15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "#44 "MISTER CLUTCH" HALL OF FAMER JERRY WEST", February 27, 2010
This review is from: Jerry West: The Life and Legend of a Basketball Icon (Hardcover)
It's been over thirty-five years since all-time great Jerry West retired from the NBA so it's a daunting task to attempt his biography in a way that will seem fresh and meaningful to longtime Jerry West fans... but author Roland Lazenby succeeded in just such a quest. The author has done yeomen's work in combining archival historical articles, books and interviews... along with recent interviews with former teammates... associates... family members... and probably most impressive of all... former fiery members of competitive teams. I was raised to believe the greatest compliments a ballplayer could receive were from his peers... both teammates and competitors. An example of such haloed praise for West was proffered by Boston Celtic Tom Heinsohn who played... coached... or announced the six straight NBA championship series that West's Lakers lost to the hated Celtics: "WEST AND (TEAMMATE ELGIN) BAYLOR WERE TWO OF THE FIVE GREATEST PLAYERS EVER." Despite the fact that Jerry West finally got his elusive championship as a player by defeating the New York Knicks in 1972... a season that included *THE GREATEST CONSECUTIVE GAME WINNING STREAK BY ANY PROFESSIONAL TEAM IN ANY MAJOR SPORT IN HISTORY (33-STRAIGHT-GAMES)... Jerry's career both in college as an All-American at West Virginia and as a FOURTEEN-TIME-ALL-STAR for the Los Angeles Lakers... will be remembered by Jerry... as well as by those close to him... by the self-imposed anguish that was his daily life. He... like his Mother... was a perfectionist... and a single loss would nag at him inconsolably for months. It's this festering self-doubt and loathing that led some close to him to observe that despite all he accomplished in his career "HE NEVER SEEMED TO FIND ANY JOY IN IT." This self-imposed psychosis is probably the most amazing thing that a reader who is otherwise overly familiar with Jerry West's accomplishments will take away from this book. Hot Rod Hundley who preceded Jerry as a West Virginia All-American... and also preceded West as a first round selection by the Lakers so aptly said: "WEST ACCOMPLISHED TEN TIMES AS MUCH AS I DID IN MY CAREER, BUT HE'S ABOUT A TENTH AS HAPPY AS I AM."
There are plenty of unmatched statistics such as during the six NBA finals series against the Celtics in 1962,63,65,66,68, and 69... he averaged 31,29,34,35,32, and 38. In the 1964-65 six game Western Conference playoff series with the Bullets, "WEST AVERAGED 46.3 POINTS PER GAME, A RECORD THAT HAS WITHSTOOD THE TEST OF EVEN MICHAEL JORDAN'S BEST." Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan wrote: "NO CELTIC OPPONENT HAS EVER HAD MORE FANS WISHING HE WOULD SWITCH UNIFORMS, AND THAT INCLUDES MICHAEL JORDAN."
*JERRY WEST WAS NAMED THE MOST VALUABLE PLAYER OF THE 1969 NBA CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES... THE ONLY TIME IN LEAGUE HISTORY THAT THE MVP CAME FROM THE LOSING TEAM!*
The reader will hear no holds barred comments from West regarding such luminaries as Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Jack Kent Cooke, Jerry Buss, Fred Schaus, Phil Jackson... and many others. You will learn... or be reminded that West is probably the most loved and respected player to ever come from the state of West Virginia... in fact the author who is also from West Virginia says that his Father worshipped Jerry West. "I OFTEN TELL PEOPLE THAT THERE WERE TWO PICTURES ON THE WALL OF OUR HOME WHEN I WAS A BOY. ONE WAS OF JESUS. THE OTHER WAS OF JERRY WEST. THE PICTURE OF JESUS, I TELL PEOPLE, WAS HUNG HIGHER THAN THE PICTURE OF JERRY, BUT ONLY BY ABOUT AN INCH OR TWO."
The only part of this book from my perspective that was not five star quality was approximately thirty-odd pages near the beginning of the book that went into the history of West Virginia as far back as the 1700's. Perhaps I... like many other potential readers was simply chomping at the bit to immediately get to the main subject... my childhood hero Jerry West. I grew up in Los Angeles while West was playing for the Lakers. I wore his number 44 on my high school team... my junior college team... and on my military team. I practiced day and night imitating Jerry's unstoppable jump shot until mine was one and the same.
In my house... Jerry's picture was higher on the wall than any other.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best basketball book ever written, March 4, 2010
This review is from: Jerry West: The Life and Legend of a Basketball Icon (Hardcover)
On rare occasions, the right person is at the right place in the right time to carry out an extraordinary task. When Roland Lazenby set out to write a biography on Jerry West, that was one of those special moments.
For starters, Lazenby is one of the best sportswriters in the business. Of all the many books written about the Chicago Bulls dynasty, his masterpiece "Blood on the Horns" sits above all the others (even ahead of Sam Smith's "The Jordan Rules.") He also wrote THE book on the history of the Lakers franchise, "The Lakers" and then followed it up with the bigger more impressive tome "The Show." He's one of the very few writers who doesn't fall under the spell of basketball demigods, such as Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson, and do their bidding. He does his homework and reports the facts and puts them out there.
