Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life (Paperback)

by Michael Lewis (Author) "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..." (more)
Key Phrases: former players, baseball coach, New Orleans, Coach Fitz, Michael Lewis (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From 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 © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description
"[Lewis] has such a gift for storytelling."—New York Times

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 even now, thirty years later, Lewis still finds himself trying to measure up to what Coach Fitz expected of him.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton (April 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039333113X
• ISBN-13: 978-0393331134
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #28,970 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Coach, June 17, 2005

By	takingadayoff "takingadayoff" (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life (Hardcover)

Despite the fact that I am always fascinated by whatever Michael Lewis writes about, I had not planned to read Coach. In the bookstore, it looked like one of those "inspirational" books they stock at the checkout counter, next to the gift books about angels and cats.

But then I heard an interview with Lewis on NPR radio. The book was originally a magazine article in the New York Times Magazine. He summarized the story in a few minutes. A coach he had at his prep school (I didn't even catch what sport Lewis was playing) had changed his life by treating him, in a critical moment in a must-win game, as if he was the clutch player Lewis and every other kid dreams of being. Lewis rose to the occasion and the confidence he gained from the experience radiated to his academic work and beyond. But now, twenty-some years later, the parents at the private school are pressuring the headmaster to oust the coach. They say his heavy-handed ways are hurting their kids' self-esteem. Lewis ended his radio summary by revealing that publicity from the New York Times article had resulted in the coach keeping his job, although the school was now looking for a new headmaster.

What a great story. It was short and had conflict as well as a satisfying ending. But then I read the book, which is simply the article, unchanged.

In it, the coach has a temper that seems uncontrolled and frightening, even to the adult Lewis. Coach takes a second-place trophy his team won and smashes it on the locker room floor, indicating his disgust at not winning first. He refuses to drive home when the team has lost, obsessively walking miles through New Orleans at night (yikes) to punish himself for being a loser. When the team doesn't hustle enough, he makes them practice sliding headfirst on concrete-hard dirt until they are bloody and bruised.

Lewis's interviews with former students of the coach sound like Stockholm Syndrome sufferers, people who've been kidnapped and held hostage but come to sympathize with their captors. The former players speak with admiration as they describe how Coach intimidated them. Lewis tells of being on the mound in another clutch situation as Coach shouts ridicule at him from the dugout, distracting him enough so that he misses a grounder that hits him in the face, causing him to black out. But when Lewis regains consciousness, he loves Coach, just as Winston loved Big Brother.

Lewis mentions that when he was a young pitcher, the coach had him put Ben Gay on the bill of his cap, to use for spitballs when his fastball wasn't doing the trick. I'm not familiar with prep league play, but isn't throwing a spitball against the rules? The more I read, the less I admired the coach.

As usual, Lewis's writing is compelling, and once you start Coach, you won't be able to put it down. You just may not find it as inspiring as Lewis meant it to be.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Profound lesson with an economy of words, June 26, 2005

By	Barry Sosnick (New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life (Hardcover)

Lewis makes a remarkable statement: a person is not born with selfrespect, but earns it. A struggle to overcome fear and failure is necessary. There are those that try to instill these beliefs on children, even though the lesson is not appreciated immediately in their youth and the profoundly positive impact is not understood until later in life. This is what the book is about.

Lewis' high school coach drives them hard. The kids don't understand why initially. Over time, they learn that through hard work they can achieve their goals--not just in athletics.

Casual readers, based on earlier reviews, seem to think that the coach is obsessed with winning; they miss the point (just as Lewis did when he was in 7th grade). Lewis talks about a season when the team was 1-12: The coaches frustration is not with the win-loss record, but that they kids possess the drive to improve and compete. He is not preparing them to win baseball games, but obtain their goals for years to come in life.

The book is a criticism of a growing opinion among parents that kids are born with respect, instead of needing to develop it. Achievement builds selfrespect, not conception. Parents should be exposing their children to fear and failure to allow them to overcome these obstacles instead of protecting them from it.

The touching element is that a successful author living comfortably in the Bay area champions someone that people no longer believe in, because this person championed him when nobody, including Lewis, believed in himself. It is the ultimate strength of character that Lewis' coach successfully cultivated in Lewis and others.

As a subscriber to the New York Times, I get the magazine. Unfortunately I did not see this article when it was published. To say a book that is a reprint of an article does not have merit is to foolishly presume that everyone gets the Times and has the time every Sunday to devour it. A reprint of an article takes a concept from a select few to the masses. Shame on those who do not appreciate this.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lessons On Society Losing Its Way, March 12, 2006

By	Thomas M. Loarie (Danville, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life (Hardcover)

Best selling author (Moneyball, Liar's Poker, and the New New Thing), Michael Lewis has written a little (90 pages) jewel with "Coach." Lewis reflects on his life at Isidore Newman School and the impact that his baseball coach and teacher, Billy "Fitz" Fitzgerald, had in shaping his life.

Fitz entered Lewis's mind at age 12 and has stayed there ever since. Think about that rare teacher or coach that has stayed with you into your adult life; reminisce with Lewis as he rediscovers the attributes of this relationship and its impact on his life.

Lewis's learning that a former player was organizing an effort to remodel the old gym and have it named after Fitz served as the catalyst for the book. While the cash was pouring in from former players and the parents of former players, current players and their parents were doing all that they could to persuade the headmaster to get rid of him.

This conflict allows Lewis to contrast a time when Fitz worked tirelessly to give boys a sense that their lives could be something other than ordinary to what is happening today. Fitz effectiveness had ended as he had run up against the culture of "kids being bestowed with a sense of self-esteem at birth."

The system of values he attempted to instill is no longer in alignment and was now more difficult than those of the parents and of the greater society. They are not in sync; they are no longer tolerated.

"Coach" transcends the events surrounding Fitz and the gym revealing the dark side of a society that has lost its way with honorable values and meaning.