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My Home Team: A Sportswriter's Life and the Redemptive Power of Small-Town Girls Basketball
In this poignant memoir, a legendary sports journalist writes about the team that changed his the Morton High School Lady Potters basketball team.
Dave Kindred has covered dozens of Super Bowls and written about stars like Muhammad Ali, Tiger Woods, and Michael Jordan. But a high-school girls basketball team—the Lady Potters of Morton, Illinois—stands apart from the rest.
In this moving and intimate story, Kindred writes about his rise to professional success and the changes that brought him back to his hometown late in life. As he dealt with personal hardship, his urge to write sustained him. For years, he has recapped the games of the Lady Potters, including their many runs to state championships. He attended game after game, sitting in the stands and making notes, paid nothing but Milk Duds. And the team and their community were there for him as he lost a grandson to addiction and his wife to long-term illness.
Tender and honest, Kindred’s story reminds readers what sports are really about. He trades in the exhausting spectacle of Super Bowl Sunday for the joy of togetherness, the fire of competition, and the inexhaustible hope for victory tomorrow.
Dave Kindred has covered dozens of Super Bowls and written about stars like Muhammad Ali, Tiger Woods, and Michael Jordan. But a high-school girls basketball team—the Lady Potters of Morton, Illinois—stands apart from the rest.
In this moving and intimate story, Kindred writes about his rise to professional success and the changes that brought him back to his hometown late in life. As he dealt with personal hardship, his urge to write sustained him. For years, he has recapped the games of the Lady Potters, including their many runs to state championships. He attended game after game, sitting in the stands and making notes, paid nothing but Milk Duds. And the team and their community were there for him as he lost a grandson to addiction and his wife to long-term illness.
Tender and honest, Kindred’s story reminds readers what sports are really about. He trades in the exhausting spectacle of Super Bowl Sunday for the joy of togetherness, the fire of competition, and the inexhaustible hope for victory tomorrow.
305 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 12, 2023
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August 5, 2024
Everyone of us has a home team that we root for through thick and thin even if we are not sports fans. The words ring loud and clear in one of the most famous of American songs, Take Me Out to the Ballgame. I have experienced many home teams in my life at all level of competition. To take a page out of author Dave Kindred’s book, more about that later. As with many of the sports books I read, I received this recommendation from my good reads sports reading colleague Lance. He has long since caved and reads on electronic devices and is a long time member of netgalley, allowing him early access to a wide variety of sports books. I prefer the physical feel of a book in my hands, so I request the ones that sound most appealing at my local branch library. My Home Team is not a shameless plug for reading, but it is a throwback to an era when sports journalism and newspapers ruled the day and segues to girls basketball in small town Illinois. Knowing that these are two topics that occupy an important place in my heart, I filed My Home Town to read during basketball season; however, I could not wait for baseball season to end to read it. On a day when there is no daytime baseball to be found, I immersed myself in a book about basketball, which is really about life.
Dave Kindred hails from Atlanta, Illinois. At first I thought this was a typo because I knew that he wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for many years so it would make sense that he grew up a stone’s throw from the newspaper where he spent the bulk of his career. On the contrary, the long time sportswriter comes from Illinois farm country, a part of the state where most people cheered for the Cardinals because Chicago was the big bully to the north. In junior year English class, he met his wife Sheryl, and the next year, his teacher told him to strive to be a political journalist. Kindred’s dream was to write about sports if he could not play them professionally. After winning a scholarship to enroll at Illinois Wesleyan University and walking on to the baseball team, Kindred began to learn how to write, dreaming of a career in journalism. He finished college in 1959 during the golden age of journalism when online media was not even a blip on the radar. Although his high school teacher told him to dream big, writing about sports was the next best thing for any young man who did not have the skills to play sports professionally for a living. Perhaps, Kindred’s writing training was not at the level of those privileged to attend higher ranking schools and universities, but, as a young man, he would have worked for any newspaper that would have him.
Little did Kindred know that his newspaper career would take him all over the world. Sheryl was content to live in central Illinois and restore a house and make it into a home. If Dave held a regular nine to five job, Sheryl would have happily played the role of farmer’s wife. That was not Dave; he wanted to be a writer. His journalistic skills took him from Normal, Illinois to Louisville to the Washington Post to Atlanta and then to national publications like Golf Digest. He would interview Muhammed Ali toward the beginning of his career and enjoy access like few others in his profession because at the time he wrote in Ali’s hometown, Louisville. That springboard turned Kindred into the type of sportswriter that he desired to be all along- writing features about competitions and athletes while inserting his opinions into the columns. Along the way he covered Olympics, Super Bowls, NCAA Final Fours, World Series, and every other major sports event imaginable. He developed a community with sportswriters from around the country and traveled around the world with them. This generation would write the columns that I read at the kitchen table while growing up. They would be the last of the newspaper men and women before digitalization took over and rendered newspapers obsolete. When Kindred submitted an opinion piece that an editor refused to publish, he knew it was time to call it a career even though he had more stories left in his head. Little did he know that act two would end up being as fulfilling as act one.
At Sheryl’s request, the Kindreds returned to central Illinois to live out their retirement years. Dave wrote freelance and could live anywhere. Sheryl wanted to be near their hometown and reestablish relationships with extended family and friends. They landed on Morton, Illinois, and, immediately, Dave went to work as the reporter for the Morton Lady Potters girls basketball team. As a reporter in Louisville, Dave wrote about all things Kentucky basketball in an era before Title IX. Even as he covered sports during his illustrious career, he did not think to report on women. I view him as a product of his times. In the 1950s, high school girls cheered on the boys, and, depending on which school, little else. When Dave and Sheryl first moved back to Illinois, they asked a young lady named Carly Ann Crocker if she was going to be a cheerleader in high school. No, Carly responded, I am going to be the one who gets cheered for. Quickly, the Kindreds and Carly adopted each other as family. This was in 2007, and Dave agreed to write about the Lady Potters in exchange for milk duds. He did not know at the time that he would be writing about the Golden State Warriors in ponytails and building a community with the Morton basketball team and their fans. In all the years that Kindred wrote for newspapers, he never had the chance to know his neighbors. As a retiree happily settled in a small town, he would more than receive that chance in his second act in life.
Every so often amidst my sports micro histories and biographies, I come across a feel good story as this one. Dave Kindred is in the Basketball Hall of Fame in the journalism wing. He covered the Masters golf tournament for over fifty years and wrote books about Muhammed Ali as well as the Washington Post. He rarely covered women athletes in all his years as a sports journalist even though he lists the esteemed Jane Leavy as a friend and colleague. In 2007 Kindred got sucked into small town high school basketball and has not left since. While my sport of sports is baseball, I am fortunate to have attended high school at the same time as athletes who propelled our school toward two straight state championships in basketball. Occasionally I did their statistics on a piece of paper. At the state finals at Redbird Arena, my school played against Galesburg and Freeport, two powerhouses from rural areas who preceded Morton as dynasties. The fans of the Silver Streaks and the Pretzels (really) were much more into the games than the suburbanites who knew that they cheered for a superior team. This is the type of team and community Dave Kindred entered into when he agreed to write about the Morton Lady Potters. Eventually, Morton behind their coach Bob Becker would grow into a dynasty that would replace Galesburg and Freeport as the premiere small town team in Illinois. They would also grow to become Dave Kindred’s family in his retirement. One could not help but smile while reading about both the young ladies on the court and Kindred’s relationship with them over the years. As he noted, his life had gone full circle.
