Publisher description
Jack O'Brien is a high school basketball coach extreme in both his demands and his devotion. With monastic discipline, he has built a powerhouse program that wins state championships year after year while helping boys rise above the neighborhood forces pulling them down, and get to college. He does this as a white suburban guy working exclusively with black city boys who make the daily trek across Boston to attend Charlestown High School, where the last battles of the city's school desegregation wars were fought a generation ago.
The Assist is a gripping, surprising story about fathers, sons, and surrogates, all confronting the narrow margins of urban life. At its center are the interwoven lives of O'Brien and two of his stars, easygoing Ridley Johnson and fierce Jason "Hood" White. The book follows Ridley and Hood on their hunt for a state title. But it also stays with them, to see how young men who seldom get second chances survive without their coach hovering over them--and how he survives without them.
A minister friend once said O'Brien does the Lord's work "filling the space in these boys' lives." 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
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The Assist: Hoops, Hope, and the Game of Their Lives
Book reviews » The Assist: Hoops, Hope, and the Game of Their Lives
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