The Last Amateurs

October 30, 2000
Army, Navy, Lafayette, Lehigh, Bucknell, Holy Cross and Colgate: these seven colleges make up the Patriot League, basketball's smallest Division I conference. In this book, NPR commentator and bestselling sportswriter Feinstein (A Season on the Brink, The Majors, etc.) gives an exhaustive account of the Patriot League's 1999-2000 season. He illustrates that exciting basketball can be played in front of crowds that can be as small as 1,000 and that rivalries such as Lafayette-Lehigh can be just as intense as those played by colleges in major conferences on national television. But Feinstein's intent is to do more than just provide details about the year's important games; he uses the Patriot League as an example of "what college sports are supposed to be about." Feinstein maintains that the conference's members are among the few colleges that can call their players `student-athletes' with a straight face. Patriot League colleges hold athletes to rigorous entrance and academic standards and most scholarships are offered on a need-basis (although some schools are giving a limited number of basketball scholarships). Moreover, players regularly attend class since they are smart enough to know that there is little chance they will be playing ball at the professional level after graduation. Feinstein's portraits of these players and their coaches, his exploration of why they stay in the game and their encounters playing against soon-to-be-pro athletes of other teams bring an unusual emotional depth to this accountDwhich, like Feinstein's earlier books, should make a run toward, or on, the lists.

October 15, 2000
The Patriot League is a small NCAA basketball conference consisting of Eastern schools known more for their academics than their athletics. Consisting of Lafayette, Lehigh, Colgate, Bucknell, Holy Cross, and the two service academies, it was formed ten years ago on the principle of "no athletic scholarships," and as such its scholar-athletes are looking to graduate and not to play in the NBA. The book tells the story of the 1999-2000 season for the entire league and its players and coaches. It is a story that should be told, and Feinstein, who is a talented and prolific author (A Season on the Brink; A Good Walk Spoiled) and has written on college basketball several times, seems a natural to write it. However, the result is too diffuse. There are too many players, too many coaches, and too many games discussed. The reader needs a scorecard to keep it all straight. If the book had focused on one or two teams, it could have made the same points in a more compelling manner. Not a priority purchase. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/00.]--John Maxymuk, Robeson Lib., Rutgers Univ., Camden, NJ

Copyright 2000 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2000
The Patriot League consists of colleges that, with rare exception, do not give athletic scholarships. The league's teams, however, do compete in NCAA Division I along with Duke, UCLA, Syracuse, and all the other big-name basketball factories. The Patriot team that emerges from the season-ending tournament receives an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, where they are promptly seeded sixteenth in a 16-team bracket and get trounced by a top seed, usually a school with at least a couple of players headed to the NBA. Feinstein, the best-selling author who does this type of focused, incisive sports journalism better than anyone, spent the 1999-2000 season traveling between various Patriot schools, including Army, Navy, Lafayette, Holy Cross, and Bucknell. He interviewed coaches, assistant coaches, players, coaches' wives, trainers, and school administrators in order to present an objective (but very sympathetic) portrait of a world on the periphery of the big-time where athletes compete for a love of the game. Feinstein presents the season chronologically but supplies context along the way--sidebars on the schools' basketball histories, the most-heated rivalries, and the relationships among the coaches. He also captures the rhythm of the season: the anticipation of preseason practice; the ultimate drudgery of preseason practice; the nonconference schedule; the holiday tournaments; the intensity of the conference games; and, finally, the conference tournament--the goal to which these players have devoted their basketball lives. The book is typical Feinstein: excellent. Seldom will one get a chance to know so many fine young men--if only at a distance--and share their unique experience in educational environments where athletic prowess is respected but not worshiped.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2000, American Library Association.)