A point guard for life Few high school basketball coaches have won as often, and as passionately, as Jack O’Brien. A legend in the prep ranks of Massachusetts, O’Brien led two different high schools to state championships.
The wins mattered to O’Brien, but they were never as important to him as the ultimate goal – taking kids from the inner city and giving them a chance to continue their education in college. O’Brien saw basketball as a way to make a difference in his players’ lives; and often, it was his tough love that saved a kid from the streets.
After meeting the coach, author Neil Swidey was so fascinated by O’Brien that he spent three years following his title-winning Charlestown program. Swidey is there for it all – the wins, losses, academic successes and failures, college trips, strained family relationships, teenage fatherhood, and courtroom trials. It all comes together in an interesting book known as “The Assist.”
Swidey chronicles O’Brien and the relationships he has with his current and former players. While the coach seems to be a special man who has devoted his personal and professional life to helping at-risk youth find a reason to succeed, there are surprising and gut-wrenching twists to the story that will leave you wondering if things couldn’t have worked out differently for the Charlestown family.
Familiar names, unfamiliar story
Sally Jenkins’ “The Real All Americans” traces the swift development of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School into a football powerhouse that defeated several storied programs en route to a symbolic 1912 showdown against a hard-nosed Army squad that featured Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Carlisle’s beginnings were rooted in post-Civil War America’s bull-headed determination to expand westward in spite of the American Indians who occupied the land and in the convictions of Carlisle founder, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Richard Henry Pratt, who believed Native Americans deserved a place in society. At the behest of the students, football was introduced three years after the school opened its doors. Employing a unique, fast-paced style featuring innovations like the forward pass, reverses and trick plays, the Indians went on to stunning success even in the face of daunting odds and bald prejudice.
With legendary characters like Glenn S. “Pop” Warner, who coached at Carlisle for 12 years over two tenures, and Jim Thorpe, who later helped launch the NFL by starring with the Canton Bulldogs, figuring prominently in Carlisle’s hard-won achievements, some of the names sprinkled throughout “The Real All Americans” may sound more familiar to readers than the powerfully inspiring tale of the Carlisle football team.
Perhaps the unfamiliarity is excusable. After all, the school established in 1879 operated for just 40 years. At the time, organized football was still finding its footing and the association that would eventually help it do so – the NCAA – came into existence nearly three decades after Carlisle opened.
“The Real All Americans,” however, does a fine job of restoring the glamour and glory to Carlisle’s improbable rise to and fall from gridiron supremacy, and perhaps more importantly, ensures the program is properly credited for its influence on the evolution of the sport.