Play Their Hearts Out

Starred review from July 26, 2010
Dohrmann, a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter for Sports Illustrated, spent eight years chronicling the struggles and triumphs of a select group of California youths who chased their dream in his wonderful and immaculately reported first book. Dohrmann largely focuses his work on Demetrius Walker, the hoops phenom who seems destined for stardom at a young age, his travel team from California, and the club's complex and bombastic coach, Joe Keller. Dohrmann began reporting on the book back in 2000, when Walker and many of his teammates were only 10 years old, and followed them through to their high school graduation. Along the way, he shows the brutal nature of "grassroots" basketball, in which coaches can view their players as "investments," the power of sneaker companies in youth basketball, and the cutthroat antics of collegiate recruiting. But this is equally a story about relationships and the sad deterioration of many of them, whether it be among teammates, parents and son, or coach and player. It's a brilliant and heart-wrenching journey, and a cautionary tale to any basketball player who thinks the path to the NBA is a slam dunk.

Starred review from September 1, 2010

What Alexander Wolff and Armen Keteyian (Raw Recruits) and Dan Wetzel and Don Yaeger (Sole Influence) did for college basketball recruiting, Pulitzer Prize-winning sportswriter Dohrmann does for grassroots basketball in this memorable book. Dohrmann follows California phenom Demetrius Walker through the cycle of Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) summer league hoops, from playing for ambitious hustler and coach Joe Keller to the face of grassroots basketball, longtime coach Pat Barrett. In a constant search for the next Lebron, just as before for the next Michael Jordan, AAU coaches, with support and financing from shoe giants Nike and Adidas, woo youngsters to their summer league basketball teams with gear, shoes, and promises of a college scholarship. This book has long roots: Dohrmann began his study when Walker was ten (he has since spent his freshman year at Arizona State but appears to be moving to another college); his insights into the seamy side of youth basketball are investigative journalism at its best. An easy VERDICT: this is one of the best sports books of recent years. Highly recommended.--Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., AL

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 15, 2010

In his debut, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist embeds himself in the sleazy underbelly of grassroots basketball.

Though Sports Illustrated senior writer Dohrmann is not the first to expose the seedy side of elite youth basketball leagues—a world in which middle schoolers are exploited by shoe companies and avaricious men intent on building fortunes without regard for the welfare of their charges—he is the most ambitious. Rather than profiling a single player, the author developed a relationship with an inexperienced, underqualified, but desperately determined young coach named Joe Keller and spent eight years chronicling his players' struggles during their coach's improbable rise from no-name youth coach to multimillionaire power broker. Before Keller, companies like Nike and Adidas fought over the most promising high-school prospects in the hopes of signing the next Kobe Bryant or LeBron James. Keller, however, set his sights on a previously taboo pool of players: still-developing nine- and ten-year olds. Despite his ambiguous morals, the coach displayed an impressive eye for talent, recruiting a team of young phenoms led by Demetrius Walker, who was soon ranked as the top player in his age group. Keller's ascent within the grassroots community contrasts sharply with Walker's struggles to live up to the hype generated by his power-hungry coach. Dohrmann's account of Walker's rise, fall and resurrection is more than a simple indictment of the grassroots system; it's a warning shot across the bow of the basketball community to end the exploitation of good kids from difficult backgrounds whose opportunity to use their athletic gifts to forge a better life is stolen by morally bankrupt companies and shady middlemen. On the surface, it's an easy story—unscrupulous white men making money off the sweat of undereducated urban youth—but in the author's skilled hands, a potentially trite morality play becomes a powerful, nuanced chronicle populated with struggling parents, coaches both villainous and virtuous, and confused kids whose innocence is too readily exchanged for a long shot at glory before they understand the price.

A landmark achievement in basketball journalism.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 15, 2010
Basketball fans frequently hear references to AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) summer leagues, in which young players have a chance to hone their games. The AAU leagues are often criticized for exploiting young kids, but most of these charges have been based on rumor or hearsay. Until now. Dohrmann, the last sportswriter to win a Pulitzer Prize, spent approximately nine years researching this book; the story begins in 2000, when he convinced AAU coach Joe Keller to give him unfettered access to his team, the Inland Stars. The only condition was that the book wouldnt be published until the playersthen 9 and 10 years oldwere in college. Keller is a fascinating subject, a mix of positive characteristicshe is a genuinely caring father figure for many of his playersand profoundly negative. In Dohrmanns portrayal, Keller emerges as a shameless promoter of himself and his players, a poor coach, and a man for whom ethics are always relative. Money, of course, is key; surprisingly, there are lots of ways for coaches to profit in the underground basketball world, mainly from shoe companies (the real villains in this story) in the form of cash as well as products, prestige, and influence. In fact, as Dohrmann shows, everyone makes money in this amateur enterprise except the kids. An eye-opening look at the underbelly of modern American sports.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)