Customer Reviews

Can I Keep My Jersey?: 11 Teams, 5 Countries, and 4 Years in My Life as a Basketball Vagabond

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

As a Jayhawk, I would never in a million years have thought that I'd be writing in praise of Paul Shirley when he played for Iowa State. However, starting with his blogs as a member of the Phoenix Suns, I really came to appreciate Shirley's talent as a writer and the insight he gives into the world of professional basketball. Shirley looks at the world of basketball through the eyes of somebody who has grown up loving the game (he is, after all, from Kansas) and who happened to have the ability to play (or sit on the bench) professionally.

While Shirley's humor sometimes misses its mark, the writing is engaging and much more interesting than your typical basketball player's memoir. The effort and dedication required to become even an average division I basketball player results in a lot of sentences in basketball memoirs like, "on Tuesday I went to the gym and shot 10 thousand three pointers." Not exactly the ideal grist to create a memorable book, but Shirley has succeeded in writing a book that addresses the reality of a life in basketball while maintaining a refreshing sense of humor about it.

A reasonably intelligent young man gets paid a more than decent wage to play a game he sometimes loves. Along the way he travels the world, deals with uncertainty and illness, and lives and works with people from profoundly different backgrounds than his own. In the hands of someone with an open mind, a curious nature and a willingness to learn, the result might have been an insightful and fascinating book. Bill Bradley's Life on the Run, or Ken Dryden's The Game are two classic examples of how a sports memoir can be about much more than a game.

Paul Shirley had the chance for such a book, especially given his position of the far edge of his profession, where he had to fight hard to keep his professional career alive. Instead, what emerged was a book that, while periodically clever, grows increasingly tiresome as the pages turn.

Almost everyone Shirley meets is, for him, somehow lacking. Yet when Paul Shirley makes so few friends on so many teams in so many countries, the obvious question is whether it might just be the author who is at fault.
A subtitle for the book might have been "My deep contempt for just about everyone I ever met and most countries, too." Contempt isn't witty and it isn't smart. It's just boring, isolating and, in the end, a little sad.

The basic plot repeats with each chapter: A) anxiety about getting a job, B) getting a job, C) how the new job proved boring/stupid/unworthy, D) how the location of the job proved dreadful, E) how the people with whom the author worked proved too dumb or too religious to be worth the author's time, conversation or interest and F) how it all fell apart, causing him to return to A) above.

Shirley can be funny and, almost despite himself he does impart some information about what it's like on the margins of professional sports. For that I award the book two stars, but when I think of what the book might have been, I'm tempted to drop it back down to one.

This is a young man of talent, but his insecurity and ego keep him from learning much, and that's a tragedy. My hope is that the book is colored by the author's relative youth and that, in later years, he might prove more reflective about his experience and its lessons. This first effort, however, just seems both shallow and self-absorbed when it could have been so much more.

Here's hoping Shirley someday finds a way consistently to live up to his potential as both a basketball player and an author. I honestly wish him well.

I'm pretty sure Paul Shirley will never play in the NBA again. This has nothing to do with his basketball skill, but more of his no-holds barred recap throughout the book of his experiences in the league. It's obvious no team or management will want their choices second-guessed or laughed at in any other future book Shirley might have. This insight is the most interesting factor about this book. You get these tales and a sneak peak behind the scenes of the NBA. That's kinda neat.

However, Shirley's view on traveling, fans, and anything foreign (i.e. not from his hometown of 600 people in Kansas) is just aggravating. A little appreciation of his life and experiences could have really made this an exciting story to read, instead it's a woe-is-me view that is frustrating to a well-read or well-traveled reader.

The writing has it's moments. The quality is there, and as another reviewer noted - the editor could have gone a long way to curb some of the unnecessary banter. Shirley's second and third-guessing of his own phrasing, writing, and stories are distracting and drags interesting stories into self-indulgent and unnecessary debates (that he has with himself.) As a fan of Shirley's blog and articles, I found myself disappointed with this book.

Chances are the readers of "Can I Keep My Jersey?" are one of two types:

1) People who are basketball fans in general and have never read Paul Shirley before.

2) Readers who got hooked on Paul Shirley via his NBA Blog, or via Bill Simmons' columns on ESPN's Page 2. If you found this book by way of either of these methods, I'm sure you'll love it.

