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Earl The Pearl: My Story
Earl “The Pearl” Monroe is a basketball legend whose impact on the game transcends statistics, a player known as much for his unorthodox, “playground” style of play as his championship pedigree. Observers said that watching him play was like listening to jazz, his moves resembling freefloating improvisations. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with the ball,” Monroe once admitted, “and if I don’t know, I’m quite sure the guy guarding me doesn’t know either.”
Traded to the New York Knicks before the 1971–72 season, Monroe became a key member of the beloved, star-studded 1972–73 Knicks team that captured the NBA title. And now, on the 40th anniversary of that championship season—the franchise’s last—Monroe is finally ready to tell his remarkable story.
Written with bestselling author Quincy Troupe (Miles, The Pursuit of Happyness) Earl the Pearl will retrace Monroe’s life from his upbringing in a tough South Philadelphia neighborhood through his record-setting days at Winston-Salem State, to his NBA Rookie of the Year season in 1967, his tremendous years with the Baltimore Bullets and ultimately his redemptive, championship glory with the New York Knicks. The book will culminate with a revealing epilogue in which Monroe reflects on the events of the past 40 years, offers his insights into the NBA today, and his thoughts on the future of the game he loves.
Traded to the New York Knicks before the 1971–72 season, Monroe became a key member of the beloved, star-studded 1972–73 Knicks team that captured the NBA title. And now, on the 40th anniversary of that championship season—the franchise’s last—Monroe is finally ready to tell his remarkable story.
Written with bestselling author Quincy Troupe (Miles, The Pursuit of Happyness) Earl the Pearl will retrace Monroe’s life from his upbringing in a tough South Philadelphia neighborhood through his record-setting days at Winston-Salem State, to his NBA Rookie of the Year season in 1967, his tremendous years with the Baltimore Bullets and ultimately his redemptive, championship glory with the New York Knicks. The book will culminate with a revealing epilogue in which Monroe reflects on the events of the past 40 years, offers his insights into the NBA today, and his thoughts on the future of the game he loves.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published April 2, 2013
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354 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 12, 2013
Review I did for my blog:
I recently finished the autobiography of Earl ‘The Pearl’ Monroe. Overall, the book was very well done. He told both the story of his life on and off the court in entertaining detail. From growing up in Philadelphia, to going to school in a sometimes unforgiving South, his days in Baltimore and glory in The Big Apple, Monroe weaves a very interesting tale of his life.
The one overall negative is that he ends the narrative after he wins the 1973 NBA title with the New York Knicks. Certainly the championship was his goal as a professional athlete. However, he then glosses over the subsequent years. And then, he commits the ultimate sin in sports autobiography: he begins to rate and compare players. Both from his era and the current game. He also goes on to suggest which players from today could play in his day. I’m sorry, but in basketball, it’s the other way around. Players adjust to the rules changes. Let me know which player from the 1960′s would cover Kevin Durant or Dirk Nowitski with consistent success. The match up issues created by the size and athleticism of today’s players would be difficult to overcome for players that were just getting used to a no-look pass.
Overall, the first three-quarters of the book are a must read for fans of basketball and the NBA. Feel free to skip the epilogue.
Sammies Review – 4 out of 5 Spin Moves
http://hexlubinger.com/sspt/2013/06/1...
I recently finished the autobiography of Earl ‘The Pearl’ Monroe. Overall, the book was very well done. He told both the story of his life on and off the court in entertaining detail. From growing up in Philadelphia, to going to school in a sometimes unforgiving South, his days in Baltimore and glory in The Big Apple, Monroe weaves a very interesting tale of his life.
