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James North "Chicago Tribune Books" Soars toward the basket...a brilliant portrait of what has gone wrong in our cities, and by extension, in our country.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
For the average American boy, a basketball scholarship to college is not a necessity. But for many young athletes at Lincoln High School in Coney Island, New York, it is the only escape from the crime and poverty of the inner city.
In "The Last Shot", author Darcy Frey chronicles the hopes and aspirations of four of Lincoln High's most promising players. What Frey finds is an environment that, by stressing the game above all else, has left its young athletes with nowhere to turn but to the glamorous coaches, slick recruiters, and million-dollar athletic companies who offer everything but guarantee nothing.
Gracefully and compassionately written, "The Last Shot" is a startling and disillusioning expose of inner-city life and the big business of college basketball. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
ABRAHAM LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL is a massive yellow brick building of ornate stonework and steel-gated windows at the end of Ocean Parkway, a stately, tree-lined boulevard about a mile from the Coney Island projects. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
ABRAHAM LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL is a massive yellow brick building of ornate stonework and steel-gated windows at the end of Ocean Parkway, a stately, tree-lined boulevard about a mile from the Coney Island projects. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The book is non-fiction, Corey, Stephon, Shipp are real life names, but the "Russel Simmons" (the book's central character) name was used by the author instead of Darryl Flicking (the real life Lincoln shooting guard). Flicking's mother refused to give the author permission to use her son's name (this was a money - NCAA rules issue just like Marbury's father's blackmail request of the author). Flicking was truly a great high school ball player, not just skill wise, but athletically he was a rockhard 200lb 6'3" man-child. Last year, after great success as a college player in California, Flicking was run over and killed by a train. Flicking's shot at immortality was ruined, only people who watched him play for Lincoln and in that small California college will ever know how great he was.
RIP Darryl Flicking
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have always dreamed of playing basketball in the NBA. However, millions of other kids around the world also have this dream. After reading "The Last Shot" in the 7th grade, I realized the importance of having a second plan. After tearing up my knee in the 8th grade, I have come to accept the fact that my dream will probably never come true. This book inspired me to work harder at school, resulting in staight A's my freshman year of high school. I still love basketball and continue to improve myself, but it can only take you so far.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book made me mad! Not at Darcy Frey, who writes a great book, but at the combined effects of wretched public schools, which pass along students able neither to read, write nor do sums; and at the NCAA's patronizing and exploitative treatment of "student" atheletes. "Last Shot" tells of four star black basketball players on the Lincoln High School (Coney Island) team. Despite horrible poverty, housing projects overrun by drugs and violence, ans a school system which cannot keep them safe (let alone educate), these young men are good kids. They are kept alive, and their hopes fed, by a combination of (1) amazing basketball skills; (2) a coach and mentors who believe in them; and (3) the dream of a NCAA Division I scholarship leading into the big time. Unfortunately, only one makes it, and he just barely. The other three cannot meet the Proposition 48 requirement of 700 SAT scores (even though their high school grades are good), and lose their shot at a Division I scholarship.
Juxtaposed against these hopeful young men, who do everything that is asked of them but are finally betrayed by abysmal schooling, are the Division I recruiters, many of them well-known coaches. They give new meaning to the word "smarmy." They are corrupted by the system. Darcy's title "Last Shot" has a (quite intentional) double meaning. He refers first to the excitement of a well-played game, when victor and vanquished hang in the balance. More troubling, he acknowledges that, for each of these boys, the chance to escape the ghetto through a basketball scholarship has become his "last shot" at a successful (or safe) life. To mix metaphors, what angers me about the situation Frey describes -- in fact makes me so mad I will have trouble watching the NCAA Tournament this year -- is that these young men have received a raw deal. It's not right!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Great book
Absolutely thrilling read. This book offered great insight on N.Y. playgrounds of the early 90's and young ghetto bball players like Stephon Marbury.Two thumbs up !!!!
Published 5 months ago by SD
It is an inspiring book
When I picked up the book from the library I had no idea it had to do with 4 local athletes from my neighborhood of Coney Island. Read more
Published on 8 Jun 1999
couldn't put this book down...
Once you get into this book, you won't want to stop reading it.
The portrait of an 8th grade Stephon Marbury was something to see.
Published on 13 May 1999
great book
I loved this book, you must take a look, I couldn't put it down, it never made me frown, even better than "heaven is a playground"!
-peace
Published on 11 May 1999
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