Shooting Stars [Hardcover]

LeBron James (Author), Buzz Bissinger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2009

From the ultimate team—basketball superstar LeBron James and Buzz Bissinger, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August—a poignant, thrilling tale of the power of teamwork to transform young lives, including James’s own

The Shooting Stars were a bunch of kids—LeBron James and his best friends—from Akron, Ohio, who first met on a youth basketball team of the same name when they were ten and eleven years old. United by their love of the game and their yearning for companionship, they quickly forged a bond that would carry them through thick and thin (a lot of thin) and, at last, to a national championship in their senior year of high school.

They were a motley group who faced challenges all too typical of inner-city America. LeBron grew up without a father and had moved with his mother more than a dozen times by the age of ten. Willie McGee, the quiet one, had left both his parents behind in Chicago to be raised by his older brother in Akron. Dru Joyce was outspoken, and his dad was ever present; he would end up coaching all five of the boys in high school. Sian Cotton, who also played football, was the happy-go-lucky enforcer, while Romeo Travis was unhappy, bitter, even surly, until he finally opened himself up to the bond his teammates offered him.

In the summer after seventh grade, the Shooting Stars tasted glory when they qualified for a national championship tournament in Memphis. But they lost their focus and had to go home early. They promised one another they would stay together and do whatever it took to win a national title.

They had no idea how hard it would be to fulfill that promise. In the years that followed, they would endure jealousy, hostility, exploitation, resentment from the black community (because they went to a “white” high school), and the consequences of their own overconfidence. Not least, they would all have to wrestle with LeBron’s outsize success, which brought too much attention and even a whiff of scandal their way. But together these five boys became men, and together they claimed the prize they had fought for all those years—a national championship.

Shooting Stars is a stirring depiction of the challenges that face America’s youth today and a gorgeous evocation of the transcendent impact of teamwork.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

James, the highest-paid athlete (including endorsement deals) in the NBA, turns to Bissinger (Friday Night Lights) to tell the story of his meteoric rise as a high school basketball player, when he and his teammates took a private school in Ohio to state and national championships. Looking back at the media circus that put him on the cover of Sports Illustrated at 17, James accuses the media of overexposing him for their own benefit. It feels like the young superstar is working out some grudges against the athletic officials who challenged his amateur status after he accepted two jerseys from a sporting goods store as a gift, along with his school for failing to take his side in the controversy, but Bissinger smoothes out the rough edges, letting very little anger show. That polish is the as-told-to memoir's biggest problem—despite stylistic flourishes like shifting to present tense to write about James's big games, his passion seems muted. James hits all the right moments, from the childhood promise he made to himself to put Akron on the map to the graduation day photo with his teammates, but it's a story readers hear rather than feel. (Sept.)
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Review

"When I first saw LeBron James play as a professional, it was his selflessness that dazzled me the most. After reading Shooting Stars, I now understand why. It is a book of five boys coming together to learn the true meaning of teamwork and togetherness, loyalty and love, through highs and lows and thick and thin. It is a book filled with excitement and unforgettable characters. It is a book that will incredibly move and inspire you." --Jay-Z

"Our sense of modern athletes is often limited to what highlight reels and marketing campaigns reveal or obscure. Shooting Stars is the compelling and often poignant story of a remarkable group of young men only one of whom happens to be a future NBA superstar. In the end we care about them all, even as we come away with a truer understanding and appreciation of the circumstances and relationships that forged one of the most significant sports figures of our time." --Bob Costas, HBO and NBC sports commentator

"A heartwarming story of boys who became men, teammates who became brothers, players who became champions, wonderfully told through the maturing eyes of basketball's greatest star." --John Grisham

"In the Olympics, LeBron was a star, a leader, and the ultimate teammate. He helped our team become a family. Reading Shooting Stars taught me how he became that kind of a teammate, developing the selflessness and loyalty that define who he is. What an amazing story." --Mike Krzyzewski, Duke University men's basketball coach, gold-medal-winning coach of the U.S. men's basketball team, 2008 Olympics

"Reading about LeBron James' transition from boyhood to manhood was a thrill for me. Shooting Stars is a remarkable and riveting story, filled with lessons of life we can all learn from." --Warren Buffett

"The clock ticks, the suspense tightens, the scrappy kids from hard-luck Akron leave you hanging on every shot. But the wonder of Shooting Stars is that it's hardly about basketball. Instead it is a nuanced coming-of-age drama about American culture and race, about organized sports as redeemer and exploiter, and about the blessing and curse of celebrity. At this book's heart, though, is an uncommon bond forged in youthful innocence and desire, a friendship at least as meaningful as anything LeBron James will ever add to his trophy case." --Steve Lopez, author of The Soloist

"Told in a voice that is streetwise yet gentle, Shooting Stars shows how inner determination trumps bad breaks and how a winning combination of coaches, mentors, and friends turns lucky breaks into a way of life. If a book can have game, this one does." --Madeleine Blaise, author of In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (September 8, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159420232X
• ISBN-13: 978-1594202322
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #511,981 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I blew through this book and you will too, August 1, 2009