The one overall negative is that he ends the narrative after he wins the 1973 NBA title with the New York Knicks. Certainly the championship was his goal as a professional athlete. However, he then glosses over the subsequent years. And then, he commits the ultimate sin in sports autobiography: he begins to rate and compare players. Both from his era and the current game. He also goes on to suggest which players from today could play in his day. I’m sorry, but in basketball, it’s the other way around. Players adjust to the rules changes. Let me know which player from the 1960′s would cover Kevin Durant or Dirk Nowitski with consistent success. The match up issues created by the size and athleticism of today’s players would be difficult to overcome for players that were just getting used to a no-look pass.
Overall, the first three-quarters of the book are a must read for fans of basketball and the NBA. Feel free to skip the epilogue.
Sammies Review – 4 out of 5 Spin Moves
http://hexlubinger.com/sspt/2013/06/1...
February 27, 2020
“Earl the Pearl” is a book about a man named Earl Monroe. Earl grew up in a rough neighborhood in south Philadelphia, when he was young he was not passionate about basketball and played soccer instead, but as he got older basketball became his life and passion. He would practice everyday with his friends or on the streets and eventually got a chance to play on his high school team, in that team he started out slow but eventually became the best on his team. He was so impressive in fact that he was being scouted by college recruiters and ended up playing for Winston-Salem State but this was a big change as he had never been away from his family until then but with the help of his friends he again succeeded and got drafted into the nba as a top 10 pick to the Washington bullets. When he was in Washington he made a name for himself winning rookie of the year and becoming an all nba player, this great play led him to gain the nickname of Earl the Pearl for his street ball like play on the court. Unfortunately earl suffers a series of knee injuries while in his prime which led him to be out for a season and never was the same player again, however he still pushed through the pain and joined the Knicks in the early 70s and played a key role in helping them win their first ever championship in 1973. After his career he made Long lasting friendships, got married and now has children. This book is a great book for anyone who loves basketball and biographies which led me to give this book a 5 star reading as I always was wanting to learn more about Earl’s amazing career from his point of view.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 8, 2018
If this were a review of Earl Monroe, I'd give it 5 stars and complain that I couldn't give it more. But, as a book, it's not quite as good as Earl Monroe. Monroe was a great basketball player, and most of the book focuses on how he became the player he was. When he talks about many of the other aspects of his life (with the exception of his relationship with his mother), he doesn't give us the same level of reflection.
Earl Monroe was a hero to me when I was growing up. We all learned that the key to good basketball was mastering the fundamentals -- pass the ball to work for open shots, set screens, square up to the basket for your shot . . . . But this was the 60s, and everybody wanted more than that. We wanted creativity and personality.
Monroe was definitely more than fundamentals. He was, for a time at least, the most entertaining, must-watch player in the NBA. But he was also fundamentally sound. Despite his reputation for incredible creativity on the court, from the beginning he combined fundamentals with his creativity on the playground. He tells here how in high school his coach at Bartram High School in Philadelphia taught a disciplined style of play, with an emphasis on skills and teamwork. At the same time, out on the playground, Monroe was developing his repertoire of one-on-one moves, fakes, and spinning shots off the backboard that would later be trademarks. He says that he "compartmentalized", playing and thinking one way on the high school court, and another on the playground. When, beginning at Winston-Salem under Coach "Big House" Gaines, he was first encouraged to let loose, he was able to combine the two, to translate the playground game onto the more structured courts of college and then pro basketball.
That ability to combine fundamentals and creativity would later, in maybe the biggest challenge of his basketball life, allow him to go from the "Earl the Pearl" centered, run and gun, one on one style of the Baltimore Bullets to the much more structured and slower screen, pass, and shoot style of the New York Knicks. Monroe tells that story here, and he is honest in saying that even he didn't think it was going to work at first, that the very idea of going to the Knicks and joining their already successful style and lineup seemed like a non-starter (not to mention that the Knicks had become the bitter rival, the "enemy" of his Baltimore Bullets).
Monroe does also tell about his personal life here. The most poignant theme is his love for his mother. He says his greatest regret is that the day he finally won an NBA Championship with the Knicks, he couldn't call his mother and hear her happiness and pride. He tells about growing up in one of the roughest parts of Philadelphia, and how protective and supportive his mother was throughout his life.
