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Loading... The Last Amateurs: Playing for Glory and Honor in Division I College…by John Feinstein
None. There's a lot to like about the Patriot League. I particularly liked the new coach being shocked to see his players studying before a 6am practice. (  ) dvf1976 | Apr 23, 2008 |  I generally enjoy Feinstein's writings and his commentary. 'The Last Amateurs' is Feinstein's best work. Following his standard procedure, Feinstein gets inside access to the teams of the Patriot League, an east coast league of mostly small private colleges. At the time the schools did not offer athletic scholarships. The players played because they wanted to keep playing competitive hoops and they were all required to be real students. These games are played in small arenas far way from the glare of the big time spotlight. Nonetheless, these players and coaches passionately want to win. The big dream is to make the NCAA post-season tournament. The conference torunament championship that determines which team goes to the the Big Dance is one of the great sporting events on the modern scene. With very few exceptions, none of these players have the slightest chance of making the NBA. For the coaches, things are a little different because coaching college hoops is their career and they are looking to move up. Feinstein does a great job of taking the reader behind the scenes. In a way, these players and games are the ideal of amateur competition that has a deep emotional resonance for many fans - and therein lies a danger that too much exposure will ruin the very thing that makes the league attractive. Highly recommended for college sports fans. (  )1  dougwood57 | Nov 24, 2007 | Feinstein must be the BEST sportswriter there is, and this is one of his best. ( ) bobfitz | Aug 4, 2006 | no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0316278424, Paperback)If there's any doubt about John Feinstein being one of sport's true believers, The Last Amateurs readily dispels it. After years of smartly dissecting our games at their highest levels in bestsellers like The Majors, A Good Walk Spoiled, and A Season on the Brink, he returns to dissecting our games at their purest level, ground he first staked out quite stirringly in A Civil War, his chronicle of Army-Navy football.In The Last Amateurs, he mines the 1999-2000 season of Patriot League basketball. Given the high-stakes, high-profile, and often dirty world of college hoops these days, Feinstein comes up with a remarkably refreshing place to visit, a sporting environment short on scandals, prima donnas, and sneaker contracts, but long on a pure passion for the game that complements achievement in the classroom. In the league's seven schools--Bucknell, Lehigh, Lafayette, Colgate, Holy Cross, Army, and Navy--academics come first, the hardwood second. These are campuses populated by students who happen to be athletes, not athletes stopping off on the way to lucrative careers in professional sports. Indeed, these are young athletes who have their post-college focus on the rest of their lives, not the NBA. Sports, for them, builds character, not bank accounts. Still, the Patriot League is a Division I conference, with its champion earning an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament. It takes the games seriously--often, as Feinstein reveals, heartbreakingly so--even if it doesn't necessarily play to ACC, SEC, Big 10, and Pac-10 standards. Feinstein's interviewing, skillful as ever, brings the players, coaches, and administrators of the colleges in this league to full form, making The Last Amateurs a rarity among sports books--a smart volume about smart people with their heads and priorities pointed in the right direction. Like the conference itself, it's in a league of its own. --Jeff Silverman (retrieved from Amazon Sat, 19 Jan 2013 17:14:49 -0500) No library descriptions found. |
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