At the time of publication last fall, Kindred has not noted if he still writes about the Morton Potters. The first girls he met and brought into his life back in 2007 are now married and perhaps mothers of future Morton Potters. The school is still formidable in both boys and girls basketball, buoyed by the fact that Illinois went to a four, rather than two, class system in 1997, meant to assist smaller town schools like Morton in quests for championships against Chicago area juggernauts. This system has benefited all types of schools, and Morton has grown into a dynasty like that of Galesburg and Freeport. Meanwhile, Dave Kindred is content in retirement as a grandfather to dozens of basketball playing girls and their extended families. He still writes freelance from time to time and an occasional book as the one I just finished reading. Kindred lived in an era where sports journalism was king and told a story through writing even more eloquent than that found on radio broadcasts. His life might have brought him back to where he started, but he is a living example of shooting for the moon and living life in the direction of one’s dreams.
4 stars
Dave Kindred hails from Atlanta, Illinois. At first I thought this was a typo because I knew that he wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for many years so it would make sense that he grew up a stone’s throw from the newspaper where he spent the bulk of his career. On the contrary, the long time sportswriter comes from Illinois farm country, a part of the state where most people cheered for the Cardinals because Chicago was the big bully to the north. In junior year English class, he met his wife Sheryl, and the next year, his teacher told him to strive to be a political journalist. Kindred’s dream was to write about sports if he could not play them professionally. After winning a scholarship to enroll at Illinois Wesleyan University and walking on to the baseball team, Kindred began to learn how to write, dreaming of a career in journalism. He finished college in 1959 during the golden age of journalism when online media was not even a blip on the radar. Although his high school teacher told him to dream big, writing about sports was the next best thing for any young man who did not have the skills to play sports professionally for a living. Perhaps, Kindred’s writing training was not at the level of those privileged to attend higher ranking schools and universities, but, as a young man, he would have worked for any newspaper that would have him.
Little did Kindred know that his newspaper career would take him all over the world. Sheryl was content to live in central Illinois and restore a house and make it into a home. If Dave held a regular nine to five job, Sheryl would have happily played the role of farmer’s wife. That was not Dave; he wanted to be a writer. His journalistic skills took him from Normal, Illinois to Louisville to the Washington Post to Atlanta and then to national publications like Golf Digest. He would interview Muhammed Ali toward the beginning of his career and enjoy access like few others in his profession because at the time he wrote in Ali’s hometown, Louisville. That springboard turned Kindred into the type of sportswriter that he desired to be all along- writing features about competitions and athletes while inserting his opinions into the columns. Along the way he covered Olympics, Super Bowls, NCAA Final Fours, World Series, and every other major sports event imaginable. He developed a community with sportswriters from around the country and traveled around the world with them. This generation would write the columns that I read at the kitchen table while growing up. They would be the last of the newspaper men and women before digitalization took over and rendered newspapers obsolete. When Kindred submitted an opinion piece that an editor refused to publish, he knew it was time to call it a career even though he had more stories left in his head. Little did he know that act two would end up being as fulfilling as act one.
At Sheryl’s request, the Kindreds returned to central Illinois to live out their retirement years. Dave wrote freelance and could live anywhere. Sheryl wanted to be near their hometown and reestablish relationships with extended family and friends. They landed on Morton, Illinois, and, immediately, Dave went to work as the reporter for the Morton Lady Potters girls basketball team. As a reporter in Louisville, Dave wrote about all things Kentucky basketball in an era before Title IX. Even as he covered sports during his illustrious career, he did not think to report on women. I view him as a product of his times. In the 1950s, high school girls cheered on the boys, and, depending on which school, little else. When Dave and Sheryl first moved back to Illinois, they asked a young lady named Carly Ann Crocker if she was going to be a cheerleader in high school. No, Carly responded, I am going to be the one who gets cheered for. Quickly, the Kindreds and Carly adopted each other as family. This was in 2007, and Dave agreed to write about the Lady Potters in exchange for milk duds. He did not know at the time that he would be writing about the Golden State Warriors in ponytails and building a community with the Morton basketball team and their fans. In all the years that Kindred wrote for newspapers, he never had the chance to know his neighbors. As a retiree happily settled in a small town, he would more than receive that chance in his second act in life.
Every so often amidst my sports micro histories and biographies, I come across a feel good story as this one. Dave Kindred is in the Basketball Hall of Fame in the journalism wing. He covered the Masters golf tournament for over fifty years and wrote books about Muhammed Ali as well as the Washington Post. He rarely covered women athletes in all his years as a sports journalist even though he lists the esteemed Jane Leavy as a friend and colleague. In 2007 Kindred got sucked into small town high school basketball and has not left since. While my sport of sports is baseball, I am fortunate to have attended high school at the same time as athletes who propelled our school toward two straight state championships in basketball. Occasionally I did their statistics on a piece of paper. At the state finals at Redbird Arena, my school played against Galesburg and Freeport, two powerhouses from rural areas who preceded Morton as dynasties. The fans of the Silver Streaks and the Pretzels (really) were much more into the games than the suburbanites who knew that they cheered for a superior team. This is the type of team and community Dave Kindred entered into when he agreed to write about the Morton Lady Potters. Eventually, Morton behind their coach Bob Becker would grow into a dynasty that would replace Galesburg and Freeport as the premiere small town team in Illinois. They would also grow to become Dave Kindred’s family in his retirement. One could not help but smile while reading about both the young ladies on the court and Kindred’s relationship with them over the years. As he noted, his life had gone full circle.
At the time of publication last fall, Kindred has not noted if he still writes about the Morton Potters. The first girls he met and brought into his life back in 2007 are now married and perhaps mothers of future Morton Potters. The school is still formidable in both boys and girls basketball, buoyed by the fact that Illinois went to a four, rather than two, class system in 1997, meant to assist smaller town schools like Morton in quests for championships against Chicago area juggernauts. This system has benefited all types of schools, and Morton has grown into a dynasty like that of Galesburg and Freeport. Meanwhile, Dave Kindred is content in retirement as a grandfather to dozens of basketball playing girls and their extended families. He still writes freelance from time to time and an occasional book as the one I just finished reading. Kindred lived in an era where sports journalism was king and told a story through writing even more eloquent than that found on radio broadcasts. His life might have brought him back to where he started, but he is a living example of shooting for the moon and living life in the direction of one’s dreams.
4 stars
August 7, 2023
The first half of My Home Team was a memoir of Dave Kindred's professional life as a sportswriter in middle America. It details his travels from small town newspaper to slightly larger small town newspaper until he reaches the level of the Washington Post and beyond. There are stories about Muhammed Ali (who called Dave "Louisville") and about the Joe Gibbs era of Washington football. Mostly though it's Daves personal stories dealing with cheapass managers and behind the scenes journalist drama. I enjoyed it. That era of newspapers is over with and it's fun to read about. We don't live in a world where newspapers compete for sportswriters anymore.
