Pounding the Rock: Basketball Dreams and Real Life in a Bronx High School

Description

An example of the very highest calibre of sportswriting from the publisher of Friday Night Lights Welcome to Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School, in a working-class corner of the Bronx, where a driven coach inspires his teams to win games and championships. Head coach Marc Skelton tells the thrilling story of an entire season, as the Panthers seek to improve on an early exit from the playoffs the year before. But this is a story which extends far beyond the basketball court. It's a profile of a school that, against the odds, educates kids from the poorest district in the country and sends the majority of them to college; of an unusual coach who studies the game with acute intensity and demands as much of himself as he does of his players. At the very centre is a squad of young men who battle against difficulties in life every day, and who don't know how to quit. Pounding the Rock is exhilarating, heart-pounding sportswriting of the very highest calibre.

Marc Skelton is a former all-state basketball guard from Derry, New Hampshire. He graduated from Northeastern University, served two years in the Peace Corps in Moldova, and holds a master's degree in education and Russian studies from Columbia University. He teaches history at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in the Bronx and has coached the boys' basketball team there since 2007, winning two citywide championships and one statewide championship.