By 

Seth R (MA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shooting Stars (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

There are several books out there about LeBron James, but I find the best way to get a grasp on someone is to hear what they have to say. Shooting Stars is the book you want if you're looking to see what the NBA phenom experienced firsthand, and it's his first book as an author (Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights, is on board as well). Admittedly I've grown tired of seeing LeBron's name and face everywhere (it's hard to avoid incessant marketing), but as a basketball fan I respect him as a professional. With that said, let me tell you this is an easy, breezy read. He describes his childhood, his school days, and his basketball life before reaching the NBA. There isn't any fluff - just what happened and how he got through high school. I blew through this book and you will too, especially with any basketball interest.

LeBron James didn't have a spectacular childhood. He and his mother Gloria moved around and didn't have much money. They lived in the projects until he graduated high school. But in junior high he became very tight with three friends, and little did he know this would propel him to legendary status. They dubbed themselves The Fab Four playing basketball together for years, collectively deciding to enroll at St. Vincent-St. Mary High despite their racial minority there. After their freshman year they accepted a transfer student as one of their own and soon enough became The Fab Five.

Amazingly, yet not completely surprising, St. V won back-to-back Ohio state championships the first two years with LeBron and company. Two years later they won another state championship, and were national champs to boot. The way LeBron describes his lifestyle and the games is humbling and he speaks more about his teammates than himself even. He isn't arrogant about how good he was and the game notes seemed rather restrained - he truly was a beast on the court if you've never seen high school footage. He was a man among boys running opponents out of the gym, but in the book credits more to his team than his own successes.

LeBron was on the cover of Sports Illustrated his junior year and publicity was soaring. But with all the hype and hoopla came troubles. He and his teammates admitted to smoking marijuana, Gloria battled with loan dilemmas after buying her son a Hummer, and LeBron was even suspended for accepting gifts. Even though it was a celebrity life, he dealt with everything as best as a teenager could.

Shooting Stars depicts the rise of one of the best ever and I feel I understand LeBron James better knowing where he comes from.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars LeBron is a Star, but Book Marks Bottom for Bissinger, September 12, 2009

By 

J. A. Walsh (Boston, MA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shooting Stars (Hardcover)

The temptation is irresistible. Buzz Bissinger, justly granted lifetime VIP access to the high-brow sports writing club (along with Halberstam, Feinstein, Asinof, Kahn, Plimpton, Remnick, and Lewis), returns to the trope he exploited so well in Friday Night Lights: lifetime bonds forged in high school athletic glory. Like FNL, Shooting Stars is about the purity and camaraderie of amateur sports at a time when -- in spite of the swirling promise of money, popularity, glory -- athletes are still in it for all the right reasons when they step between the lines.

Sadly, while Bissinger turned a telescope on small Permian High's football glories in his seminal HS football tome, here, he instead is amplifying a trite, pre-packaged PR schpiel for one of the planet's most famous -- and most managed -- pro athletes.

FNL was all heart. It was authentic, it was a great story and whatever resonance it had came about organically in both the story itself and in Bissinger's obvious enthusiasm to tell it for its own sake. With THREE NIGHTS IN AUGUST, Bissinger's painfully pre-packaged baseball biography of Tony LaRussa told through the device of a three-game series, the author began a descent from artistry informed by marketability to an inversion. SHOOTING STARS completes the fall -- this book is a press release.

Without a doubt, James' story is compelling in many ways. His high school fame is a well-known but still fertile field, and here his people tried to draw some attention to a less-widely known angle of the story: the four friends who followed (and - surprisingly - often drove James) through those high school years. But, Bissinger's treatment is shameless. One can almost see the outline he worked from as plot points are laid out and linked too overtly to thematic goals (i.e., freshman year title game, the small and overlooked member of the quintet comes through in a big way: be sure to emphasize LeBron's willingness to step back and his real joy at seeing his friend win the glory).

It is telling that Bissinger was remarkably unseen on the book's PR launch this week. On NPR, rather than have Bissinger and James discuss the book together, LeBron carried the water himself. In a lot of ways, I can see the value of that approach, but with James deploying malapropisms like "calm and collective," the interview can't have done much to sell the book to even the most curious NPRer. They could have used Bissinger to close the deal. My sense though is that -- much like the book -- his heart might not have been in it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Average at best, September 22, 2009

By 

C. Cahoon (Cleveland) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Shooting Stars (Hardcover)

I am a huge Cavs fan and love LeBron. I attended his high school games at St. V's, so I knew about the players and coaches. The book is an easy read but doesn't really capture the reader. The stories become very repetitive with too much detail focused on the games they played. Some games were completely documented, such as "I hit a 3, St V up 15-10. Dru hits a shot, St V up 17-10." If you are a fan of LeBron then you almost feel obligated to read the book. However I wouldn't recommend the book to non fans. Hopefully the movie is better.