The second half is the real winner with this book. It changes not only in topic but in tone. Dave writes the first half of the book in a tell it like it was sort of way, but the emotional impact of seeing those great moments in sports isn't what he's writing. He saves the emotional impact for the second half, talking about aging, love, and finding purpose in writing about high school girls basketball. He follows the local team, the Potters, to almost all their games for years and writes the post game write ups for them. The seasons present an opportunity for Dave to continue to write, and as an opportunity for Dave to bond with his wife and community. Eventually however, his wife has a stroke and is confined to a retirement home.
I wasn't really expecting this sort of story. It was damn sad in parts. It was also exciting sportswriting as we follow the Potters to (spoiler alert) the championship. The mixing of those two emotions worked well for me and made the book better than it's parts. Sports themselves don't matter, but the meaning we attach to them absolute does.
The second half is the real winner with this book. It changes not only in topic but in tone. Dave writes the first half of the book in a tell it like it was sort of way, but the emotional impact of seeing those great moments in sports isn't what he's writing. He saves the emotional impact for the second half, talking about aging, love, and finding purpose in writing about high school girls basketball. He follows the local team, the Potters, to almost all their games for years and writes the post game write ups for them. The seasons present an opportunity for Dave to continue to write, and as an opportunity for Dave to bond with his wife and community. Eventually however, his wife has a stroke and is confined to a retirement home.
I wasn't really expecting this sort of story. It was damn sad in parts. It was also exciting sportswriting as we follow the Potters to (spoiler alert) the championship. The mixing of those two emotions worked well for me and made the book better than it's parts. Sports themselves don't matter, but the meaning we attach to them absolute does.
December 2, 2023
Lovely memoir written by a master. Reminded me of Roger Angel. Interesting history of all author has covered but his documenting of the Illinois girls basketball team was special, especially as he had hard things happen with his family. Very much reminded me of Dad and the teams he coached and I played on in the 1980s.
Fantastic references to the movie Hoosiers and perfect descriptions of high school basketball gyms which for me are some of my fave life memories. Seniors nights , snack bars, getting lost looking for gyms, grandparent row, holiday basketball tournaments I can go on and on.
I need to go watch the 60 minute piece but if you are a fan of good sports writing. And especially girls basketball but this in your cue. Clearly the author wrote to remind himself he existed and was not invisible as he got older. Example 10000 of the wonderful thing about sports and how brings people together and as author quotes funny girl “ people need people”.
Yes lots of cheesy references but I loved that. Found due. to recent review in WSJ. Feel good book (with some sadness ). for sure.
Fantastic references to the movie Hoosiers and perfect descriptions of high school basketball gyms which for me are some of my fave life memories. Seniors nights , snack bars, getting lost looking for gyms, grandparent row, holiday basketball tournaments I can go on and on.
I need to go watch the 60 minute piece but if you are a fan of good sports writing. And especially girls basketball but this in your cue. Clearly the author wrote to remind himself he existed and was not invisible as he got older. Example 10000 of the wonderful thing about sports and how brings people together and as author quotes funny girl “ people need people”.
Yes lots of cheesy references but I loved that. Found due. to recent review in WSJ. Feel good book (with some sadness ). for sure.
July 2, 2024
Dave Kindred was a well-known and respected sportswriter in the late 20th century with his work in Washington and Atlanta being his most read articles and columns. When he wanted to stop writing and spend more time with his beloved wife Cheryl in their home state of Illinois, that plan was waylaid- sort of.
That is the main topic of this book - Kindred’s writing about the Morton Potters, a girl’s basketball team that was very successful and often reached the Final Four of their state championship. Kindred was asked to do so to keep the twin’s fans updated - and he would be paid in Milk Duds. This “assignment” turned into a great match as the Kindreds became as much a part of Potters basketball as the players, coaches and parents.
After the first section of the book that is a recap of Dave Kindred’s writing career - Act I - the story of the Potters and the Kindreds relationship really takes off. This section - Act II - is a basketball junkie’s dream as Kindred writes about many of the Potters games in great detail. This part of the book is far into the minutiae of the games, which felt like it was a little too much. This is true even for a reader like me, who normally loves reading this level of detail on the game. Here is it was good - almost too good.
Where the book shines, and will tug at the heart of even the most hardened reader, is Dave’s passages about his love for wife Cheryl. It took a tragic event for this to really stand out - Cheryl suffering a debilitating stroke. During this time, which included the worst of the COVID pandemic, Dave did his best work on this book. His devotion to his wife during his visits when Cheryl had good and bad days are clearly evident here. When Cheryl finally passed away, the love expressed by both Dave Kindred and the girls basketball team the Kindreds adopted was quite touching.
I admit to have been ready to mark this as a DNF early in Act II, but I am glad I stuck with it as it’s a book that is very touching and a different typ of love story, heavy on the basketball.
I wish to thank Public Affairs for providing a review copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.
That is the main topic of this book - Kindred’s writing about the Morton Potters, a girl’s basketball team that was very successful and often reached the Final Four of their state championship. Kindred was asked to do so to keep the twin’s fans updated - and he would be paid in Milk Duds. This “assignment” turned into a great match as the Kindreds became as much a part of Potters basketball as the players, coaches and parents.
After the first section of the book that is a recap of Dave Kindred’s writing career - Act I - the story of the Potters and the Kindreds relationship really takes off. This section - Act II - is a basketball junkie’s dream as Kindred writes about many of the Potters games in great detail. This part of the book is far into the minutiae of the games, which felt like it was a little too much. This is true even for a reader like me, who normally loves reading this level of detail on the game. Here is it was good - almost too good.
Where the book shines, and will tug at the heart of even the most hardened reader, is Dave’s passages about his love for wife Cheryl. It took a tragic event for this to really stand out - Cheryl suffering a debilitating stroke. During this time, which included the worst of the COVID pandemic, Dave did his best work on this book. His devotion to his wife during his visits when Cheryl had good and bad days are clearly evident here. When Cheryl finally passed away, the love expressed by both Dave Kindred and the girls basketball team the Kindreds adopted was quite touching.
I admit to have been ready to mark this as a DNF early in Act II, but I am glad I stuck with it as it’s a book that is very touching and a different typ of love story, heavy on the basketball.
I wish to thank Public Affairs for providing a review copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.
October 16, 2023
This delightful memoir encompasses the journey of an accomplished sportswriter and his eventual return to where he started where the local high school girls basketball team nourished and sustained him during the toughest of times.
June 10, 2024
Dave Kindred's "My Home Team" came to me out of the blue.
I got a box in the mail months ago, opened it, and I saw it was a gift from Ted, my forever friend a few of us call "Sweet Daddy Pop." We grew up together and got arrested together for doing lame-brained moves as teenagers. He was one of my groomsmen, I was one of his, and we have continued our friendship with our other forever friend, Scott, our other groomsmen, by hitting some music festivals somewhere every year. Anyway, Ted sent me a copy of "My Home Team" after he and his wife Robin read it. Taped to the inside was this message from Ted: "This book has you written all over it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. From SDP."