He also tells unabashedly about his history of relationships, fathering 3 children by different women before, as he says, he "vowed I would be more careful in the future." He even, at one time, got a woman named Gloria pregnant, while also seeing another woman named Gloria, getting so confused that he mistook one for the other and refused phone calls from the woman who bore his son. Just to top off the story, neither of the Glorias was his main girlfriend at the time -- that was a woman named Cookie, with whom Monroe had a long, obviously loosely constrained relationship.
And Monroe tells the story of growing up and becoming famous as a black man in the 60s and early 70s. There's no way not to tell that story -- his time in basketball is the same as the time in which Martin Luther King became a personal hero to him and many other blacks, in which King's assassination, along with that of so many other black and white leaders, put a cloud over even the most successful and happy life.
In reading the book, more than anything else, I just wanted to know more about Monroe the basketball player, and I got that from the book. I watched him play when I was growing up near Washington, DC, tried to learn his spin move, and was inspired by him to express creativity on the basketball court. He did it all so much better than anyone, so that all of us could only dream of just once doing one move worthy of "Earl the Pearl". The book helps me understand a little about just how he got there.
The book ends with Monroe and the Knicks winning the NBA Championship in 1973. Monroe talks about the time from then to now only in a short epilogue. There's more to his life, but that's not the story he tells here. It's pretty much a basketball autobiography.
Earl Monroe was a hero to me when I was growing up. We all learned that the key to good basketball was mastering the fundamentals -- pass the ball to work for open shots, set screens, square up to the basket for your shot . . . . But this was the 60s, and everybody wanted more than that. We wanted creativity and personality.
Monroe was definitely more than fundamentals. He was, for a time at least, the most entertaining, must-watch player in the NBA. But he was also fundamentally sound. Despite his reputation for incredible creativity on the court, from the beginning he combined fundamentals with his creativity on the playground. He tells here how in high school his coach at Bartram High School in Philadelphia taught a disciplined style of play, with an emphasis on skills and teamwork. At the same time, out on the playground, Monroe was developing his repertoire of one-on-one moves, fakes, and spinning shots off the backboard that would later be trademarks. He says that he "compartmentalized", playing and thinking one way on the high school court, and another on the playground. When, beginning at Winston-Salem under Coach "Big House" Gaines, he was first encouraged to let loose, he was able to combine the two, to translate the playground game onto the more structured courts of college and then pro basketball.
That ability to combine fundamentals and creativity would later, in maybe the biggest challenge of his basketball life, allow him to go from the "Earl the Pearl" centered, run and gun, one on one style of the Baltimore Bullets to the much more structured and slower screen, pass, and shoot style of the New York Knicks. Monroe tells that story here, and he is honest in saying that even he didn't think it was going to work at first, that the very idea of going to the Knicks and joining their already successful style and lineup seemed like a non-starter (not to mention that the Knicks had become the bitter rival, the "enemy" of his Baltimore Bullets).
Monroe does also tell about his personal life here. The most poignant theme is his love for his mother. He says his greatest regret is that the day he finally won an NBA Championship with the Knicks, he couldn't call his mother and hear her happiness and pride. He tells about growing up in one of the roughest parts of Philadelphia, and how protective and supportive his mother was throughout his life.
He also tells unabashedly about his history of relationships, fathering 3 children by different women before, as he says, he "vowed I would be more careful in the future." He even, at one time, got a woman named Gloria pregnant, while also seeing another woman named Gloria, getting so confused that he mistook one for the other and refused phone calls from the woman who bore his son. Just to top off the story, neither of the Glorias was his main girlfriend at the time -- that was a woman named Cookie, with whom Monroe had a long, obviously loosely constrained relationship.
