A colorful and captivating account of a college football team’s defeats and glories.
Baskin, with co-author O’Bryant, offers a history of Ohio State University’s football team and its culture.
The chronicle of the famed OSU football franchise begins with a classic “If you build it, they will come” moment, reminiscent of the 1989 film Field of Dreams: “Early in the twentieth century there was an unlikely—but epochal—sports-related moment from which all other such moments derived,” he writes. “It came when a small group of like-minded men with the apparent ability to see into the future devised plans for a stadium so large it would hold three times the largest crowd that had previously seen an Ohio State game.” Baskin follows Ohio State’s story from its primitive beginnings in the spring of 1890 (when it was, as the author puts it, a “Johnny Football-come-lately” when compared to other college teams) through a procession of its greatest founding figures. Readers meet coach Francis Schmidt, “a tall fellow wearing a bow tie” who had “the talent and the stage to go national with his razzle-dazzle.” They note that famed author James Thurber was a fervent Buckeye fan who wrote, “We give place to no man in our ardor for the game as it is played at Ohio State,” adding that football “has more beauty in it than any other competitive game in the world, when played by college athletes.” They introduce coach John Cooper, Ohio State’s “first administrator,” and, most notably, legendary coach Woody Hayes, “a tough guy with an egghead streak.” And always, in the background, there’s the game itself—always changing, becoming bigger business and bigger entertainment.
The authors follow the team’s story all the way to the present day and paint a masterful portrait of Buckeye Nation. The book’s pacing is skillful, refusing the temptation to hurry things along so that they might savor choice anecdotes and bits of dialogue. Their task is immensely aided by Kale’s illustrations, which crop up throughout—languid, sketchy pen-and-ink drawings of key figures that complement the text perfectly. But it’s the authors’ storytelling powers that carry the book and make it inviting reading, even for people who have no knowledge of and little interest in the sport. One key technique that assures this is a regular broadening of its scope from the specific (with many individual games dramatically reconstructed) to the general and even the ideological: “If ever a team had been favored by the gods, it was this one,” they write of the 2002 National Championship, keeping readers hooked into the grand story they’re telling. “The entire season was an old-fashioned movie serial that ended with a cliffhanger every Saturday.” Baskin and O’Bryant don’t shy away from play-by-play specifics, but they always draw readers into the drama and the passion of Ohio State football, and they do so with gusto. Even football newcomers will finish the book wishing that Baskin and O’Bryant would give other Big Ten schools the same terrific treatment.
A colorful and captivating account of a college football team’s defeats and glories.Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-949248-52-4
Page Count: 395
Publisher: Orange Frazer Press
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.
A future basketball Hall of Famer’s rosy outlook.
Curry is that rare athlete who looks like he gets joy from what he does. There’s no doubt that the Golden State Warriors point guard is a competitor—he’s led his team to four championships—but he plays the game with nonchalance and exuberance. That ease, he says, “only comes from discipline.” He practices hard enough—he’s altered the sport by mastering the three-point shot—so that he achieves a “kind of freedom.” In that “flow state,” he says, “I can let joy and creativity take over. I block out all distractions, even the person guarding me. He can wave his arms and call me every name in the book, but I just smile and wait as the solution to the problem—how to get the ball into the basket—presents itself.” Curry shares this approach to his craft in a stylish collection that mixes life lessons with sharp photographs and archival images. His dad, Dell, played in the NBA for 16 years, and Curry learned much from his father and mother: “My parents were extremely strict about me and my little brother Seth not going to my pops’s games on school nights.” Curry’s mother, Sonya, who founded the Montessori elementary school that Curry attended in North Carolina, emphasized the importance not just of learning but of playing. Her influence helped Curry and his wife, Ayesha, create a nonprofit foundation: Eat. Learn. Play. He writes that “making reading fun is the key to unlocking a kid’s ability to be successful in their academic journeys.” The book also has valuable pointers for ballers—and those hoping to hit the court. “Plant those arches—knees bent behind those 10 toes pointing at the hoop, hips squared with your shoulders—and draw your power up so you explode off the ground and rise into your shot.” Sounds easy, right?
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780593597293
Page Count: 432
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Basketball fans will enjoy Pippen’s bird’s-eye view of some of the sport’s greatest contests.
The Chicago Bulls stalwart tells all—and then some.
Hall of Famer Pippen opens with a long complaint: Yes, he’s a legend, but he got short shrift in the ESPN documentary about Michael Jordan and the Bulls, The Last Dance. Given that Jordan emerges as someone not quite friend enough to qualify as a frenemy, even though teammates for many years, the maltreatment is understandable. This book, Pippen allows, is his retort to a man who “was determined to prove to the current generation of fans that he was larger-than-life during his day—and still larger than LeBron James, the player many consider his equal, if not superior.” Coming from a hardscrabble little town in Arkansas and playing for a small college, Pippen enjoyed an unlikely rise to NBA stardom. He played alongside and against some of the greats, of whom he writes appreciatively (even Jordan). Readers will gain insight into the lives of characters such as Dennis Rodman, who “possessed an unbelievable basketball IQ,” and into the behind-the-scenes work that led to the Bulls dynasty, which ended only because, Pippen charges, the team’s management was so inept. Looking back on his early years, Pippen advocates paying college athletes. “Don’t give me any of that holier-than-thou student-athlete nonsense,” he writes. “These young men—and women—are athletes first, not students, and make up the labor that generates fortunes for their schools. They are, for lack of a better term, slaves.” The author also writes evenhandedly of the world outside basketball: “No matter how many championships I have won, and millions I have earned, I never forget the color of my skin and that some people in this world hate me just because of that.” Overall, the memoir is closely observed and uncommonly modest, given Pippen’s many successes, and it moves as swiftly as a playoff game.
Basketball fans will enjoy Pippen’s bird’s-eye view of some of the sport’s greatest contests.Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982165-19-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
