Customer Reviews

Golden Girl: How Natalie Coughlin Fought Back, Challenged Conventional Wisdom, and Became America's Olympic Champion

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

As a former collegiate All-American swimmer, I found Silver's book to be illuminating in many ways. While the writing style is a bit forced at times (for drama's sake), it is overall an interesting read and an honest look into the inner workings of competitive swimming.

I found the willingness to criticize established swimming tenets (and people) refreshingly honest, and to the Silver's and Coughlin's credit, they never try to pass of any of the asseratations as fact but always as opinion. Certainly, this has irked many online reviewers who are naturally protective of their coach and/or training style, but this is one of the few books which actually say publically what many of us in the sport have felt for decades -- we are overtraining and burning out our swimmers, particularly our sprinters.

Will this be an interesting book to a non-swimmer? Probably so, and mostly for the controversy mentioned above.

In particular, I find the Natalie-bashers' strategy confusing. If you disagree with her opinions, fine. If you feel it's so off-based, then why worry about it?

Based on the other comments, I thought this book would be a litany of complaints by Natalie. I assumed she would really bash her old coach. Instead, he is mentioned mostly in the context of the difference between his training philosophy and that of Teri McKeever. Ray Mitchell occupies part of a chapter. This leads me to believe that those who are outraged must not have taken the time to read the book.

That being said, I thought the book was more about the Cal swim season with a focus on Natalie and McKeever. It was a fascinating look at a different approach to swimming - focus on technique, workout variety and team building. As one of the many burned out former age groupers who swam lot of 10K+ workouts, I think the whole swimming world should celebrate that coaches such as McKeever and Salo are willing to try something new. Natalie and the Cal swim program are proof that there is more to swim training than piling up yardage. This is really inspiring. I used to worry about whether I was doing the right thing by introducing my children to this sport. This book has helped to re-ignite my love for competitive swimming.

I purchased this book to find out about Natalie's swimming career and how she was able to achieve success in swimming and her Olympic accomplishments. Instead I found the writer, Michael Silver, writing more about the coach, McKeever and the other swimmers under McKeever's tutelage. There is not much about Natalie in this book but rather more is written about the others around her. I am extremly disappointed in this book and would not recommend it if you want to read about Natlalie's life and swimming career.

I found this book to be a great read about a swimmer who overcame issues to win 5 Olympic medals. As the mom of two swimmers on a less serious, more recreational, swim team, I can still understand all the pressures she felt.

It appears the negative reviews are from Terrapin families, because I did not find Natalie to be self-absorbed, whiny, or any of the other negative attributes given to her by the one star reviewers.

Natalie took time out of her busy schedule three years ago to spend an afternoon at our swim club to motivate our swimmers before their biggest meet. I plan to have my 14 year old and 11 year old read "Golden Girl" to learn how she became an Olympic star.

It's hard to fill a biography when your subject hasn't reached the quarter century mark, so I'm not surprised to find a lot of filler in this tome. You would think Silver - a former Sports Illustrated writer who has co-authored books with Dennis Rodman and Jerry Rice - was getting paid by the word, with the amount of space he dedicates to Natalie's coaches (past and present), teammates, rivals and family. Yes, those things should be present since they're part of Natalie's world and shape her outlook. However, when I repeatedly get several pages about Teri McKeever's recruiting methods, and the individual dramas the Golden Bear swimmers are experiencing I begin to think the title should be pluralized. We're no longer reading about a person or even a swimmer/coach pair; we're getting the life story of the entire aquatic congregation.

Natalie becomes a supporting character in what is supposed to be her book, with the notable exceptions of when Silver expresses a somewhat creepy fascination for her (whenever they meet for lattes), or when he's explaining why Natalie is ALWAYS right: Natalie chooses a school her parents don't like: she's right; Natalie feels she was over trained at Terrapins: she's right; Natalie blows up at McKeever over swimming the 200 back; she's right. Natalie breaks the rules and physically strikes out at her teammates during a training exercise: she's right; Natalie nearly gets the team disqualified because of a superstition: she's right. I dare say that if Natalie committed a felony, Silver would detail why she was right.

So therein is the problem: the book doesn't focus on Natalie nearly enough, and when it does, it's so worshipful of everything she does it's off-putting. As a reader, I felt I was drowning in her superiority.

I regret reading Golden Girl because the things I like about Natalie - she is eco-conscious, she participated in "Project Believe" (an anti-doping initiative), she competed on Dancing with the Stars - are now overshadowed by Silver's smug portrayal of her. If you are and want to remain a fan of Natalie, I would recommend her twitter feed and facebook posts before I would recommend this book.

This is a fascinating page-turner. Coughlin's personal story is engaging and gives the reader a sense of her amazing triumph over illness while dealing with the rigors and stress of being a world-class, UC Berkeley, athlete. Truly amazing! I read this up-lifting book non-stop and highly recommend it.

Being the father of two USA swimming daughters, I found this to be just an "okay" read. While I did find it rather annoying for the author to repeatedly bash the Terrapins, Silver did a good job portraying the pressure coaches are under to get a name for themselves by unnecessarily pushing their swimmers too far. Nonetheless, I enjoyed how the book described McKeever's unorthodox techniques and chronicled the behind the scenes march to the Olympics. In the end, it did leave me with a bit of a tarnished view of Natalie, which is a bit disappointing given the title of the book. I strongly recommend Gold in the Water.

Despite what many bitter terrapin swimming fans may say, this is an excellent book that talks about Natalie and her path to success. FYI to people reading the reviews...the Terrapin Swim Team (which was portrayed in a negative light) has been soliciting their team members to comment on Natalie's book...Just take their book reviews with a grain of salt! I absolutely loved it and it is a truly inspiring story of a girl whould not give up despite terrible obstacles! I will recommend to many of my friends inside and out of the swimming community!!!

Yeah that's right, I said it. Despite what the Terrapin parents will have you believe, this is an EXCELLENT book. I couldn't put it down, and had to go take a long swim after completing it! I am not involved in swimming, but my kids do compete in sports, and if their coaches were ever accused of what Natalie's coach was, I think I would be a little skeptical of the coach instead of calling the writer a liar.

I have read other copied of Silver's books, and I find him to be a fine writer indeed.

(As far as what Water Baby said): Maybe the Terrapins should invest more time into practicing to be as good as Natalie instead of spending so much time on message boards!

for a long time, Seabiscuit was my favorite sports book...and that book is amazing. but now, this book is at the top of my list, its downright incredible. i am a swimming fan, so that could be why i liked it so much, but natalie coughlin is such an amazing person, and if this book and her accomplishments don't convince you of that...i dont know what will.