# 10: The Last Shot
Dacry Frey
Another one of my passions - Sports. In the vein of Hoop Dreams (a fantastic movie), this book is about the struggles of a couple of high school ball players in Coney Island.
A couple of tidbits:
- the importance given to basketball in the community, it is almost all they have
- the quality of play in the pick-up games on the court known as "The Garden", this is a public court, but with snap-back top quality rims.
- the poverty
- the difficulty for these young kids to score even a 700 on the SATs (you get 400 for writing your name)
- these are tough lives, and it is pathetic that basketball seems to be the only solution. Does it do more harm that good? It is hard to say .. it really might. But who I am to say.
- the focus on succeeding, how hard they work, and the mom who forces her son to stop seeing his girlfriend, since he may lose his focus. It isn't right to have so much pressure at such a young age.
Towards the end of the book, Stephon Marbury, freshman phenom at the time, makes an appearance. A cocky kid, # 4 or 5 in the line of potential Marbury's that have all failed, he is the weight of all his family on his shoulders - amazing to read this account of him while he was 14 or 15 and knowing that he made it, he is an all-star in the NBA and has made millions.
Another one of my passions - Sports. In the vein of Hoop Dreams (a fantastic movie), this book is about the struggles of a couple of high school ball players in Coney Island.
A couple of tidbits:
- the importance given to basketball in the community, it is almost all they have
- the quality of play in the pick-up games on the court known as "The Garden", this is a public court, but with snap-back top quality rims.
- the poverty
- the difficulty for these young kids to score even a 700 on the SATs (you get 400 for writing your name)
- these are tough lives, and it is pathetic that basketball seems to be the only solution. Does it do more harm that good? It is hard to say .. it really might. But who I am to say.
- the focus on succeeding, how hard they work, and the mom who forces her son to stop seeing his girlfriend, since he may lose his focus. It isn't right to have so much pressure at such a young age.
Towards the end of the book, Stephon Marbury, freshman phenom at the time, makes an appearance. A cocky kid, # 4 or 5 in the line of potential Marbury's that have all failed, he is the weight of all his family on his shoulders - amazing to read this account of him while he was 14 or 15 and knowing that he made it, he is an all-star in the NBA and has made millions.
posted by guchix at 10:25 PM
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