Sweet Daddy Pop was right.
Dave Kindred is a legendary sports columnist who has won his share of big-time awards for writing about Super Bowls, the World Olympics, World Series games, the Masters' golf tournament and Muhammad Ali, the heavyweight champion. Ali called him "Louisville." Dave had penned columns for The Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, National Sports Daily, Sporting News, Golf Digest and ... let me take a breath ... the Louisville Courier Journal.
This book is about all that. But really, "My Home Team" is about his latest beat. With pen in hand, paid with a box of Milk Duds every game, he wrote about the Lady Potters at Morton High. They were a basketball dynasty in Illinois. Dave called them, "The Golden State Warriors with ponytails," a phrase that ended up on the back of T-shirts.
Dave had retired from journalism and moved back to where he grew up in the dot-sized town of Atlanta, Illinois. There, he realized he wanted to be a reporter. And there, he also fell in love. He married his high school sweetheart,Cheryl Ann Liesman. They got married, had a son, got a passport through big-city journalism to see the world and retired to a farm. Dave couldn't put down the pend and notepad. He and Cheryl went to see the Lady Potters play, and Dave decided he wanted to write about their team in the way any columnist does -- with personality, verve, humor and the gift of turning a phrase.
Of course, Dave Kindred can write. And it's fun to hear about his stories about Ali and a newspaper world that really doesn't exist anymore. But where Dave's book goes from a fun read to an impactful read is when Cheryl suffers a stroke and the Lady Potters become not just an avocation, but a light in a life shrouded in the darkness of grief.
Dave writes:
"A couple of years in, maybe three or four even, I understood my real reason for writing about the Lady Potters. They kept me alive. Not in the sense of giving me a reason to live. But they made it possible for me to believe I existed. People I loved were gone. The newspaper work I loved was gone. I refused to be gone, to be disappeared.
"I wrote golf for Golf Digest, I wrote a dual biography on Ali and Cosell, and I was deep into a book on the Washington Post. I refused to go gentle into that good night. Damned right, I would write about girls basketball.
"It was fun, and grandmas stayed up late to read that stuff, and a buddy with a master's degree in education said, "Man, are you ever helping these young ladies lay foundations of high self-esteem that are so going to be important. I'm in awe." All good. Not my purpose, but good. My purpose was unbecoming. The writing was proof I existed. "
In June 2021, four months after their 59th wedding anniversary, Cheryl died. In his acknowledgements, Dave writes: "I am a reporter trying to write better than I can. I needed help on this one. I leaned on a woman I met outside Mrs. Brak's English class when we were seventeen. She is beside me now. I love you, Sherri."
A few pages in, you see Dave's dedication: "For Cheryl, forever and a day."
The morning I finished this book, I sent a text to Ted: "Finished. And dammit, Ted, I effin' cried when I closed "My Home Team' this morning. In his acknowledgements, Kindred writes: "I am a reporter trying to write better than I can." Man, I so get that. Ted, Sweet Daddy Pop, thank u for this gift."
Ted responded: "There was clearly a reason I thought of you when i read it. Robin did too."
Like Dave Kindred, I'm a journalist, a columnist. I've watched my own newspaper world crumble. After 28 years as a daily journalist, I knew I had to leave. I had two kids to put through college, and I found job security and better pay in higher education. Today, I write about one of fastest growing universities in the country. But like Dave Kindred, I also write about what moves me. In the fall of 2017, I started a blog after writing about my son's high school football team for two years. Just like Dave Kindred.
Writers write. We write to breathe. In Dave's case, he wrote and found out that these teenage girls, these Golden State Warriors in pigtails, stopped him from stumbling into a dark well of despair. They were his light, and they became an example of what writing can do.
It can heal, and that is a mighty powerful thing.
I got a box in the mail months ago, opened it, and I saw it was a gift from Ted, my forever friend a few of us call "Sweet Daddy Pop." We grew up together and got arrested together for doing lame-brained moves as teenagers. He was one of my groomsmen, I was one of his, and we have continued our friendship with our other forever friend, Scott, our other groomsmen, by hitting some music festivals somewhere every year. Anyway, Ted sent me a copy of "My Home Team" after he and his wife Robin read it. Taped to the inside was this message from Ted: "This book has you written all over it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. From SDP."
Sweet Daddy Pop was right.
Dave Kindred is a legendary sports columnist who has won his share of big-time awards for writing about Super Bowls, the World Olympics, World Series games, the Masters' golf tournament and Muhammad Ali, the heavyweight champion. Ali called him "Louisville." Dave had penned columns for The Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, National Sports Daily, Sporting News, Golf Digest and ... let me take a breath ... the Louisville Courier Journal.
This book is about all that. But really, "My Home Team" is about his latest beat. With pen in hand, paid with a box of Milk Duds every game, he wrote about the Lady Potters at Morton High. They were a basketball dynasty in Illinois. Dave called them, "The Golden State Warriors with ponytails," a phrase that ended up on the back of T-shirts.
Dave had retired from journalism and moved back to where he grew up in the dot-sized town of Atlanta, Illinois. There, he realized he wanted to be a reporter. And there, he also fell in love. He married his high school sweetheart,Cheryl Ann Liesman. They got married, had a son, got a passport through big-city journalism to see the world and retired to a farm. Dave couldn't put down the pend and notepad. He and Cheryl went to see the Lady Potters play, and Dave decided he wanted to write about their team in the way any columnist does -- with personality, verve, humor and the gift of turning a phrase.
Of course, Dave Kindred can write. And it's fun to hear about his stories about Ali and a newspaper world that really doesn't exist anymore. But where Dave's book goes from a fun read to an impactful read is when Cheryl suffers a stroke and the Lady Potters become not just an avocation, but a light in a life shrouded in the darkness of grief.
Dave writes:
"A couple of years in, maybe three or four even, I understood my real reason for writing about the Lady Potters. They kept me alive. Not in the sense of giving me a reason to live. But they made it possible for me to believe I existed. People I loved were gone. The newspaper work I loved was gone. I refused to be gone, to be disappeared.
"I wrote golf for Golf Digest, I wrote a dual biography on Ali and Cosell, and I was deep into a book on the Washington Post. I refused to go gentle into that good night. Damned right, I would write about girls basketball.
"It was fun, and grandmas stayed up late to read that stuff, and a buddy with a master's degree in education said, "Man, are you ever helping these young ladies lay foundations of high self-esteem that are so going to be important. I'm in awe." All good. Not my purpose, but good. My purpose was unbecoming. The writing was proof I existed. "
In June 2021, four months after their 59th wedding anniversary, Cheryl died. In his acknowledgements, Dave writes: "I am a reporter trying to write better than I can. I needed help on this one. I leaned on a woman I met outside Mrs. Brak's English class when we were seventeen. She is beside me now. I love you, Sherri."
A few pages in, you see Dave's dedication: "For Cheryl, forever and a day."