If you're in group 1 and you have a smart-a&#, sarcastic, dry, witty, smart sense of humor, I think you'll like Paul's writing.

I loved hearing about his experiences in foreign countries most of all. Paul gives you a look at being a complete fish out of water in places most tourists never go. If you've traveled outside the US, you'll definitely relate to some of his uncomfortable, awkward stories.

You also get a first-hand tour of the dredges of professional basketball in the USA - the CBA and the ABA. Personally, having been to the wonderful world of Yakima, Washington, I found his CBA stories about his time there to be particularly entertaining.

Again, this book isn't so much about the NBA or famous basketball players, it's about Paul's travels across the world while doing his job. I get the idea that while Paul loves playing basketball, he may not enjoy the rigmarole of playing in 3rd-world countries; it sort of seems like a paycheck for him in some points. Also, after making it into the NBA, he really brought an everyman-view to the NBA lifestyle too.

I breezed through this book. If you're in his target demographic (I am) and would enjoy reading things like blogs, I would recommend it. If you're not though, I'm not so sure...

I have to admit through the first 100 pages I loved the book, thought Paul was funny though a bit cynical, and actually cared about his journey in basketball and life. However, that changed as I got deeper into his story and like many of the reviewers here got sick of his whinning. Perhaps this is the true reality of professional sports for individuals with talent or size but in most cases not enough skill or athleticism. You just grow bitter and have trouble finding your niche. I have no doubt that Paul's intelligence level made his experience even more difficult and so I can find some empathy for the guy. What I struggle with was his attitude especially in light of the financial rewards he was reaping and the experiences he was being afforded. Paul could have stopped playing and chosen another line of work.
What I liked about the book was reading about international basketball and the different cultures and places that Paul experienced. I also enjoyed the stories about the NBA teammates Paul shared his playing days with.

If you want to get a well-written book about playing basketball overseas, pick up "Paddy on the Hardwood" by Rus Bradburd. Paul Shirley "coulda been a contender" for author of a really good inside the sport book. But he lets his cynicism and narcissism get in the way at almost every turn. His journeys could have provided grist for some really interesting stories about parts of professional basketball that outsiders rarely get to glimpse. Instead, he uses them as an opportunity to cry and whine about how unjust life has been to him; a young, healthy and apparently intelligent young man. Too bad.

Unfortunately, the book doesnt live up to a great title.

In 50 years of reading pretty much anything that I can lay hands on, for the first time I looked for the editor's name. This is for you, Chris Schluep: you need a refresher in Editing 101. The parenthetical asides needed to go. They are distracting, unnecessary, and so not funny. We get that he doesnt like religion or tuna-no need to go on about them forever. It is also obvious that he doesnt much care for the world outside of Kansas, or the people in it. Much is made of his 'cynical, dry' sense of humor, that one needs to be of the right demographic to appreciate it. Sorry, that wont fly. Sour carping and egregious insults does not make for 'humor.'

The author comes across as pretty much what he is: an immature, arrogant young man who isnt quite as smart as he thinks he is. He could be a pretty decent writer-there were flashes here and there-and if he does someday grow up, I suspect he'll look back on this book and be embarrassed by its immaturity and callowness.

Relax, acclimate yourself to Shirley's style of writing and perspective and regardless of who you are if you have any interest in basketball or living abroad you'll be glad you found this book.

Good read. A little surprised at the chip on his shoulder after having experienced things in life most of us will not.

Very interesting stuff on life in the NBA (travel, what players do on the bench, etc.) He seems to think he got screwed over by the NBA, which makes no sense. If they thought he was better, they'd have kept him, same with any other profession.

Based on the strong word of mouth this book has been receiving from the likes of SI's Rick Reilly, I anticipated something much better than this one note diatribe from Shirley. The act wears thin after the first chapter. We get the point. He's qualified to sit the bench on pro basketball teams because of his height and not his skill. He doesn't give any insights into the playing of the game, just that he hates Christians who play in the NBA. That rant gets old too. The "I'm smarter than the next guy, why is this happening to me angle" can only be repeated so many times. As a writer, he needs to sit the bench. Please spare us a sequel.