And Monroe tells the story of growing up and becoming famous as a black man in the 60s and early 70s. There's no way not to tell that story -- his time in basketball is the same as the time in which Martin Luther King became a personal hero to him and many other blacks, in which King's assassination, along with that of so many other black and white leaders, put a cloud over even the most successful and happy life.
In reading the book, more than anything else, I just wanted to know more about Monroe the basketball player, and I got that from the book. I watched him play when I was growing up near Washington, DC, tried to learn his spin move, and was inspired by him to express creativity on the basketball court. He did it all so much better than anyone, so that all of us could only dream of just once doing one move worthy of "Earl the Pearl". The book helps me understand a little about just how he got there.
The book ends with Monroe and the Knicks winning the NBA Championship in 1973. Monroe talks about the time from then to now only in a short epilogue. There's more to his life, but that's not the story he tells here. It's pretty much a basketball autobiography.
October 27, 2013
I received a copy of this book through a Goodreads Giveaway promotion. I was very impressed when they sent me a hardcover version of the book. That has only happened a few times.
I have always said that everyon has a story to tell. Earl Monroe had a story to tell and he wanted to tell it. The sotry, in Earl's words, is of his rise from a kid on the streets of South Phildelphia, to one of the greatest players in the National Basketball Association. The story tells of his challenges and his goals.
I found the author to be very honest in telling the story. He told us of some of the stupid things he did. He told us of his struggles. The story part of the books ends when he wins the the 1973 National Basketball Association league championship with the New York Knicks. I found it odd that the story would end there. He then spends the next fifty pages telling us what he things of the NBA, past and current players and where the game might be headed.
I don't normally read biographies of actors or athletes. But this was a free book. I found the story to be engaging. I don't beleieve the story was an ego trip any more than any other autobiography has been. Yes, he was high on his own abilities and success. He was never negative about any other players. If he had something bad to say, he did not mentioned thir names.
The author is not a polished write, although he did have in writing the book. You can tell that this is own words. I have never came across an author saying to his readers "you know what I mean?" so often.
I did find one editing error. The book refers to a playoff series against the Atlanta Braves, whe I am sure the author meant the Atlanta Hawks.
I enjoyed the book. If you a basketball fan, or a fan of the history of sprots, you will enjoy the book.
I have always said that everyon has a story to tell. Earl Monroe had a story to tell and he wanted to tell it. The sotry, in Earl's words, is of his rise from a kid on the streets of South Phildelphia, to one of the greatest players in the National Basketball Association. The story tells of his challenges and his goals.
I found the author to be very honest in telling the story. He told us of some of the stupid things he did. He told us of his struggles. The story part of the books ends when he wins the the 1973 National Basketball Association league championship with the New York Knicks. I found it odd that the story would end there. He then spends the next fifty pages telling us what he things of the NBA, past and current players and where the game might be headed.
I don't normally read biographies of actors or athletes. But this was a free book. I found the story to be engaging. I don't beleieve the story was an ego trip any more than any other autobiography has been. Yes, he was high on his own abilities and success. He was never negative about any other players. If he had something bad to say, he did not mentioned thir names.
The author is not a polished write, although he did have in writing the book. You can tell that this is own words. I have never came across an author saying to his readers "you know what I mean?" so often.
I did find one editing error. The book refers to a playoff series against the Atlanta Braves, whe I am sure the author meant the Atlanta Hawks.
I enjoyed the book. If you a basketball fan, or a fan of the history of sprots, you will enjoy the book.
April 6, 2023
RICK “SHAQ” GOLDSTEIN SAYS: “EARL-THE-PEARL”… “BLACK-MAGIC”… “BLACK-JESUS”… EACH PART OF HIS BODY SEEMED TO MOVE INDEPENDENTLY, CONTROLLED BY A SINGLE COMMAND CENTER”
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Earl Monroe came to the NBA by way of South Philly… through Winston-Salem State… becoming not only one of the greatest players in NBA history… but surely becoming one of the most exciting players… in a unique and different way… than simply excitement. Though excitement can be defined in many ways… just like the beat of a song can be described… but… a- smooth- free-flowing-jazz-jam-session-… is almost impossible to describe… after the fact. You had to be there in order to be swallowed up in its one-of-a-kind-soul- immersing- stupefying-splendor!... And that was what it was like to witness one of Earl-The-Pearls magical moves at full tilt in a basketball game. Earl would say many times… how can the defensive player know what I’m going to do… if I don’t even know… as I’m doing it!