The morning I finished this book, I sent a text to Ted: "Finished. And dammit, Ted, I effin' cried when I closed "My Home Team' this morning. In his acknowledgements, Kindred writes: "I am a reporter trying to write better than I can." Man, I so get that. Ted, Sweet Daddy Pop, thank u for this gift."
Ted responded: "There was clearly a reason I thought of you when i read it. Robin did too."
Like Dave Kindred, I'm a journalist, a columnist. I've watched my own newspaper world crumble. After 28 years as a daily journalist, I knew I had to leave. I had two kids to put through college, and I found job security and better pay in higher education. Today, I write about one of fastest growing universities in the country. But like Dave Kindred, I also write about what moves me. In the fall of 2017, I started a blog after writing about my son's high school football team for two years. Just like Dave Kindred.
Writers write. We write to breathe. In Dave's case, he wrote and found out that these teenage girls, these Golden State Warriors in pigtails, stopped him from stumbling into a dark well of despair. They were his light, and they became an example of what writing can do.
It can heal, and that is a mighty powerful thing.
October 26, 2023
As I read it, this memoir held some complex feelings for me. Dave Kindred is a fine writer and he told a nice tale that seamlessly wove his personal life into the narrative of a highly successfully high school basketball team in west-central Illinois. As the cover jacket blurbs point out, you'll laugh, cry, and enjoy the book. On the flip side, you'll wonder about today's over emphasis on sports Potter Coach Becker is depicted as a really kind, supportive, teaching coach who helps these young women grow and thrive. Morton is shown to be the real "Lake Woebegone" and we get to wish we all lived in this sort of idealized environment where hard work is rewarded, team work is taught and successful, and communities rally together with no back stabbing. Alas, the world of youth sports is not always so lovely. What saves this book for a cynic like me is that Kindred has also told a very personal, poignant story about his life, sharing both the highs and the lows. Remembering that Kindred is a man "of a certain age", you'll be able to glide past some of the older references and "folksy" sayings. There is much to like in "My Home Team..." and much to latch onto. I can say it is well worth reading.
May 4, 2025
This won’t be for everyone, since the nature of the book is sports and more specifically a large chunk of it is about girls high school basketball. But wow, this got me out of a reading slump.
The one thing that stood out to me by the end of the book was longevity, in his skill and craft but also in his undying love for his wife. It was so sweet and touching at the end, albeit sad.
Definitely suggest for my basketball / sports fans!
The one thing that stood out to me by the end of the book was longevity, in his skill and craft but also in his undying love for his wife. It was so sweet and touching at the end, albeit sad.
Definitely suggest for my basketball / sports fans!
January 7, 2026
I’m not really into memoirs/biographies but there were parts of this I enjoyed. Kindred’s writing style having been a columnist for 40 years kept me in it
October 8, 2023
A fantastic read that fills the soul and delivers many great life lessons. I can’t wait to read more Dave Kindred books!
July 24, 2024
For a sentimental, sappy memoir, it's pretty good. But that's a low bar. I skimmed the last third of it as it was one list after another of how gritty a bunch of girl basketball players under 6' tall were. And, unfortunately, an increasing number of mentions of God having a hand in things. Dave Kindred, despite all of his world travels and interaction with sophisticated people, never left his rural Illinois roots, and that's what he wants you to know.
This book has a few elements, which he weaves together because they are important in his life. Since I don't know him and have a lot less interest in his life than he does, it's just not all that interesting.
The first element is his youthful ballplaying (good enough to play DIII baseball) and decision to become a sportswriter. He works super hard and lands good jobs and gets plum assignments like the Masters Golf Tournament and tracking down Muhammad Ali. He and Ali apparently hit it off, and Kindred says he sat with him literally hundreds of times (and wrote a book about him).
Kindred was approached by The Washington Post early in his career, but turned it down. On a second reach-out by The Post, he takes the job and travels the world for a few years, covering The Olympics, World Series, golf, etc. He was in the right place over and over, from the Munich games to the 1975 World Series, to watching Secretariat. A charmed life, as he admits. And he was a wonderful writer. I remember his articles and columns from The Post, and I looked forward to them even more than those of others such as Tony Kornheiser and Tom Boswell.
Kindred left The Post for more money at the Atlanta, GA newspaper. I remember that, too, and being surprised. He tells the story with a little bit of anger here, basically accusing The Post of being cheap and reneging on implied significant raises. Interesting, and it, of course, presages the utter collapsed of daily newspapers that happened since 2000. Kindred lost jobs over that, and he laments the hollowing out of the industry, but doesn't lay blame. It's just one of those things.
Anyway, taking an early retirement at about age 60, he and his wife move back to the small Illinois town where they met (Atlanta) and buy a big house and a lot of land. They have a farm. She fixes up the house --- a specialty of hers that apparently led her to climb on scaffolding two stories up to scrape paint off Victorian woodwork. They are happy, but a little uncertain what to do with their time. So Kindred starts following a local high school girls basketball team. And that's part two of the book. This team is on the cusp of greatness, and he enjoys the next decade of watching their exploits and writing about it casually for the local audience. Everyone once in a while, he writes about the experience for a larger audience, too. The latter is a well-worn genre of writing, the love of the innocence and immediacy of games before they are spoiled by money and commercialization. Kindred's remarks in this area aren't better or more interesting than the scores of sportswriters who've come before him.
I've covered girls high school basketball, and I know exactly what he means about the beauty of the game when it's played by energetic, disciplined teams. It's different than the boys game. Less athleticism in the air, less strength, less showboating. The athleticism is the quickness, the movement back and forth, the need to do everything fundamentally right because you can't just jump over your opponent. Kindred does a good job of conveying that style of play.
He repeatedly calls following the girls as redemptive for him, even calling one favorite player "the daughter we never had." This is a team that won several state championships and competing for at least the regional title every year. I would have liked him to speculate on what it would have been like to follow season after season of a mediocre team, perhaps even a bad team that fired its coach. I've followed bad teams for a season as a sportswriter, and it's rarely redemptive, but at the high school level it should be. It should still be about effort and growth and building a future. Kindred is so wrapped up in the success of this team (and the success for life that it creates) that he doesn't stop to think about all the teams left by the roadside with records of 8-17.
The third element of the book is a love letter to his wife of 60 years. About 10 years into their sojourn back to their hometown, she has a major stroke and never recovers. He spends about five years visiting her in a nursing home almost every day, realizing pretty quickly that she will not recover very much, but savoring any good moment. Throughout the book, he's written about his love for her -- his high school sweetheart --- and her unending patience as he traveled the globe for work and was a distracted, anti-social husband, father and neighbor at home. For example, he says they never had any friends when they lived in Virginia while he was at The Post. They lived well outside the city on a mini farm, and he just didn't like talking to other people. The only relationship they apparently had was his son and his son's family, who lived across the street from them in one city and then on property they owned in another. (That stuff blew up, and Kindred references it as well; this is a memoir, so you've got to dig up the negative stuff.)
Anyway, the love story is sweet. I'd be jealous if I didn't feel it was just another cliche of the memoir genre. I'm not saying Kindred isn't telling the truth, but just that I feel like, who cares?
