Customer Reviews

Drive: The Story of My Life

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The heart and soul of a champion: his life, his career, and his game. To understand basketball, you have to understand Larry Bird. Arguably the greatest all-around player the game has ever known, he led the Boston Celtics from the basement to three world championships, collecting three NBA Most Valuable Player awards along the way. Yet, despite these massive accomplishments, Bird has rarely talked to the press, and much about the man has remained a mystery. Now in Drive, the long-silent superstar sets the record straight, revealed a side of himself, and of basketball, you've never see before. Larry Bird grew up in the small town of French Lick, Indiana. His family was not very well off. Infact, they would occasionally stay at his grandmother's home. When Larry was twelve he found that he had a God-given ability to play basketball. He knew he was blessed and knew he had to do something about it. Everyday Larry would practice, practice, practice. Shooting foul shots, threes, it didn't matter, he just love the game. Even when he broke his ankle he would still shoot free throws every day. Larry's father committed suicide when Larry was still young. This broke his heart, but he knew his father did what he thought was best for the family. Bird was a celebrity on his High School basketball team in French Lick. The population of the town was only 2,100, but 4,000 people attended his last HS game. After high school he enrolled at Indiana, but never played, dropping out and then hitch-hiking home. He waited a year to be eligible to play at Indiana State. He brought respectability to the Indiana State program which ended in losing to Magic Johnson's Michigan State team in the NCAA Tournament Title Game in 1979. Larry left Indiana State with a career scoring average of better than 30 points a game, fifth all-time in NCAA history, and a 3-year school record of 81-13. Larry was named the 1978-79 Sporting News Player of the Year and won the Naismith and Wooden Awards. He was the number six pick in the 1978 draft by Boston, as a junior, but he joined the team a year later, because he chose to stay in school for his last year of eligibility. His stellar play in his first year led to his Rookie of the Year selection in 1980.

We all remember his ability to hit the remarkable shot and don't forget his commercials with Michael Jordan where he makes the unbelievable shots. NBA players probably still have nightmares of his smooth jumper that would fall with deadly accuracy from ten feet or twenty feet. There may never be another with such a consistent sweet stroke. However, the legendary Celtic charm could not jump. He was slow, uncoordinated, but if you gave him a locomotive to pull he could do it for you. I'm not saying he was buff or strong or anything, I just mean he was a workhorse. He would not give up. Bird's all-time stats are an impressive: 21,791 points (11th. all-time), 1,556 steals (8th all-time), 0.886 FT Percentage (fourth all-time), 8,974 rebounds, 5,965 assists and 897 games played. He has a career 24.3 scoring average to lead the Celtics all-time list. Larry Bird was a successful player due both to talent and hard work. He was usually the first Celtic to arrive on game day when he would practice hitting jump shots for hours from everywhere on the floor, including dozens of free throws. This effort and ethic of work that he showed is an example I would like to follow. After reading this book I thought to myself, am I going to play varsity this year, and I going to achieve this goal and be able to dunk on DEC. 20 this year. Birdman has gone from a small town gangly country boy to an impressive person and player. The time he put in, the commitment he showed to his team. He played his entire career with the Celtics. This shows me how a player should be, faithful to your duties, contracts, and other commitments. He didn't just give up on basketball after his marks forced him to drop out, he prevailed and continued basketball and then went to college.

As his marks were so poor this shows me another basic fundamental to make it far in basketball, grades. Although my goals say I will play at college level, I will never be able to achieve this without the proper grades to do so. Academics are a very important part of my future.

This book is and awesome book in which I give five stars to. It was well worth my time to read and I hope to read it over again. It has inspired me to do my best and anything is possible if you work hard enough for it

Well, I loved this book. I love basketball and everything about it so of course I'm going to love a book about one of the greatest players of all time.
The book was about Larry Bird and his life. It turns out, that Larry Bird was very poor as a child. His favorite thing tho wear was a pair of overalls. He wore them at least 4 times a week and did not wear anything under. That is how poor his family was.
I like how he tells things like this because it shows alot of reality. He really doesn't sugar coat anything that he says in this book. He tells everything like it is and I tend to like people like that. I think that is because I tend to be like that.
Well, the bottom line is that this was a very great book.

"Drive: The Story of My Life" is my absolute favorite sports book of all time.

The first thing the reader realizes is Larry Bird's writing could not come from an uneducated hick. His storytelling and prose is engaging and makes you think twice about putting the book down.

It's obvious Bird wrote this book with the intensity and verve he was known for on the court. And now that multiple generations have passed since Bird played his last game, anyone involved in coaching basketball should make it suggested reading for their players.

"Drive" is a basketball treasure and widely (and accurately) considered one of the greatest sports autobiographies ever written.

This book tells the greatness of Larry Bird. Excellent ! A MUST READ

A great and truly under-rated sports book. Bob Ryan (the actual writer) is a long-time Boston Globe columnist and a terriffic writer. He captures the essence of Larry Bird, from his childhood to his journey through high school and college to his emergence as both a basketball legend in the NBA and a larger-than-life sports hero in Boston. You may like this book even if you don't care for basketball. You will definitely enjoy this book if you area a hoops fan. And if you are a Larry Bird fan and you haven't read this book... shame on you!

Larry Bird: Drive

This memoir is about one of the greatest basketball players of all time ‚ Larry Bird.

Larry grew up in the small town of French Lick, Indiana. He came from a very poor

family of six. I chose this memoir, because I love basketball, and was interested in Larry

Birds his life. My thesis statement is, if you work hard, and keep pursuing your goals

you can achieve them.