Earl’s early life is told in a kind of haltingly… described manner… that perhaps could have been written in a smoother style. The phrase “you know”… “you know what I mean”… “know what I mean”… “you know”… is used literally between fifty-to-eighty times in the first hundred or so pages. (I tried to ignore it after that.) Earl had a Mother he loved with all his heart… a Father that disappeared for years out of his life… and of whom Earl told his friends was dead… and a cast of Grandmother… aunts… and cousins… that were every type of criminal… from the numbers rackets… to gang members… to one cousin that according to Earl stood (I believe?) on top of a vehicle spraying machine gun fire everywhere. Note: “I believe”… is also a term that Earl uses quite often in describing things from the past.
Earl describes many different sides of prejudice… and being the way things were during the sixties in America… every day brought a different angle that prejudice may affect a human being… and not just black Americans. I credit “The-Pearl” with great honesty and integrity when he also quite clearly describes some of the worst prejudice being black on black… based on the darkness or lightness of your skin color.
When Earl was young he liked other sports as well as basketball… in fact one of his greatest childhood sports moments was seeing Willie Mays’ classic over the shoulder catch in the 1954 World Series. But when Earl decides that basketball is his life’s passion… everything in his world is dedicated to being the best. I should correct that… as he still had a passion for clothes, partying and women. In fact… I wish he would have shared a little less regarding his sex-life between the ages of eight and eleven.
His years at Winston-Salem-State playing for the infamous coach Clarence “Big House” Gaines… gives great detail as to the finishing touches of “The-Pearl”…coming to fruition as a one-of-a-kind-force-to-be-reckoned-with on the hardwood. Note: potential readers who are true old school fans… will get a kick out of a few of the other nicknames Earl picked up along the way… including:…*THOMAS EDISON*… “because of the way I invented moves and stuff out on the court.”
“The-Pearl’s” subsequent climb to basketball greatness is adorned with all the names such as Gus Johnson…the original backboard shattering high flier… who was one of my idols growing up… and of course all the names on all of the jersey’s hanging in the rafters at Madison Square Garden. Earl of course, as history shows… proved the pundits wrong by teaming up poetically in the Knick’s backcourt with Clyde Frazier… while only needing one ball.
From the cover picture with Monroe starting to swoop down court with “Mr. Clutch”… Jerry West in pursuit… to an inside picture of “The-Pearl” shooting over Wilt in an All Star game… this is a wondrous… but somewhat bumpy trip… down old-school NBA memory lane.
I could tell you more… but you would’ve had to have been there… to fully appreciate it. After all so much of it was magic!
June 6, 2024
I’ve always been fascinated by NBA player Earl “The Pearl” Monroe. I don’t know when I first became familiar of him being a great player, first for the Baltimore Bullets, then the New York Knicks. But my first memory is the Denzel Washington monologue in He Got Game where he talks about how Earl was called “Jesus” on the playgrounds of Philadelphia because he was such a great player.
I wanted to know more about Monroe’s time in Baltimore. Being a native, I have always considered him one of the city’s greatest athletes and it disappoints me that his play in the city has been memoryholed, because it was so critical to the development of the NBA. And I wanted to know about the man too. What was his experience like in life?
I really enjoyed this one. Monroe is incredibly candid about life growing up in Philadelphia, his experiences with racism and how he handled them, and his development as a basketball player. Rather than lean into cliches or take shortcuts, he talks about struggles he had in high school and college, things he could have done differently. There were some fascinating stories sprinkled in.