One nitpick: Kindred seems oblivious to the glaring problems of even high school girls basketball: too much intensity and too many injuries. He writes approvingly of the team's coach ripping his pants from being a sideline maniac. He repeatedly quotes the coach at season's end telling the girls they have to work harder and come back better for the next season. And when three girls tear ACLs in their knees, Kindred doesn't wonder about the national ACL epidemic, which is attributed to overuse -- ie., girls and boys being told they need to work out more, practice more, etc., in order to get better. Given that this book is supposed to be a sensitive look at sports and life, this is a glaring omission.
Anyway, Dave Kindred led a charmed life, and he's a great sportswriter. His quotes of his own columns are among the book's highlights. I give him credit for giving a taste of the glory of being at all of those great events -- it really does feel like a person "who never worked a day in his life" -- but also gently reminding us that there are sacrifices along the way. Greatness doesn't come without sacrifice, and that's not his message in the book, but I hear it anyway. His message is that there is beauty and salvation even in the small things, in paying attention to and participating in what's nearby, in taking life day-by-day, and all of that is true as well.
This book has a few elements, which he weaves together because they are important in his life. Since I don't know him and have a lot less interest in his life than he does, it's just not all that interesting.
The first element is his youthful ballplaying (good enough to play DIII baseball) and decision to become a sportswriter. He works super hard and lands good jobs and gets plum assignments like the Masters Golf Tournament and tracking down Muhammad Ali. He and Ali apparently hit it off, and Kindred says he sat with him literally hundreds of times (and wrote a book about him).
Kindred was approached by The Washington Post early in his career, but turned it down. On a second reach-out by The Post, he takes the job and travels the world for a few years, covering The Olympics, World Series, golf, etc. He was in the right place over and over, from the Munich games to the 1975 World Series, to watching Secretariat. A charmed life, as he admits. And he was a wonderful writer. I remember his articles and columns from The Post, and I looked forward to them even more than those of others such as Tony Kornheiser and Tom Boswell.
Kindred left The Post for more money at the Atlanta, GA newspaper. I remember that, too, and being surprised. He tells the story with a little bit of anger here, basically accusing The Post of being cheap and reneging on implied significant raises. Interesting, and it, of course, presages the utter collapsed of daily newspapers that happened since 2000. Kindred lost jobs over that, and he laments the hollowing out of the industry, but doesn't lay blame. It's just one of those things.
Anyway, taking an early retirement at about age 60, he and his wife move back to the small Illinois town where they met (Atlanta) and buy a big house and a lot of land. They have a farm. She fixes up the house --- a specialty of hers that apparently led her to climb on scaffolding two stories up to scrape paint off Victorian woodwork. They are happy, but a little uncertain what to do with their time. So Kindred starts following a local high school girls basketball team. And that's part two of the book. This team is on the cusp of greatness, and he enjoys the next decade of watching their exploits and writing about it casually for the local audience. Everyone once in a while, he writes about the experience for a larger audience, too. The latter is a well-worn genre of writing, the love of the innocence and immediacy of games before they are spoiled by money and commercialization. Kindred's remarks in this area aren't better or more interesting than the scores of sportswriters who've come before him.
I've covered girls high school basketball, and I know exactly what he means about the beauty of the game when it's played by energetic, disciplined teams. It's different than the boys game. Less athleticism in the air, less strength, less showboating. The athleticism is the quickness, the movement back and forth, the need to do everything fundamentally right because you can't just jump over your opponent. Kindred does a good job of conveying that style of play.
He repeatedly calls following the girls as redemptive for him, even calling one favorite player "the daughter we never had." This is a team that won several state championships and competing for at least the regional title every year. I would have liked him to speculate on what it would have been like to follow season after season of a mediocre team, perhaps even a bad team that fired its coach. I've followed bad teams for a season as a sportswriter, and it's rarely redemptive, but at the high school level it should be. It should still be about effort and growth and building a future. Kindred is so wrapped up in the success of this team (and the success for life that it creates) that he doesn't stop to think about all the teams left by the roadside with records of 8-17.
The third element of the book is a love letter to his wife of 60 years. About 10 years into their sojourn back to their hometown, she has a major stroke and never recovers. He spends about five years visiting her in a nursing home almost every day, realizing pretty quickly that she will not recover very much, but savoring any good moment. Throughout the book, he's written about his love for her -- his high school sweetheart --- and her unending patience as he traveled the globe for work and was a distracted, anti-social husband, father and neighbor at home. For example, he says they never had any friends when they lived in Virginia while he was at The Post. They lived well outside the city on a mini farm, and he just didn't like talking to other people. The only relationship they apparently had was his son and his son's family, who lived across the street from them in one city and then on property they owned in another. (That stuff blew up, and Kindred references it as well; this is a memoir, so you've got to dig up the negative stuff.)
Anyway, the love story is sweet. I'd be jealous if I didn't feel it was just another cliche of the memoir genre. I'm not saying Kindred isn't telling the truth, but just that I feel like, who cares?
One nitpick: Kindred seems oblivious to the glaring problems of even high school girls basketball: too much intensity and too many injuries. He writes approvingly of the team's coach ripping his pants from being a sideline maniac. He repeatedly quotes the coach at season's end telling the girls they have to work harder and come back better for the next season. And when three girls tear ACLs in their knees, Kindred doesn't wonder about the national ACL epidemic, which is attributed to overuse -- ie., girls and boys being told they need to work out more, practice more, etc., in order to get better. Given that this book is supposed to be a sensitive look at sports and life, this is a glaring omission.
Anyway, Dave Kindred led a charmed life, and he's a great sportswriter. His quotes of his own columns are among the book's highlights. I give him credit for giving a taste of the glory of being at all of those great events -- it really does feel like a person "who never worked a day in his life" -- but also gently reminding us that there are sacrifices along the way. Greatness doesn't come without sacrifice, and that's not his message in the book, but I hear it anyway. His message is that there is beauty and salvation even in the small things, in paying attention to and participating in what's nearby, in taking life day-by-day, and all of that is true as well.
April 7, 2023
When I first read the description of this book sounded familiar. So I looked up the author and came across a ten-minute clip from a Sunday news magazine and remember seeing this in the past and knew i needed to read this book right away.
Dave Kindred is an American sportswriter who grew up in smalltown Illinois where he aspired early on to be a sportswriter. He is a prolific writer who has attended dozens of Worlds series, Superbowl's and Masters golf tournaments and was the closet reporter to Muhamad Ali. He was described by one coach as the Michael Jordan of sports writing. He has written for some of the biggest papers and sports magazines. After living around the U.S., he and his wife proved you can return to home again when and where he planned to retire. But hey writers write, and he got the itch when he attends the local girls high school basketball game. When he asks permission to write stories about the team it was a funny meeting as he describes and in return for writing up these stories he gets paid in mild duds. When the author is confronted with life tragedies, he fines that this team provides a lifeline. In the end it is amazing to hear that he has written more articles about this high school team then any big-league sport or sporting event. Sports fan or not this is still a great read. So i have three recommendations, first buy this book, second watch that video and finally read this great book.
