Customer Reviews

The Men of March: A Season Inside the Lives of College Basketball Coaches

5 star:		(7)
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3 star:		(2)
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A must for any college basketball junkie. Some of the stories were simply incredible and I felt like a "fly on the wall." I loved the feeling of being right there in the locker room and getting inside the coaches' heads. I highly recommend this book!

This book was awesome. Once I picked it up I could not stop reading it. I even broke up with my girlfriend so that I could have time to finish it. We see the games on TV but this book goes where the cameras stop. These young, slick coaches know how to get the most out of their players. Now when I see coaches like Lavin and Self on TV I know what they might say at halftime or what they are thinking during the game. As a high school prospect myself, this books tells me all the things they don't send you in recruit letters, but should. I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in College basketball. Bravo Mr. Curtis, thanks a lot!!!!!!!

This was a really terrific read. The anecdotes about players, coaches, recruiters, officials, and sports reporters are all interesting and some really funny. It's a pretty big book but it reads very fast. The politics of college basketball, from race conflicts, to academics, to the often nasty seduction of recruits, opened my eyes in a big way to these issues that usually get only brief treatment from the media. The coaches that the author followed are pretty stunning characters. I had no idea of the extent of their day-to-day obligations, or their perks. I strongly recommend this book for anybody with even a causual interest in sports. What'll stick with me most for a long time are incredible individual and group moments of pain, and victory, and laugh-out-loud humor. Definitely a good book.

This is a great book if you like hoops. I cannot believe that Curtis got all of the inside access at the four schools. The book is well-written and makes fascinating reading. Now, I have a much better understanding of what coaches go through. Highly recommend to any fan.

As I saw in other reviews, the book doesn't always flow within chapters and there are some grammatical errors. However, if you have ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of big-time college basketball programs, this book is a must. The following of each team through their season took a back seat for me. What stood out was how coaches had to stay on top of their game, their players, their team, and their program on a daily basis. After reading this book you will have a much better understanding, and respect, for what coaches go through from year to year. You really get the sense that you are there, in the locker room, and you feel like the coaches are your next door neighbors. I definitely recommend this book to coaches, hoops fans, and sports fans in general.

I must be getting old...all the guys who were playing basketball when I was in college are now coaches! I was a college classmate of one of the coaches profiled in this book, so from that perspective I found it interesting, but not terribly well-written. This is really two books in one. First, Curtis profiles the "inside stories" of the coaches and teams at Iowa, Illinois, Notre Dame, and UCLA. But then, he drops in all sorts of little essays on the state of the college game today: how recruiting works, how coaches really make all their money, how influential Dick Vitale is, how the coaches network among themselves to recommend each other for jobs. Each of these could have been a decent book; both together is just a little too much. There also were a number of spelling errors and a few factual errors.

Some very interesting material told in mundane & uninspiring fashion. Either he had his facts wrong or there was sloppy editting on some occasions. Some of the sidebar explanations of refereeing and recruiting covered ground that has been covered by a variety of authors in much better fashion. We learned about the four coaches, but there was never a real emotional attachment for the most part. College hoops junkies will like it, but as another reviewer mentioned, I would definitely recommend John Feinstein's a "Season Inside", "A March to Madness" and "The Last Amateurs". Perhaps the first for insight into Alford, but I would recommend the last two the most . Especially in "The Last Amateurs" I believe that a reader will gain much more emotional attachment to the players & coaches.

If this book caused a reader to break up with a girlfriend... the girlfriend may be better off!

Few books have grabbed my attention like "The Men of March." I really felt like I was at practice, in the hotels, on the airplanes, in the coaches meetings, and on the bench during the games. As a college hoops junkie, I have a better understanding of what the entire "job" is all about. You can't afford not to read this book and still call yourself a basketball fan!

This is a great read, even for the not so avid basketball fan...the stories behind the story, the humanization of these high-powered coaches makes for fascinating reading...you need not have an in-depth knowledge of the game...Curtis relays many situations in which the coaches find themselves...It's unbelieveable how he had access to all this information and the insights one gets from this book is just amazing...After reading Curtis" book, I have a greater appreciation for the people connected to the game.