And he doesn’t skimp on his time in Baltimore, for good and for ill. It was so cool to hear about him living in west Baltimore, next to some of the great Colts and Orioles, albeit laced with the disappointment of the community being segregated. He talked about how much he loved the city, playing in the arena, etc. Those don’t necessarily make the book better but again, I appreciate the candor of it. And he does the same for his time being integrated in the Knicks legendary Open Man philosophy and living in New York too.
I also liked how Monroe wasn’t a crank. He does acknowledge that a lot of modern day basketball moves came from him, while giving credit to the guys he picked them up from the Philly playgrounds. He’s not a Back In My Day guy, but he speaks with a confidence of a man who did a lot of amazing things on the court and is proud. I really enjoyed spending time with him.
This was cruising to a five-star read until the epilogue. Monroe ends his life narrative after the Knicks championship season then goes into his views on modern basketball. The views are fine…but I would’ve liked to have learned about his later career and after it. What was the organization like as the team declined? What was life like in New York City as things continued to change there? How did he grow as a father, as a Family Man? It felt like an abrupt end to a conversation.
Still if you’re curious about Earl or a hoops fan like me, definitely pick this up. It was a great read.
I wanted to know more about Monroe’s time in Baltimore. Being a native, I have always considered him one of the city’s greatest athletes and it disappoints me that his play in the city has been memoryholed, because it was so critical to the development of the NBA. And I wanted to know about the man too. What was his experience like in life?
I really enjoyed this one. Monroe is incredibly candid about life growing up in Philadelphia, his experiences with racism and how he handled them, and his development as a basketball player. Rather than lean into cliches or take shortcuts, he talks about struggles he had in high school and college, things he could have done differently. There were some fascinating stories sprinkled in.
And he doesn’t skimp on his time in Baltimore, for good and for ill. It was so cool to hear about him living in west Baltimore, next to some of the great Colts and Orioles, albeit laced with the disappointment of the community being segregated. He talked about how much he loved the city, playing in the arena, etc. Those don’t necessarily make the book better but again, I appreciate the candor of it. And he does the same for his time being integrated in the Knicks legendary Open Man philosophy and living in New York too.
I also liked how Monroe wasn’t a crank. He does acknowledge that a lot of modern day basketball moves came from him, while giving credit to the guys he picked them up from the Philly playgrounds. He’s not a Back In My Day guy, but he speaks with a confidence of a man who did a lot of amazing things on the court and is proud. I really enjoyed spending time with him.
This was cruising to a five-star read until the epilogue. Monroe ends his life narrative after the Knicks championship season then goes into his views on modern basketball. The views are fine…but I would’ve liked to have learned about his later career and after it. What was the organization like as the team declined? What was life like in New York City as things continued to change there? How did he grow as a father, as a Family Man? It felt like an abrupt end to a conversation.
Still if you’re curious about Earl or a hoops fan like me, definitely pick this up. It was a great read.
May 8, 2019
Earl Monroe is one of the more memorable players in NBA history. He was voted as one of the top fifty players in NBA history. His biography, which was written with Quincy Troupe, chronicles his upbringing in Philadelphia to his NBA career and his opinion of modern basketball. Monroe gives some of the details of his formative years in Philadelphia and how he came to be interested in basketball. Monroe discusses his NBA career which began in Baltimore and ended in New York. Monroe's stellar career included an NBA championship in 1973 with the Knicks. Monroe discussed how coming close to winning a championship gave him a greater appetite for winning one. Eventually, that appetite was filled.
Monroe does a good job of remembering details of his upbringing and his collegiate playing days and his NBA career. He does a good job of discussing the transition from Baltimore to New York. When he joined the Knicks, he had to adjust his game more. Walt Frazier was the on court leader of the Knicks, and Monroe had to play according to the rhythm set by Frazier, whereas in Baltimore, Monroe dictated the cadence of the team. Monroe explained how he wanted the team to win a championship more than he wanted personal statistics or recognition.
