God on the Starting Line: The Triumph of a Catholic School Running Team and Its Jewish Coach

by Marc Bloom

“It captures the deeper joy of watching young athletes embrace unfashionable ideals of commitment, sacrifice, courage, and faith.”— Sports Illustrated “Marc Bloom coaches as every coach in the sport should. I recommend this book without reservation. Read it, commit it to memory, and you will be better for it.”— American Track & Field “At its core a spiritual book. It will inspire the reader who values small works of goodness and the courage to face big challenges.”— Jewish Book World “More than a story of different religions, Jewish and Catholic, meeting on the cross-country course. There is an even more eternal old versus new. Bloom preaches the value of pain, hard work, suffering, and delayed gratification. His cross-country kids are, well, kids. They want to have fun, chase girls, and enjoy the loosey-goosey life. In Bloom’s inspiring tale, both coach and kids learn surprising lessons from each other.”—Amby Burfoot, executive editor of Runner’s World Marc Bloom, an observant Jew, winds up the coach of a local Catholic high school cross-country team. The common ground he finds between the two faiths helps to propel his team to a state championship. Marc Bloom , an award-winning journalist, is a features writer for The New York Times and a contributing editor of Runner’s World .

Genres: Sports, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable, often inspiring, book. Memoir of his first state champion team as a high school cross-country coach in New Jersey. The religious angle was never all that persuasive to me -- aside from some logistics (team events occur on Jewish holidays, and he has to get someone to cover for him, e.g.), the differences between Bloom and his athletes in religious background seem much less relevant than their differences in age, role, and seriousness about running [at least at first -- by the end of the year he has most of them very highly motivated].

Lots of detailed description of workouts, courses, and especially meets. I'm not sure how much non-runners would enjoy it. But there is a also some great stuff on high school boys, nature of teams, the frustrations and uplifts involved in coaching or teaching kids, etc. that may be more universal.

He walks right up to the edge of the pretentious philosophical type of writing about running -- this kid's facial expression in the homestretch reminds me of what Aquinas wrote about........this kid's hip injury serves as an indictment of our soft approach to raising children........but mostly stops short.

One aspect I never understood is why so few kids joined his team (bare minimum 7, and it sounds like it stayed that way the next year too). He sounds like a great coach. He blames it on things like losing athletes to soccer, but that would apply to the other schools also, and most of them had bigger teams.

Anyway, quibbles aside, this was a great pleasure to read for an HS cross-country Dad.

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's called EDITing! If Bloom forgets a passage in the beginning or middle of the story he simply inserts it wherever in the text he was writing at the time when he remembered. Like, oops- I forgot to tell you that before this happened, this happened, and then that happened, and before that happened this happened. I could see how this could be a problem if you were writing a television series but Word has this nice tool called 'Copy' and 'Paste', use them, please.

[Chris Bumgardner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marc Bloom...gets it. He's the OG of track and field journalism. This book covers his short stint coaching the '00 St. Rose high-school XC team. He is tasked with transforming a reluctant, lazy squad of freshmen into a winning cross-country team. Planning tough workouts isn't good enough; these boys don't even want to show up for practice.
He realizes he has to start small.
Learn each person individually.
Recognize where they are coming from: broken homes, peer pressure, the immediate gratification other sports provide, etc.
Only then can he start to stoke the fire, helping them discover the euphoric reward of team cohesion. It's a rocky road, but the magic slowly happens, and the boys set their eyes on the State title.
You'll have to read it to find out how far they get 😊 A wonderful story about trust and self discovery.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn't very much about religion. Rather, it was the story of a high school cross country team that, over the course of a season, strengthened as athletes, matured as people, grew to be a family, and generally exhibited awesome qualities as human beings in spite of their shortcomings and foibles. Sounds kinda cheesy. It was, I suppose... but you should read this book anyway! It was utterly refreshing for its honesty. It was written completely from the heart. It's written by the coach, and it's from his perspective--it's like a personal journal/narrative of the season. What else can I say? Coach Bloom's words ring true. He tries hard to do the right thing, to nurture the boys on the team; he has trouble balancing his own life sometimes, and he acknowledges his human flaws.

Quick and easy read, but MAN do I feel inspired to push myself harder in my running :-)

[Lesley Looper · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a pretty quick read, and made me wish I'd run cross country in high school! I enjoyed reading about the journey the coach and runners took over a couple of years, and how the different personalities and skill levels worked together to have a successful season.

[Andie]

I really enjoyed this book. It was very interesting to see the progression of the boys' team as they went through the season. It kept me very interested, and the end of the book was very exciting and happy. I strongly suggest this book to any runners.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed it, but if you're not a runner or do not work with youth you probably don't need it.

[Christine]

This was an excellent intro to the sport of highschool XC.