Pounding the Rock

December 15, 2018
A high school basketball coach and teacher debuts with a volume about a successful basketball season--and a host of educational, social, and personal issues.Skelton, once an all-state player in his native New Hampshire, had drifted away from basketball, but then he returned to the sport when he began teaching history and English at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in the Bronx, a school whose praises he sings throughout ("a touchstone for small school success in the city"). Within a few years, he had built a team that won two city championships and one state crown. As the author guides us through a recent successful season, he steps away occasionally to talk about his family, educational issues--he is opposed to high-stakes standardized testing and the narrow curriculum that exists because of it, and he's deeply worried about what he sees as the deleterious effects of the charter-school movement on public education--his classes (he especially loves teaching Russian literature), and his valued colleagues at the school. Throughout, Skelton sprinkles literary allusions and quotations, including elements of Moby-Dick (probably the most frequent), Rabbit, Run, and Troilus and Cressida. The focus, of course, is on the author's players, their practices and games, and relationships. He chronicles how he deals with injuries, players quitting the team, and with his own passion for the game and for winning, a passion that often manifests itself in shouting and punching his notebooks. His diction is not always fresh or surprising. "Life is not easy," he writes; his wife is "my best friend." Some readers may be surprised by how little Skelton discusses race given the school's location in "one of the most segregated sections" of NYC. Although there is one moderately tense moment with local police officers, the author is more focused on the individual players and students than on their value as racial metaphors.A text full of hope, self-examination, and a profound belief in the young people whom the author coaches and teaches.

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December 15, 2018
The year before author Skelton took the head basketball-coaching job at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in the Bronx, the team was winless. Since then, the Panthers have won three New York Public Schools Athletic League championships and one state title. The school is in the poorest congressional district in the country, yet the graduation rate for the basketball team is virtually 100 percent?and almost all go on to college?thanks in no small part to Skelton, who teaches history and is determined to use basketball to teach the life skills that will serve his players long after their playing days are over. This is a loose chronicle of the 2016-17 championship season. Skelton's game accounts are exciting and reveal details about his players, their lives, and off-court challenges. None of these young men have it easy; even just getting to games and practices requires great effort. Skelton is forever in awe of his players' determination in the face of overwhelming odds stacked against their success. He considers it an honor to be their coach. A memorable book.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

November 1, 2018

Skelton lays claim to being a former all-state basketball guard from Derry, NH, but the real story here is how he transformed the basketball team at Bronx's tiny, innovative Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School. In 2006, the year before he took over, the team had a dismal win-loss record of 0-18; now the record stands at 228-68, and the team has won three Public School Athletic League championships and a state championship.

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