Monroe does a good job of remembering details of his upbringing and his collegiate playing days and his NBA career. He does a good job of discussing the transition from Baltimore to New York. When he joined the Knicks, he had to adjust his game more. Walt Frazier was the on court leader of the Knicks, and Monroe had to play according to the rhythm set by Frazier, whereas in Baltimore, Monroe dictated the cadence of the team. Monroe explained how he wanted the team to win a championship more than he wanted personal statistics or recognition.
January 9, 2020
Average, at best, sports autobiography. Lots of details, but my guess is all the stats quoted were from the ghost-writer's research. Though lots of details, not a lot on the chemistry between team-mates, just occasional inferences. Dude also seemed to be trying to challenge Wilt's record of 20,000 women, and non-chalantly talks about fathering several children with several different mothers. Not a terrible book, but I don't feel you really know Earl much better than you did before you cracked the book open.
October 13, 2018
Good book about an outstanding player and his passion for a beautiful game. Very enlightening about the history of the NBA, and the history of the USA as well. Reveal the afflictions of a man facing the dramas of racism, and his struggle to became a better basketball player.
October 2, 2021
I vaguely remember seeing Monroe play. I do have many of his basketball cards. So i was curious to read his book. He succeeded at every level he played on. Personally, I don't think I needed to read about his sexual life. But 'it is what it is' (some thing Monroe constantly stated in his book).
January 17, 2019
i wish i could read more but im 14 and i never learned how to read
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June 24, 2016
I'm a huge basketball fan, and this is not one of the guys we want our kids and young players looking up to. Besides "dating" countless numbers of women he is egotistical, vain, uneducated, anti-American, and seemingly uninformed of the very game he played at such a high level. The book is terribly written. His "recap" of games is just listing who scored how many points, and he went through every game for his first several seasons. His opinions on the game are anything a typical, casual, fan of the game would come up with. His evaluation of players leaves me shaking my head. I'm a Wilt Chamberlain fan as well, but to give him something like three pages and never mention Bill Russell is completely absurd. He talks about newer players as well, and only gives half a paragraph to Michael Jordan and discusses Allen Iverson for another page.
Monroe was a sad product of his environment who never did anything to change the world or become better than his circumstances. This book should really have been about all the players that were way better than "Black Magic" like Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Wilt, Russell, even Lew Alcindor. Save the money for this book and try to find a book about a real basketball player.
Earl Monroe, I hope you find Jesus.
Monroe was a sad product of his environment who never did anything to change the world or become better than his circumstances. This book should really have been about all the players that were way better than "Black Magic" like Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Wilt, Russell, even Lew Alcindor. Save the money for this book and try to find a book about a real basketball player.
Earl Monroe, I hope you find Jesus.
July 3, 2013
Earl Monroe's autobiography reminded me of a massive FACEBOOK page. There are some folks on FACEBOOK who have to tell you everything that is going on in their lives. That is what this book was like. TMI!!!!! I didn't need to know about the women Earl was "dating", who he impregnated, etc. Far too many details that didn't amount to a hill of beans. This book, 405 pages long, could have been reduced to less than 250 by some good editing and it would have been a better book.
August 31, 2016
I'm a fan. I enjoyed Earl's candor about his weaknesses and I liked his insights into his strengths. Video of his style in summer tournament ball is eye opening and I watched him night after night both against and on the Knicks. Most interesting was his thinking about what it takes to get players to support each other as a team.
June 26, 2013
Earl "the Pearl" was a wonderful basketball back in dark ages of the NBA. In other words the era I fell in love with the game the mid sixties to the late seventies. I enjoyed hearing him tell stories about the old school players and his battles with players of the day.
January 8, 2014
Don't like doing negative reviews, so all I'll say is you better be a huge fan of the Pearl, or this one won't be too enjoyable.
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