Coach

"Perfect...refreshing...makes a true connection with the reader...Sweet and often funny vulnerability, revealing the part of the writer that is willing to be coached...The collection has perfect 'pitch.' Writers pay tribute to coaches in the purest sense, showing their lasting influences." —USA Today

"A superlative book...The stories in this anthology are, by turns, funny, wise, poignant, and always inspirational...Coach features an all-star roster of writers who take great joy in writing about the coaches who shaped their lives...This is a book you will cherish." —ESPN

This intriguing collection of essays will remind anyone who's ever been coached that it can be a powerful experience. Coaches come in all sorts of flavors. The gruff and the kind appear here, as do the wise and the foolish, the encouraging and the destructive, and some in whom lots of these qualities and inclinations are curiously mixed. What the coaches share, at least for remarkable collection of writers chronicling the coaching dodge, is that they are unforgettable." —Bill Littlefield, Host of National Public Radio's "Only a Game"

"This vivid, eloquent exploration of the connections between kids and their coaches is a memoir gym, a series of stories ranging from inspiration life-changing coaches to sadistic life-changing coaches. These stories speak to any parent whose child is being coached and to anyone who has ever been benched, been yelled into excellence or been told to drop and do another fifty. Funny, sad, and inspirational." —Susan Cheever, Prize-winning author of Home Before Dark

Coaches - after parents, offspring, siblings, religious leaders, teachers, and rulers - are the most important being on earth. Good ones can change your world. Bad ones, too. From E.M. Swift's crusty, old Frank Ward to Christine Brennan's protective Miss O. - the whistle-tooters in 'Coach' prove the point again and again: coaches REALLY matter." —Rick Telander, author of Heaven Is a Playground