Customer Reviews

Call Me Coach

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This is a great book! Its intended audience in not only fans of wrestling. This is a lively, family-oriented tale that EVERYONE will enjoy. You'll find yourself laughing out loud as Steve Wolfe weaves his story of living and coaching in Alaska. I recommend this book to old and young alike.

This book takes you to a golden time in the history of Homer wrestling. Steve Wolfe is a great story teller and reading this book will actually make you believe you were there. Steve's storytelling is not only funny but a wonderful tribute to those who laid the foundation of Homer's history.

Steve Wolfe does a wondeful job of captivating not only the idiosyncrancies of the sport of wrestling, but the essence of the human spirit. I found myself lauging out loud of some of the humerous events within the book and appreciate having this coach share his experience with up and coming coaches like myself.

This book kept me in stitches. I couldn't put it down until the wife told me to turn out the lights. I haven't enjoyed reading a book like this since "All Creatures Great and Small". "Call Me Coach" is very much like that series and it is well written. I loved it.

Incredible but true stories about the End of the Road, Homer Alaska. Mom said folks move here so they can dress funny...I want to add, act just as funny. Just as incredible are the dedicated teachers/coaches/philosophers/that ready our youth to succeed. My son, son-in-law, and two nephews are examples of the wisdom of their wrestling years with Coach Wolfe....Thank you, Coach

Steve Wolfe knows his stuff when it comes to coaching and wrestling. This book would entertain the most avid wrestler all the way to a beginner. This is not only a excellent and fun book for those interested in wrestling but those interested in how it is to raise a family in Alaska. Wolfe writes about his young family in a way that makes you want to read more. Thanks for a wonderful book.

Years ago as a teenager, my concept of wrestlers and wrestling came from watching Leaping Larry Chene, Haystack Calhoun, Bobo Brazil, and the like on TV; more actors than athletes in reality. And my limited wrestling experience in high school quickly proved that with regard to wrestling I was neither actor nor athlete. The point is my knowledge of true wrestling is very limited so I figured reading Steve Wolfe's Call Me Coach: Alaska's Greatest Wrestling Stories would be a good learning experience. Believe me when I tell you it is so much more than a memoir about coaching wrestling.

Wolfe may have 30 years experience as a high school wrestling coach, but I think his real talent lay in the fact he is an outstanding storyteller. He is one of those rare individuals who can observe an ordinary event, put his own special perspective and spin on it and tell others a very interesting and entertaining tale. And that is exactly what he does, over and over, in Call Me Coach. And while he readily admits that his stories may not be exactly accurate (he even changes the names in case others' memories of an event differ from his), he relates each with such believability that it doesn't matter whether or not it's true.

You don't have to be a wrestling fan, or even like sports in general, to enjoy Wolfe's tales. True, many of the stories center on the adventures of the high school wrestling team he coached, but don't let that dissuade you from reading this wonderful book because there is a something for everyone. Call Me Coach is a collection of short, poignant stories that range from life in small town Alaska to the difficulties getting from one Alaskan town to another to the wonderful folks that give Homer, Alaska, a unique character. Each of them told with Wolfe's special talent for seeing the high humor in nearly everything.

Take for example the time his Dad and Mom came to visit from Idaho. Dad visited a local farm and stayed to help shear sheep while Wolfe went on home. Getting there, Wolfe learned he needed to reach Dad to tell him his flight home had been moved to an earlier day and time. Without phones such communication depended on CB radios, which broadcast over open channels, sometimes over great distances and other times not. Unable to reach his father on his radio, Wolfe's wife called the Homer police with their stronger radio, but even theirs couldn't reach far enough. Thus the message passed from CB to CB with the whole countryside listening. Finally Dad and everyone else heard "A message for Ed Wolfe from the Homer police. You are to get out of town tomorrow. Catch the 9:55 plane." For weeks afterward, people kept asking Steve what his dad did to get kicked out of town.

I've read literally a hundred memoirs over the last few years and I can safely say, this is one of the best. Steve Wolfe's stories are sure to warm your heart, make you laugh, and have you asking for more.

Bob Davis, a member of the National Book Critics Circle, is owner of Bob Davis Editing, Live Oak, TX