Larry grew up in a poor family, his mom always had to work hard and

never got anything in return. She was a working mother who worked two jobs

and had to hold down the house. "Money was always an issue in our life. There were six

kids and we just didn't have enough"." Mom worked all the time as a waitress or a cook,

sometimes working two jobs". "Mom never spent any money on herself; any thing she

ever made she spent on us kids".

Larry always hustled the most and worked the hardest. He came in early to the gym

and left late, he took the most shots in practice and always gave one hundred and ten

percent. Working the hardest was really important to Larry because he knew he wasn't

going to be the fastest or be able to jump the highest. So if he worked the hardest, and

shot the best he knew we would be able to compete. "I would play (basketball) at six

A.M before school. I would duck into the old gym in between classes to get a few shots

up and play again after school into the early hours of the next morning, feeling that sleep

were rude intrusions on my practice time".

Larry in the end of his book he looks back on the different cities he went to, the

referees, the players, and the NBA career. He learned that if you really want something in

life you can accomplish it with hard work.

The book "Drive" is an autobiography on one of the greatest basketball players and legends to ever step on the court and play the game of basketball. This book is about how Larry Bird grew up in the small, poor town of French Lick, Indiana. His father, Joe Bird, was a hard worker who bounced around from job to job just to keep his family above water, while Larry's mother, Georgia Bird, worked and took care of the family. Both parents worked eighty to ninety hours a week for $100 to $150. This was hard for Larry growing up because he wasn't able to spend time with his parents in his childhood. His parents were soon divorced so they wouldn't need as much money for the family with his dad gone. They would now have money from child support and money coming in from Georgia Bird's two jobs. Among the entire family troubles, Larry's father, Joe Bird, committed suicide in his parent's house with a shotgun.
When Larry was younger he never really liked the sport of basketball. He was more interested in baseball and football. The two sports never ended up working out for him in the long run. Larry didn't start to take an interest in basketball until he was about thirteen years old when he was shooting around with some kids from his grandmother's neighborhood. He realized that basketball was his true love when he wona big game for his team as a sophomore in high school. By his junior and senior year in high school he was nery successful, scoring 40 points a game. He was the team's savior. After high school, Larry went to Indiana University and after a few weeks of being there he left. A while after being out of school he was invited to work out with the Indiana State University's basketball team and decided to go. He instantly knew he would fit in with the teammates and knew it was going to be good competition, which is what he liked. He later enrolled himself there. At the end of his junior year in college the Boston Celtics Franchise chose him sixth in the 1978 NBA draft. He decided to stay in school and graduate instead of going to the NBA. During his senior year, he led his team to the NCAA championship game against Michigan State University and his soon to be rival Magic Johnson. His team lost the game. Larry was the first Bird to graduate from college. After graduation he negotiated a contract with the Boston Celtics Franchise. During his career he won numerous amounts of MVP awards and several championship rings with the Celtics.
This book had many things that made it great, but at the same time there were also things that took away from its greatness. In the beginning the chapters were very short but had a lot of detail of how he grew up and the problems he faced. As for the words he used and the flow of the sentences, it was well written. There are quite a few misprints in this book but it is still easy to understand and follow. Overall this book was very easy to understand and Larry describes the things him and his family and team went through thoughtfully. It was well thought out and had great detail.
As I said, there were things that worked and things that didn't. The thing that irritated me the most about his writing is that in the second half of the book when he is talking about his career, he talked too much about the other great players in the league. Sometimes, full chapters at a time. The last thing that didn't work was that he wouldn't state what year he was talking about in his career. For example he would be talking about his rookie season and then wold go to talk about a season five years down the road and you wouldn't even know it until a few chapters later.
Overall, this was a great book and I would recommend it to anyone. I would recommend it to not only athletes but also non-athletes because it shows how if someone works hard and has good work eithic and determination that it will help them succeed in life. Larry Bird thought that when he was resting someone, somewhere, was working hard to be better than he was. So he was always working to be the BEST.

this is a Great Book on one of Basketball's Greatest Player's&minds.Bird tells of his Nba Career&His Relationships with Indiana State,The Boston Celtics,Magic Johnson&His View on the NBA on a Whole.Bird was something else on the COurt&Off as a Coach.A Must Read.

Book outlines apparently the life as Larry Bird as written by him. Pretty basic stuff here. A good read if you were a Bird fan back in the past. Of course I emmulated my game after him while playing in two leagues as a teenager, now don't care much about basketball. So for me, it was somewhat of an enjoyable read. Didn't take long went right through it. Some interesting things about him was that his dad killed himself, and Bird's deep attitude about not being superficial I found especially interesting. However, he tries not to make any enemies here and there's nothing to controversial to be found. Interesting to see how someone of his stature kept his head together.

As a fan of Larry Bird, I found that this book did not meet my expectations. As one of the best trash talkers in the game, I anticipated a larger degree of wit among this writing. Unfortunately, although detailed, Bird's story comes off somewhat bland and does not encompass much of Bird's state of mind; instead focusing merely on citing the events in his life.

For those seeking to learn about the life of one of the NBA's greatest champions and who also have an interest in basketball, there are some good nuggets of information available. When Bird first came into the league, for instance, he considered the three point shot as something that was well out of his range, the distance too great. Revelations such as this will come as a surprise to those who only know of his champion style heroics. Had the book contained a more significant amount of this new and fascinating information, it certainly would have rated higher.

Bird certainly provides a behind the scenes look into basketball; however it lacks any noteworthy reflection from Bird on the topic. If you are looking for an inspirational piece from the mindset of one of sports great champions, you will be rather disappointed.