Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

In "The Last Amateurs" (a title that sounds like it could be a Bruce Willis film title), author John Feinstein ("A Good Walk Spoiled" and "The Majors" to name a few), returns to his true love, college basketball. In revisiting a subject that he last broached in his "expose'" of Bobby Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers in "Season on the Brink", Feinstein proves very quickly that this book is a labor of love and that he is indeed a true fan of the sport.

His subject matter is the 1999-2000 basketball season of Patriot League members, Navy, Lafayette, Lehigh, Army, Bucknell, Colgate, and Holy Cross. Although I consider myself a serious fan of college basketball, I must admit, I knew very little about this league or its teams until reading this book. Having grown up a fan of Big Ten basketball, I'm not sure I could have identified the states, let alone the cities, that these Patriot League teams called "home". And, while I was certainly recognized the names of the league best known coaches, Ralph Willard and Don Devoe, the rest of the leagues coaches and players toiled away in basic anominity.

Feinstein changed all that.

His description of the dedication and effort that these teams put forth every year, with little national recognition, was intriguing. He drove you to get to know these players and coaches better. And, along the way, gave the reader a vision of what college basketball (and athletics) should really be about - working toward graduation and playing for your school's pride (instead of playing to impress NBA scouts). This is the purist's view of college basketball and it was refreshing to read!

I would encourage any fan of college athletics to give this book a try. In a sport where one's allegiance to his school lasts only until agents come knocking at his door, it is refreshing to read about players who genuinely care for one another and their alma mater. To read about these true "student-athletes" (who worried about missing classes and took course work with them on road trips) is a tremendous breath of fresh air.

This book was a bit of a change of pace for me; I don't read too many sports books anymore. However, I was a fan of Feinstein's previous college hoops books -- "A March to Madness" and "A Season on the Brink" -- and this struck me as an uncanny subject. Although the book ostensibly chronicles the 1999-2000 season, Feinstein actually transports us back in time. The Patriot League is college basketball the way it used (and ought) to be -- before TV and avarice transformed the sport into a proving ground for the NBA and a cash-cow for the universities. The kids in the Patriot League play not to audition for the pros, but for the love of the game and the challenge of the competition. Feinstein brings to life the excitement that small-time college basketball can generate -- every bit as electric as the ACC and Big Ten.

I am a current student at the Patriot League school of Bucknell and know intimately the details of the basketball programs Feinstein chronicles. The book is a perfect recreation of the life of a Patriot League player and a perfect tribute to the league that enjoys little fame. From the descriptions of the arenas that our teams play in to the rivalries that we hold so close to our hearts, this is a true winner. If you are a fan or real basketball, where fame doesn't come and agents don't either, read this book. Our basketball is special and Feinstein captures it perfectly. This is Feinstein's best work yet!!!

While reading through this book, I wondered why the author has a thing against Georgetown University. Georgetown is tied with Holy Cross of the author's exalted Patriot League in graduating athletes within five years. These are two of the top schools in this category. This makes Holy Cross and the Patriot League above reproach, while it subjugates the Hoyas to Feinstein's basement.

Other than the above prejudices, Mr. Feinstein is a good writer, and the subject is a fascinating one. The question being, will this be the future of college athletics.

As graduate of Bucknell, I was very pleased when I heard that John Feinstein had decided to focus his next book on the Patriot League. For all Patriot basketball fans, I think the book provides a certain degree of vindication - The Patriot League does play entertaining basketball on the outskirts of the big time, without the felonious behavior and coddled athletes of the larger conferences. Better still, once a season we get to see ourselves on ESPN, in the conference championship. I'd venture that all of the Patriot schools quietly root for whoever makes the NCAA tournament in hopes finally getting that first elusive upset.

That said, is Feinstein's book a good read? For me, as an alumnus it was great to hear a respected journalist's perspective on the conference. However, when friends that didn't know anything about the Patriot League asked me about the book, I found it hard to recommend it. It occasionally reads like a long Sports Illustrated article, and the descriptions of game play are quite repetitive by the season's end. I bought the book as a gift for my college roommates from way back when, but I don't know if it could hold the attention of someone who wasn't as familiar with the league.

If you're down on the cesspool that college sports has become, this is the book for you! I had never heard of the Patriot League (although everyone knows Army, Navy and Holy Cross)but I really liked Feinstein's other stuff. Reading this, though, you realize there are still schools out there where the term "student-athlete" makes sense. These players' stories are at least as interesting as those in the big time conferences... especially considering they have basketball in the right perspective. Read this book!

For anyone who has become fed up with the hyperbole and hypocrisy of college athletics these days, this book will be a welcome antidote. While too many Division I schools have translated Juvenal's famous motto of "mens sana in corpore sano" as "sound mind, sound body, take your pick!", it is refreshing to read of schools and their students who have not treated the term "student/athlete" as an oxymoron. Feinstein shows the reader that it is possible to care deeply about athletics and the lessons learned from vigorous and fair competition without losing sight of the true purpose of a college education. His three dimensional profiles of the students and their coaches might well rekindle the old-fashioned idea that athletics can and should help build character rather than the bank accounts of the schools. I can attest to the veracity of the picture that he paints of the values of the Patriot League schools since I am a Holy Cross graduate and have been a faculty member there for over thirty years. Academics always came first, and I even remember one year in which I had taught Organic Chemistry to four of the starting five players on the Holy Cross basketball team. I doubt that many other schools in the country had even two players who had chosen such a challenging schedule. I have been proud of all of the student/athletes that I have known or taught over the years, and I believe that their careers have been helped immeasurably by their participation in athletics. However, this book makes it clear that they came to Holy Cross or Colgate or Bucknell, etc. because a first rate education was uppermost in their minds. Read this book and share in the joy of students who play for the love of the game while keeping their eyes on the real prize, an education that will last for the rest of their lives.