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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Little Uneven, But Still A Treat, April 9, 2001
I grew up in the Southeast on a steady sports diet of ACC basketball and football, followed each team closely each year, and, of course, later attended an ACC school. I graduated in the spring of 1996 -- just a few months before the 1996-97 season Feinstein chronicles in this book began. So I thought I knew all about the ACC and its sundry characters. Boy was I wrong. Feinstein's insights and access showed me an entirely different side of the ACC world I only thought I knew. The spotlight here is on the coaches and we get to know most of them intimately -- their background, their fears, their expectations, their personal lives, their triumphs and failures. It's all fascinating stuff, although, frankly, I expected a little bit more about the players themselves. Instead, players like Tim Duncan and Vince Carter have mere bit parts in the background. But they were college players and I guess Feinstein really couldn't drag them into the commercial world of book writing. Since the focus of the book is on the coaches themselves, the amount of access each coach gave Feinstein set the tone for the entire project. It is more than obvious that coaches like Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, Maryland's Gary Williams, Wake Forest's Dave Odom, Clemson's Rick Barnes, Virginia's Jeff Jones, and Florida State's Pat Kennedy gave Feinstein as much access and interview time as he wanted and they are covered thoroughly in the book. On the other hand, it's apparent NC State's Herb Sendek, Georgia Tech's Bobby Cremins, and, most importantly, North Carolina's Dean Smith didn't give Feinstein nearly as much time, access, and information as the others. Smith, in particular, is portrayed as an outside, shadowy figure and a pretty mean one at that. Smith could have helped by being more cooperative with Feinstein but, then again, Dean had a job to do and it didn't involve having a writer lurking around his locker room and office for a year. By contrast, Mike Krzyzewski apparently gave the Duke grad the keys to the Duke campus, and that, coupled with Duke's typically great season, give the book a decidely uneven feel. I don't know if that is bias, but I do know when Duke's Greg Newton is mentioned more often than Wake's Tim Duncan or North Carolina's Vince Carter, it's a problem. As much as Feinstein tries to paint a complete portrait of all nine coaches and all nine schools, he simply cannot and the book suffers because of it. Nevertheless, A MARCH TOWARD MADNESS is a treat for ACC fanatics, college basketball fans, and anyone interested in the inner workings of the world of college coaching. The most amazing thing is, the ACC is such a colorful league, you could write a book like this about each and every season. The names may change (a lot of the coaches in this book are already gone) but the passion, the intensity, and the competitiveness are always there.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Maybe the best sports book I've ever read, September 5, 2000
...and certainly the best book on basketball I've read. Better for me than A Season On the Brink - better written, and the central characters are more sympathetic than Bobby Knight. But I'm a long-time ACC fan. The book gives you great perspective on life as a basketball coach: how hard it is to climb the ladder, how uncertain the job is, how coaches' success depends on recruiting great players. The best parts of this book are the portraits of the coaches and how they got where they are today. Stories about Bob Kennedy and Gary Williams getting into a screaming match at the scorers table as assistant coaches; Jim Valvano and Rick Pitino at basketball camps in the off-season; and so on. Really compelling stories about the basketball life, including comments on the toll it takes on coaches' marriages. The book has some drawbacks. For one, you almost need to be an ACC fan. I was already familiar with and interested in most of the characters in the book, but fans in other parts of the country may not be. Also, as time goes by and people move on out of the ACC, the book may become less and less relevent. All the players from that season are gone; many of the coaches too. I think only Herb Sendek, Dave Odom, Gary Williams, Mike Krz. are still coaching at those schools: gone are Rick Barnes, Pat Kennedy, Bobby Cremins, Jeff Jones, and of course El Deano. And the book really doesn't focus on the players at all: it's almost entirely about the coaches. But some of the criticisms made by other reviewers don't seem valid to me: (1) Duke - I thought Feinstein bent over backwards NOT to show a Duke bias. But Duke finished first in the league that year, Duke has been one of the dominant programs in the game, plus Feinstein had some compelling stuff about Duke. Of course they took a prominent position in the book. (2) Dean - I thought Feinstein painted a great and fair portrait of Dean Smith. You get a real feel for the competitive old gentleman, who drinks scotch and beats the pants off you, but is the only ACC coach who doesn't swear ("My parents would never speak to me again."). Opinions of and reactions to Smith permeate the league (of course), so a lot of what other people say about Smith contains little jabs and digs. Feinstein reports on the long-running feuds between Smith and the other colorful coaches in the league, like Lefty Dreisell. But I think Feinstein's attitude is completely respectful. See the introduction, where a fan suggests the game may have passed Smith by, and Feinstein rattles off "Fourteen straight wins, another Final Four appearance..." etc. Feinstein doesn't get as CLOSE to Dean as he does to the other players, but that's not too surprising. (3) The "Les Robinson Game" - Feinstein reports that's what the league COACHES call it, not a nickname he made up. (4) Carolina-Duke - Well, this game is one of the centerpieces of the college basketball season, especially when it's played in Cameron. The league just announced its new TV schedule, and the headline was when the 2 Carolina-Duke games were and what national broadcasters are going to carry them. Of course Feinstein spends a chapter on it. No book on the ACC would be complete without... etc. So some of the criticisms don't make sense to me. But we all seem to agree this is an excellent book. If you have ANY interest in college basketball, this is one bok you have to read.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you don't love ACC basketball now..., November 26, 1999
you will after reading this book. I read the "Madness" in my first year of college at UVA- the year after it was published- and a love affair began. Whereas I used to not care less about basketball, this book signed over my life to the ACC. The soap opera-like stories, play-by-play excitement, and obvious love for the game captured me, and ever since I have been a virtual hermit during March. The biases are there, but that's part of the charm. In the ACC you love your team, but you love the game even more.
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