Coach : lessons on the game of life

A story with a big heart about a boy, a coach, the game of baseball, and the game of life. "There are teachers with a rare ability to enter a child's mind; it's as if their ability to get there at all gives them the right to stay forever." There was a turning point in Michael Lewis's life, in a baseball game when he was fourteen years old. The irascible and often terrifying Coach Fitz put the ball in his hand with the game on the line and managed to convey such confident trust in Lewis's ability that the boy had no choice but to live up to it. "I didn't have words for it then, but I do now: I am about to show the world, and myself, what I can do." The coach's message was not simply about winning but about self-respect, sacrifice, courage, and endurance. In some ways, and now thirty years later, Lewis still finds himself trying to measure up to what Coach Fitz expected of him.

A story with a big heart about a boy, a coach, the game of baseball, and the game of life.

Publishers Weekly

Lewis (Liar's Poker; Moneyball) remembers his high school baseball coach, Coach Fitz, a man so intense a room felt more pressurized simply because he was in it. At the New Orleans private school Lewis attended in the late 1970s, Coach Fitz taught kids to fight the natural instinct to run away from adversity and to battle their way through all the easy excuses life offers for giving up. He was strict, but he made such an impression on his students that now, 25 years later, alumni want to name a new gym after him. But the parents of today's students aren't as wowed by Coach Fitz's tough love. They call the headmaster with complaints, saying Coach Fitz is too mean to their children and insisting on sitting on his shoulder as he attempts to coach. A desire to set these new parents straight may be the underlying reason for Lewis's slight book, though he'd probably rather have readers believe he's just written it as a paean to a man who taught him some important life lessons. The book's corny subtitle, lack of heft and hackneyed images of kites flying and fireworks exploding may turn off some readers, but those who persevere will come away with a reminder that fear and failure are the two greatest enemies of a well lived life. Agent, Andrew Wylie. (May) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

"There was a turning point in Michael Lewis's life, in a baseball game when he was fourteen years old. The irascible and often terrifying Coach Fitz put the ball in his hand with the game on the line and managed to convey such confident trust in Lewis's ability that the boy had no choice but to live up to it. The coach's message was not simply about winning, but about self-respect, sacrifice, courage, and endurance. In some ways, and even now, thirty years later, Lewis still finds himself trying to measure up to what Coach Fitz expected of him."--Publisher description Recounts a turning point in the author's life, an event during which a baseball coach gave him the ball at a key point in a game and conveyed such trust that the author was inspired to perform beyond his own expectations WHEN I was twelve I thought that when the New Orleans Times-Picayune ran a headline about the "struggle for control of the West Bank" it meant the other side of the Mississippi River.