The Last Amateurs: Playing for Glory and Honor in Division I College Basketball [Paperback]

John Feinstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2001

Like millions who love college basketball, John Feinstein was first drawn to the game because of its intensity, speed and intelligence. Like many others, he felt that the vast sums of money involved in NCAA basketball had turned the sport into a division of the NBA, rather than the beloved amateur sport it once was. He went in search of college basketball played with the passion and integrity it once inspired, and found the Patriot League. As one of the NCAA's smallest leagues, none of these teams leaves college early to join the NBA and none of these coaches gets national recognition or endorsement contracts. The young men on these teams are playing for the love of the sport, of competition and of their schools. John Feinstein spent a season with these players, uncovering the drama of their daily lives and the passions that drive them to commit hundreds of hours to basketball even when there is no chance of a professional future. He offers a look at American sport at its purest.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If there's any doubt about John Feinstein being one of sport's true believers, The Last Amateurs readily dispels it. After years of smartly dissecting our games at their highest levels in bestsellers like The Majors, A Good Walk Spoiled, and A Season on the Brink, he returns to dissecting our games at their purest level, ground he first staked out quite stirringly in A Civil War, his chronicle of Army-Navy football.

In The Last Amateurs, he mines the 1999-2000 season of Patriot League basketball. Given the high-stakes, high-profile, and often dirty world of college hoops these days, Feinstein comes up with a remarkably refreshing place to visit, a sporting environment short on scandals, prima donnas, and sneaker contracts, but long on a pure passion for the game that complements achievement in the classroom. In the league's seven schools--Bucknell, Lehigh, Lafayette, Colgate, Holy Cross, Army, and Navy--academics come first, the hardwood second. These are campuses populated by students who happen to be athletes, not athletes stopping off on the way to lucrative careers in professional sports. Indeed, these are young athletes who have their post-college focus on the rest of their lives, not the NBA. Sports, for them, builds character, not bank accounts.

Still, the Patriot League is a Division I conference, with its champion earning an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament. It takes the games seriously--often, as Feinstein reveals, heartbreakingly so--even if it doesn't necessarily play to ACC, SEC, Big 10, and Pac-10 standards. Feinstein's interviewing, skillful as ever, brings the players, coaches, and administrators of the colleges in this league to full form, making The Last Amateurs a rarity among sports books--a smart volume about smart people with their heads and priorities pointed in the right direction. Like the conference itself, it's in a league of its own. --Jeff Silverman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Army, Navy, Lafayette, Lehigh, Bucknell, Holy Cross and Colgate: these seven colleges make up the Patriot League, basketball's smallest Division I conference. In this book, NPR commentator and bestselling sportswriter Feinstein (A Season on the Brink, The Majors, etc.) gives an exhaustive account of the Patriot League's 1999-2000 season. He illustrates that exciting basketball can be played in front of crowds that can be as small as 1,000 and that rivalries such as Lafayette-Lehigh can be just as intense as those played by colleges in major conferences on national television. But Feinstein's intent is to do more than just provide details about the year's important games; he uses the Patriot League as an example of "what college sports are supposed to be about." Feinstein maintains that the conference's members are among the few colleges that can call their players 'student-athletes' with a straight face. Patriot League colleges hold athletes to rigorous entrance and academic standards and most scholarships are offered on a need-basis (although some schools are giving a limited number of basketball scholarships). Moreover, players regularly attend class since they are smart enough to know that there is little chance they will be playing ball at the professional level after graduation. Feinstein's portraits of these players and their coaches, his exploration of why they stay in the game and their encounters playing against soon-to-be-pro athletes of other teams bring an unusual emotional depth to this accountDwhich, like Feinstein's earlier books, should make a run toward, or on, the lists. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books (November 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316278424
• ISBN-13: 978-0316278423
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.2 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (88 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #554,336 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Feinstein spent years on the staff at the Washington Post, as well as writing for Sports Illustrated and the National Sports Daily. He is a commentator on NPRs "Morning Edition," a regular on ESPNs "The Sports Reporters" and a visiting professor of journalism at Duke University.His first book, A Season on the Brink, is the bestselling sports book of all time. His first book for younger readers, Last Shot, was a bestseller.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An uplifting account of what basketball is all about, November 2, 2000

By 

R. Klau (San Ramon, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Amateurs: Playing for Glory and Honor in Division I College Basketball (Hardcover)

I bought the book because I'm a Lafayette alum, and wanted to read an account of the season that they ultimately won. While the partisan in me loved reading about Lafayette's trip to the NCAA tournament, I thoroughly enjoyed the information about each of the teams and the players at each school. Feinstein has a gift for finding the numerous stories inside the story - and The Last Amateurs is no exception. You'll get to know the students, their coaches, their challenges, and the numerous successes.

The Last Amateurs detalis a league untainted by shoe contracts, agents, and TV money. It looks at true student athletes, most of whom will play their last basketball game when the Patriot League season ends their senior year.

This was a fantastic book. Definitely worth a read.

37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pure basketball: the real hoop dreams, November 5, 2000

By 

Howard Shapiro (Austin, Texas United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Amateurs: Playing for Glory and Honor in Division I College Basketball (Hardcover)

John Feinstein transports us to a world where in which Division I college basketball players care more about their grade point averages than points per game and are more likely to discuss the latest public utterances of Dick Cheney than Dick Vitale. It is a place where the players are all smarter than the vast majority of college students but must still work hard at thier studies-- regardless of their on-court skills. Best of all, this is not a world cleverly imagined by a gifted satirist, but rather the Patriot League as chronicled by an insightful observer.

In detailing a season where there are no television millions, agents, shoe contracts, recruiting violations, NBA scouts, or academic scandals, the reader is rewarded with a book that deals solely with college basketball, its players, coaches, fans, and rivalries. As such, it is the best book about college hoops, or for that matter college sports, that I've ever read. It's a must read for the cynical, the jaded, or merely those who love a great sports story.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Naismith Would Approve, November 17, 2000

By 

Clint Hunter - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Amateurs: Playing for Glory and Honor in Division I College Basketball (Hardcover)

The basketball playing Patriot League consisting of teams from Army, Navy, Lafayette, Lehigh, Bucknell, Holy Cross, and Colgate has a few features unique to most Division 1 leagues in this era of big time college basketball. There are no big bucks national TV contracts, Dick Vitale doesn't hyperventilate over the awesome talents of its athletes, the academic standards are high, and the players actually graduate. Yet the competition within the league is intense and the level of play is surprisingly good. While there are no national champions here, the athletes who play for the love of the competition and the game do get a chance to meet with the "big boys" on occasion. The winner of the league receives an invitation to the NCAA Tournament (where they are usually ousted in the first round) and big time teams are sprinkled throughout the schedules. This year, for example, Penn State, Syracuse, Duke, Arizona State, Texas, and Wake Forest show up among the opponents. John Feinstein takes us on an extended guided tour of the league, its athletes, coaches, and administators and gives us an inside look at college basketball as close to it roots as it gets these days.

This is a nicely told tale of the fight to win the league's championship and its only bid to the NCAA Tournament. Its nice to read about athletes going all out to win even though the arenas may be small and the crowds might sometimes number in the hundreds rather than thousands. Caution though, Feinstein includes so much detail, so many names, and so many events that the reader may have a tendency to suffer from information overload. Nevertheless, this is a refreshing look at another aspect of collegiate competition.

If you enjoy this book and want to take a look at the other side of the college basketball equation, you might want to look at two other Feinstein books - "A March to Madness" which looks at the Atlantic Coast Conference and "A Season on the Brink" which deals with Bob Knight's Indiana Hoosiers of the Big Ten.