A Season on the Reservation: My Soujourn With the White Mountain Apaches (Hardcover)

by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Author), Stephen Singular (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Nearly a decade after leaving professional basketball, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar decided to return to the sport he loved by becoming the assistant coach of the Alchesay Falcons--a high school team composed mostly of White Mountain Apaches. But in A Season on the Reservation, he may have actually learned more than he taught.

An outsider at the beginning, Abdul-Jabbar found ways to learn more about his athletes and the tribe. He discovered cultural traditions that made it difficult to coach the team (discomfort at being singled out for criticism, for example) and became more sensitive to the special challenges faced by young Native Americans. As Abdul-Jabbar notes, by working with the students he moved from a historical appreciation for the White Mountain Apaches as a people to an understanding of them as individuals. That said, Abdul-Jabbar can't quite seem to shake his romantic image of the young Apaches: "Sometimes I would glance his way and imagine him sitting astride a paint pony two hundred years earlier, ready to ride off into the mountains and hunt."

Through his players, Abdul-Jabbar finds himself getting caught up in the competition--his passion for basketball obviously rekindled. Readers may find the end of the Falcons' season rather abrupt, but perhaps that's the nature of high school sports. They also may be a bit put off by Abdul-Jabbar's occasional arrogance, especially when talking about his professional days ("The 1985 Lakers would have taken [Jordan's Bulls] in a championship series.") or when dissing later NBA stars such as Shaq ("He's publicly referred to the way I used to play as 'old man's basketball,' which it may have been, but it earned me six more rings than he's got so far."). Overall, however, A Season on the Reservation is infused with an obvious love of the White Mountain Apaches, their land, and the sport of basketball. --Sunny Delaney

From Publishers Weekly
More contemplative than action-packed, this is the account of a season Kareem spent working with the Alchesay Falcons, a high school basketball team on the White Mountain Apache reservation in Whiteriver, Ariz. Guiding the young men to the state tournament, Kareem reflects upon his own life and on the state of the game, as well as upon present-day professional players and aspiring youth ("Athletes need to stay in school until they have graduated from college"). Throughout the account, he explains basketball moves, but his focus is on more abstract matters, like his philosophy of teaching. The games themselves are straightforwardly recounted but lack dramatic punch, mainly because the season ends with a loss. But drama for Kareem lies elsewhere--in his learning about the social, cultural and economic hardships faced by the boys, who live in one of the poorest counties in the nation, and in the boys learning to push beyond the comfort zone of their community. As he has demonstrated in his previous books (Giant Steps; Black Profiles in Courage), Kareem has a passion for history, which he shares when, as part of his effort to motivate the team, he relates elements of the Native American past and attempts to link it to African-American history. At the end of the season, Kareem leaves with a feeling of having found a second home. TV and radio satellite tours.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 209 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co (February 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688170773
• ISBN-13: 978-0688170776
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #766,852 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Story, December 28, 2004

By	Erika Mitchell (E. Calais, VT USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Season on the Reservation (Audio Cassette)

This book is a record of Abdul-Jabbar's first season as a basketball coach. When Abdul-Jabbar's mother died, he became quite distraught and didn't know what to do with himself. One of his friends at the White Mountain Apache reservation in Arizona invited him to come to the reservation to try out coaching by working with the high school basketball team on the reservation for a season. Abdul-Jabbar found the invitation attractive for a number of reasons, and decided to give it a go. Once on the reservation, he had to learn not only how to coach rather than play basketball, but he also found himself trying to lead teenagers who weren't always looking for his directions, all while operating in an unfamiliar culture.

After reading the first chapter of the book, I stopped to re-examine the title and cover page to find out who the ghost writer was. After all, most books by sports figures are "told to" rather than written, especially books whose prose flows as well as this one. I was surprised to find that this volume had no ghost writer listed at all. As I read further along in the book, the reason became clear-unlike many other sports figures, Abdul-Jabbar has a number of academic interests and writes quite well. In reading this book, one finds that Abdul-Jabbar is a thinker, a person who brings his analytical skills to problems and new situations. He tries hard to get kids to appreciate the mental aspects of playing basketball. He is quick to pick up on the cultural characteristics that make the Apache kids react differently than other kids in mainstream America. He is occasionally carried away with emotion at games, but afterwards analyzes his inappropriate actions and chalks them up to lessons learned about coaching. Abdul-Jabbar explains how he happened to make a connection with the reservation, describes the kids on the team and the other coaches, and recounts hoop-by-hoop stories of several key games. In a few places, the tale bogs down a little in detail, but overall, it's well written and very enjoyable to read.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, thoughtful book, August 4, 2000

By	J. Ball (LA, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Kareem tries to impart the difficulties of introducing a western cultural ideal to a group of young men that are trying to keep their own cultural ideals intact while at the same time competing within the majority culture. This book reflects Kareem's own difficulties in aculturation, and his conflicts in trying to impart his basketball culture on another group. This is a thoughtful though imperfect work, less about basketball than about the difficulties of blending different people in the world today.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Honest Look at the Man and his Passions, February 5, 2002

By	Jeff Foley "www.JeffFoley.com" (Mechanicville, New York United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The honesty with which Kareem Abdul-Jabar's "A Season On The Reservation" is written is quite refreshing. In this age of spin control, especially when it comes to athletes and other public figures, it's nice to see a high-profile individual such as Mr. Abdul-Jabar share his insights and interactions with no noticeable smoke or mirrors. He begins his journey to an Apache reservation with hopes of uncovering some history (Mr. Abdul-Jabar has a fascination with Native-American history) and of sharing his wealth of basketball knowledge with the resident high school basketball squad. There are many bumps in the road, though, and "A Season On The Reservation" speaks eloquently about the cultural differences Mr. Abdul-Jabar encounters when dealing with the Native-American basketball players. They are not comfortable being singled out for criticism and they are not necesarily open to learning techniques that may make them better players. Over the course of the book, however, they learn from Mr. Abdul-Jabar and he, in turn, learns from them. One scene in particular, a confrontation with a player named Tony, is amazingly honest. "A Season On The Reservation" paints Mr. Abul-Jabar as a fellow human being, not a sculpture standing on a pedestal. The history lessons in the book, often drawing a parallel between Native Americans and African Americans, get a bit cumbersome occassionally, but "A Season On The Reservation" is well worth the cover price thank to its honest approach.