Buy or borrow this book! Support your local independent bookseller
Find it in a WorldCat library
Compare prices at major online bookstores
|
|
Review by Budd Bailey
Fans who haven't been paying close attention to college basketball in the past few years probably don't realize that the players are no longer the stars of that particular sport. Most of the very best players come to college for one year, maybe two, and then skip off to the National Basketball Association in search of big, big bucks.
That created a problem for the people surrounding college basketball. Who should be the stars of the sport if the best players aren't around long enough for fans to remember their names? The answer is: the coaches. Bobby Knight of Indiana and John Thompson of Georgetown are much more well-known than any of their current players, and their longevity is only part of the reason why.
The Atlantic Coast Conference probably has been the nation's best college basketball conference on a year-in, year-out basis, so it's only natural that some of America's best coaches go there. It also was an easy choice when John Feinstein decided to write about a conference's basketball season as viewed through the eyes of its coaches.
Feinstein's luck held up nicely when he picked the '96-'97 season for this book, as he had plenty of dramatics to cover. Tim Duncan of Wake Forest was that rarest of college basketball players -- a senior who was a superstar. Then there was the return of coach Mike Krzyzewski to the Duke coaching staff after missing much of the previous year with illness. And as an added bonus, the legendary Dean Smith was coaching what turned out to be his final season at North Carolina, even if no one knew it at the time.
The ACC season was typically topsy-turvy. However, the games are almost an incidental part of the book. College basketball coaches are generally interesting people -- a book on football coaches wouldn't be nearly as good -- and Feinstein had terrific access to all of the ACC coaches.
Readers know how this book turns out -- none of the schools won the national title -- and they won't care. "A March to Madness" is an excellent look at coaching at the sport's highest level.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.