Second, he's a Lakers fan. I did not know this for some time, because he has written on many teams and written multiple books on the Bulls. Writing about what you love versus what you know has got to energize a writer, and you can see it here. To borrow a phrase quoted by those associated with West, how can you NOT be jazzed to write about "Jerry F***ing West?" The man IS the Lakers. He played 14 years, coached 2 years, scouted for the team, and served in various front office roles, including General Manager for 20 years. He built the 1980s and the early 2000s dynasty. This book radiates energy, and I imagine it was extremely difficult to craft this out, balancing love and fairness, rounding out the character and keeping the story pushing forward while covering such an extensive career.
The third reason has to do with West himself. The advantage of the autobiography is that the person telling the story knows more about himself than anyone. When you read a biography about a great person in history, there is a certain amount of guesswork, albeit educated. For instance, no one REALLY knows what George Washington was feeling during certain times. We can read his letters, but without talking to him directly, we don't know the full truth. At the same time, the disadvantage of the autobiography is that people value themselves probably more highly than they ought. No one wants to look like the bad guy or the screw up, so some points are glossed over or rationalized, even if it's a case of the person convincing himself that this revised history is the truth. To see this point illustrated, read Pete Maravich's autobiography "Heir to a Dream" and then read Mark Kriegel's excellent biography "Pistol." An outside observer is often more brutally honest about the subject than the subject. Besides this book and Kriegel's the other biography that really stands out is Robert Cherry's biography about Wilt Chamberlain, "Wilt: Larger than Life." The advantage Lazenby has over Cherry and Kriegel is that Jerry West is still alive, whereas Maravich and Chamberlain had passed away, so he was able to interview West himself. Furthermore, West is 71 years old, so he has a sense of perspective and is more likely to be honest looking back in retrospect to past relationships and performances, unlike a biography written about a 32 year old player in the prime of his career.
Finally, and probably most importantly, former Lakers General Manager Pete Newell said to understand Jerry West, you have to understand West, you have understand West Virginia. Lazenby, a West Virginia native, understands West Virginia. He spends significant time explaining the background of West Virginia, including the settling and conflict dating back to the French and Indian War, along with the exploitation of the land, resources, and people by large mining corporations. And beyond understanding the land and the people of the state as a whole, Lazenby also sets the background to West's upbringing. You have to understand his parents to understand why he is such a perfectionist. To understand his parents, you have to understand his grandparents. Lazenby goes into detail on this, along with some even more distant relatives. He spends three chapters setting up back story before we even get to West playing basketball in high school. In doing so, you really get into the mind of West and although he is a hard man to understand - namely his nervous energy, and inability to be sit back and take satisfaction in the fruit of his work - you still see WHY he is the way he is. And that is why this book is so special. Most books are more interested in the events rather than the "whys". Lazenby answers both.
You also get to see West's view on this relationships with key people in his career: Fred Schaus, Elgin Baylor, Jack Kent Cooke, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jerry Buss, and Phil Jackson.
The one question I always wondered was knowing West's perfectionist attitude and his wont for reliving the failures to win the championship in 6 meetings with the Celtics (along with past failures in college) and subjecting himself to misery, when the Lakers finally won the title in 1972, West went through a shooting slump in the finals and conference finals. I always wondered how he dealt with winning the finals, yet performing at a sub-standard level. Had I met West, I would never have asked him this. After all, when you stand before "Jerry F***ing West", you are in the presence of royalty, so how could you do anything except heap praise? Yet Lazenby does address this issue in detail - proving why he is one of the best at what he does. He's a fan, yet he's fair.
When I finished this book, I knew more about the subject matter than I did in any other sports book, and probably more than any other historical character. This is not just a good sports book, this is a textbook example of how to write a biography. This can proudly take its place alongside David McCollough's biography on John Adams and Edmund Morris' "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" on the bookshelf, both of which won the Pulitzer Prize, but have nothing on this book. This is the best 3-dimensional analysis of a character in any biography I have come across, and I have read many: sports and non-sports.
I own and have read so many basketball books that I created a website for my books with book reviews. I rate my books from 1-5 stars. I have often wondered which 5-star rated book was the best, and I had never been able to pick one out that stood above the rest - until now. This book stands out so far above the rest, that I had to create a new rating: 6-stars. The master sports author who created two previous brilliant works has created his magnum opus.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Story of The Logo, February 28, 2010
This review is from: Jerry West: The Life and Legend of a Basketball Icon (Hardcover)
Jerry West is one of the most important figures in NBA history, and in this great biography, Roland Lazenby chronicles the life of the man who led the Los Angeles Lakers to numerous Finals appearances and NBA championships as a player and general manager.
The book begins by tracing West's lineage to the eighteenth century, provides a vivid picture of West's childhood in mid-20th century West Virginia, and recalls many of the trials his family had at that time. The book describes how West learned the game of basketball, and traces his playing days at East Bank High, at West Virginia University, and on the 1960 gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic team.
West is most famous for his playing career with the Lakers, and much of the book covers those 14 seasons, including the inner workings of the Laker squad and West's famous playoff battles with the Boston Celtics. The author discusses how the same perfectionism that caused West to work so hard at the game and achieve such success had its negative aspects.
Lazenby documents West's post-playing days as a coach and general manager, and discloses some of the issues that led to West's departure from the team in 2000. This very well-researched book is made even better by the many interviews the author was able to obtain that yielded many fresh insights about West's career. This volume would be enjoyed by anyone keenly interested in NBA history.
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