get to college. But O'Brien is no saint. Saints give without expecting anything in return. O'Brien needs his players and their problems as much as they need him.

Revolving around fascinating, complex characters, The Assist is a captivating narrative of a basketball team in pursuit of a championship that also drills down into the legacy of desegregation and explores issues of education, family, and race. O'Brien is a middle-aged white guy coaching an all-black team playing in an all-white neighborhood that three decades ago was at the center of the busing wars dividing cities across the country -- a time and place indelibly described in J. Anthony Lukas's powerful book Common Ground. It's the inspiring story of a man who makes a difference, and of boys surmounting nearly impossible odds; it is also the story of the ones who don't make it, and why.

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