Dave Kindred is an American sportswriter who grew up in smalltown Illinois where he aspired early on to be a sportswriter. He is a prolific writer who has attended dozens of Worlds series, Superbowl's and Masters golf tournaments and was the closet reporter to Muhamad Ali. He was described by one coach as the Michael Jordan of sports writing. He has written for some of the biggest papers and sports magazines. After living around the U.S., he and his wife proved you can return to home again when and where he planned to retire. But hey writers write, and he got the itch when he attends the local girls high school basketball game. When he asks permission to write stories about the team it was a funny meeting as he describes and in return for writing up these stories he gets paid in mild duds. When the author is confronted with life tragedies, he fines that this team provides a lifeline. In the end it is amazing to hear that he has written more articles about this high school team then any big-league sport or sporting event. Sports fan or not this is still a great read. So i have three recommendations, first buy this book, second watch that video and finally read this great book.
May 11, 2023
This book was provided to me from Netgalley, so I can read and review it before it’s published.
I was only interested in this book, because I read that Dave Kindred was a retired former sportswriter, who moved back home and then decided to write about a local high school girls basketball team. That really intrigued me. I also enjoy reading books about people when those people are writers.
After reading it, this basketball team wasn’t just a basketball team. No, this was a powerhouse and they won state championship’s while he was covering them. I covered a small high school boys basketball team as well, and a lot of the stories and people he met along the way, reminded me of those good ole days for me (minus the championships).
In the beginning of the book, he wrote about how he got started as a newspaper sportswriter and towards the end of the book, he wrote about taking care of his wife till she passed away.
I was only interested in this book, because I read that Dave Kindred was a retired former sportswriter, who moved back home and then decided to write about a local high school girls basketball team. That really intrigued me. I also enjoy reading books about people when those people are writers.
After reading it, this basketball team wasn’t just a basketball team. No, this was a powerhouse and they won state championship’s while he was covering them. I covered a small high school boys basketball team as well, and a lot of the stories and people he met along the way, reminded me of those good ole days for me (minus the championships).
In the beginning of the book, he wrote about how he got started as a newspaper sportswriter and towards the end of the book, he wrote about taking care of his wife till she passed away.
October 24, 2023
2.5 stars why did I think I’d like a book about a sports writer in a small town sports team?? I guess I’ve seen that kind of movie and liked it but the contents just didn’t get me emotionally involved? I empathize that he had a long-term love affair with his wife and her slow passing was very difficult but unfortunately, I really was just pretty bored through most of the book. Sorry, I’m sure some people would like it if they followed, along with more of the sports references, but it was not my cup of tea.
June 25, 2023
I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher, for which I thank them.
I recognized the name of this author, probably from my sports loving child. I did some quick research and realized that Mr. Kindred wasn’t quite who I thought he was (I thought he covered mainly baseball), but he’s had both a long and deep sports coverage. I took the advice of someone and watched the 60 Minutes interview Ms. Kindred gave a number of years ago. So, I was very pleased to get an advance copy of this book. I’m going to the be the outlier here. This wasn’t quite the book I thought it was going to be. This book is divided into three sections - part one deals with Mr. Kindred’s sport writing career - covering Muhammad Ali’s various fights, moving to different papers, and his passion about writing. That was interesting to me, especially the section on writing with passion and writing well. However, it felt like because he knew about something, even quoting his articles, that the audience would also recall the details about the thing too. In some cases, I did know about the events (Frazier/Ali fights) but in others, I was scrambling to the internet to jog my memory. The second part was about his new adventure reporting on the local high school girl’s basketball team. I’ll admit it, I got a bit lost in this section too. This time it was due to so many names of players and, honestly, while Mr. Kindred’s descriptive writing is fantastic, but I cannot follow basketball in my mind well. I felt the tension of the team hoping to go the distance, and Mr. Kindred’s obvious love and care for the team and the game - but something just didn't click with me. The third section was about caring for his wife after her stroke. This section was the most heartfelt and touching. I cannot quite explain why this book didn’t work - though I think best would be to say that I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. If you like basketball, like good sports writing, or want to be a journalist, this is a fantastic book to pick up.
I recognized the name of this author, probably from my sports loving child. I did some quick research and realized that Mr. Kindred wasn’t quite who I thought he was (I thought he covered mainly baseball), but he’s had both a long and deep sports coverage. I took the advice of someone and watched the 60 Minutes interview Ms. Kindred gave a number of years ago. So, I was very pleased to get an advance copy of this book. I’m going to the be the outlier here. This wasn’t quite the book I thought it was going to be. This book is divided into three sections - part one deals with Mr. Kindred’s sport writing career - covering Muhammad Ali’s various fights, moving to different papers, and his passion about writing. That was interesting to me, especially the section on writing with passion and writing well. However, it felt like because he knew about something, even quoting his articles, that the audience would also recall the details about the thing too. In some cases, I did know about the events (Frazier/Ali fights) but in others, I was scrambling to the internet to jog my memory. The second part was about his new adventure reporting on the local high school girl’s basketball team. I’ll admit it, I got a bit lost in this section too. This time it was due to so many names of players and, honestly, while Mr. Kindred’s descriptive writing is fantastic, but I cannot follow basketball in my mind well. I felt the tension of the team hoping to go the distance, and Mr. Kindred’s obvious love and care for the team and the game - but something just didn't click with me. The third section was about caring for his wife after her stroke. This section was the most heartfelt and touching. I cannot quite explain why this book didn’t work - though I think best would be to say that I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. If you like basketball, like good sports writing, or want to be a journalist, this is a fantastic book to pick up.
July 12, 2024
In part one of Dave Kindred’s memoir he is interviewing Muhammad Ali, he’s covering the Masters, the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby and he’s doing it for the Washington Post and the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. In part two, he’s in small town Illinois and he’s covering the local girls high school basketball team for a web site.
Early on in the story I enjoyed a look at the world of newspapers as they used to be, ambitious young reporters hopping from city to city to push their way up the ladder. Kindred is a newbie when he lands a gig in the sports department at the Louisville Courier Journal. For him, it’s hitting the big time. I don’t know what the status of the Louisville Courier Journal is today but my guess is the thrill is gone.
I’m not necessarily a fan of Kindred’s writing. I have some experience as a journalist and was trained in news where the goal was to be clear and concise, simple and straightforward. If you work is sports you can take a bit more liberty with the language but still passages like this make me shudder a little:
“Dreamy, so dreamy, floating in a rosy jewel of a bowl at the foot of mountains caressed by clouds and snow, the Washington Redskins today won the world championship they last won 40 years ago.”
Kindred has a lot of great stories to tell. Unfortunately he wraps most of them up in a couple graphs.
The girls’ high school team that Kindred adopts in his retirement seems straight out of a Disney script. The 5’5 girls from some backwoods hamlet beat the big city six footers with their heart and grit. Kindred goes through six or seven seasons of Lady Potters basketball and by the end I’m more bored than inspired.
At the same time he’s writing from the Potterdome, the author is dealing with the decline of his beloved wife after she suffers a stroke and is confined to a nursing home. If nothing else, this part of the story, told at the same time as he describes his connection to the young athletes of Morton High, is heartfelt and moving.
Early on in the story I enjoyed a look at the world of newspapers as they used to be, ambitious young reporters hopping from city to city to push their way up the ladder. Kindred is a newbie when he lands a gig in the sports department at the Louisville Courier Journal. For him, it’s hitting the big time. I don’t know what the status of the Louisville Courier Journal is today but my guess is the thrill is gone.
I’m not necessarily a fan of Kindred’s writing. I have some experience as a journalist and was trained in news where the goal was to be clear and concise, simple and straightforward. If you work is sports you can take a bit more liberty with the language but still passages like this make me shudder a little:
“Dreamy, so dreamy, floating in a rosy jewel of a bowl at the foot of mountains caressed by clouds and snow, the Washington Redskins today won the world championship they last won 40 years ago.”
Kindred has a lot of great stories to tell. Unfortunately he wraps most of them up in a couple graphs.
The girls’ high school team that Kindred adopts in his retirement seems straight out of a Disney script. The 5’5 girls from some backwoods hamlet beat the big city six footers with their heart and grit. Kindred goes through six or seven seasons of Lady Potters basketball and by the end I’m more bored than inspired.
At the same time he’s writing from the Potterdome, the author is dealing with the decline of his beloved wife after she suffers a stroke and is confined to a nursing home. If nothing else, this part of the story, told at the same time as he describes his connection to the young athletes of Morton High, is heartfelt and moving.
October 24, 2023
Sportswriter for Wx Post when I was in high school and for a number of other papers before and after. This memoir starts with reminiscences from his sportswriting days, many involving Muhammad Ali whom he knew quite well from his stint with a Louisville paper. He was there for numerous historic games (e.g., Carlton Fisk home run in game 6) and tragic events (terrorism at the 1972 Olympics in Munich). All well-written but fairly typical of the genre and a light 3-star read
Back half of the book is much more affecting, a 5-star detailed (for those who aren't into basketball, probably far too detailed at times -- you can tell he kept VERY extensive game notes) story interweaving his move with his wife back to small-town Illinois life in the wake of the death of their grandson who had apparently had severe addiction problem described more in another book by the author. They find contentment in a simple life of retirement and joy in becoming superfans--and the web content provider--for a great (e.g., 4 state championships in 5 years) high school girls basketball team.
If it were fiction, you might say it's cheesy how his involvement with the high school team and through them the community helps him cope as his wife declines after a stroke, but since this a real life I'll just say it's touching.
Back half of the book is much more affecting, a 5-star detailed (for those who aren't into basketball, probably far too detailed at times -- you can tell he kept VERY extensive game notes) story interweaving his move with his wife back to small-town Illinois life in the wake of the death of their grandson who had apparently had severe addiction problem described more in another book by the author. They find contentment in a simple life of retirement and joy in becoming superfans--and the web content provider--for a great (e.g., 4 state championships in 5 years) high school girls basketball team.
If it were fiction, you might say it's cheesy how his involvement with the high school team and through them the community helps him cope as his wife declines after a stroke, but since this a real life I'll just say it's touching.
September 12, 2023
You may recall the “60 Minutes” story of a couple years ago about famed sportswriter Dave Kindred’s late-in-life dedication to covering a girls high school basketball team.
As it turns out, that was a forerunner for this excellent memoir that is, in part, an account of his life covering major sports events, including dozens of Masters Tournaments, Olympics, World Series and Super Bowls and a decades-long relationship with Muhammad Ali.
Interesting stuff for sports fans. But the core of this book is about how a mostly-retired sportswriter backed into watching, liking and then writing about a girls basketball squad and how it has helped him through some really tough times.
Kindred's finely-tuned telling of a lifetime of experiences--some thrilling, some painful--make this a really good read.
As it turns out, that was a forerunner for this excellent memoir that is, in part, an account of his life covering major sports events, including dozens of Masters Tournaments, Olympics, World Series and Super Bowls and a decades-long relationship with Muhammad Ali.
Interesting stuff for sports fans. But the core of this book is about how a mostly-retired sportswriter backed into watching, liking and then writing about a girls basketball squad and how it has helped him through some really tough times.
Kindred's finely-tuned telling of a lifetime of experiences--some thrilling, some painful--make this a really good read.
July 18, 2024
What a poignant and entertaining story. The author is a sports writer, and part of this book goes through his early start as a journalist, and explores some of the highs and lows of his career. Then, he retires... and the real fun begins. He starts watching the local high school's girls basketball team, and his itch to write comes back. So he arranges to write in the school newsletter about the games. His Salary: A box of Milkduds for every game. And then the story really takes off, as he and his wife fall in love with high school sports, the girls, their parents, and then the whole town. And when his wife becomes ill, these sweet, happy, exuberant girls become his lifeline as he fights depression and loneliness through his wife's health challenges. Superbly written and heartfelt. I loved it.
October 4, 2023
This is a little difficult to rate since I know the author and he spoke at our non-fiction book club last year at my request for his book, Leave Out the Tragic Parts. It was a great discussion and the book club loved reviewing with the author. It is a deeply moving story about his grandson.
This book reviews his early years in writing and later talks about the time when he "retired" and moved back home to Central Illinois and his writing about a local high school girl's basketball team - the Morton Potters.
Later he talks about his wife's stroke and how their life changed. It demonstrates Dave's deep love for his wife. I believe that it is also about a writer wanting to continue with his life's work after he "retired".
Very good book.
This book reviews his early years in writing and later talks about the time when he "retired" and moved back home to Central Illinois and his writing about a local high school girl's basketball team - the Morton Potters.
Later he talks about his wife's stroke and how their life changed. It demonstrates Dave's deep love for his wife. I believe that it is also about a writer wanting to continue with his life's work after he "retired".
Very good book.
April 30, 2023
This one was a tale of two books for me. Act 1, a retelling of the author's childhood in Illinois and his professional life, was interesting in its scope, but not compelling to me. I actually felt a little misled, because I expected a story about high school basketball. Act 2 was redemption, and to me, was clearly the heart of the tale. The author's love for his wife and the high school team was brilliantly captured and beautifully displayed.
I heartily recommend this. Well done.
I received a complimentary copy of the book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I heartily recommend this. Well done.
I received a complimentary copy of the book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
November 7, 2023
Someone more familiar with sports would probably have enjoyed the book more, but I only found it ok. The sports reporting anecdotes were not gone into in much depth. And the high school basketball team was gone into in far too much depth. Much of the book felt like jotted notes in his diary stretched into paragraphs. But the biggest criticism I have is that Kindred didn't explain at all what caused the rift with his son and daughter-in-law. It's odd that Kindred's wife attended the visit to their grandson but never said a word to her son and daughter-in-law. Why bring that up if you aren't going to explain it? It would have been a much more interesting book if he had.
October 17, 2023
Entertaining and well written, this book is really two stories: a memoir of Kindred's career as a nationally -known sports columnist and his late-in-life love affair with his local girls basketball team. He weaves into the work his nearly lifelong love affair with his wife, Cheryl. Kindred's work is refreshing in that he doesn't dwell on the past through a modern lens and that then he can discuss covering Adolph Rupp and going to a costume party dressed as Rhett and Scarlett without much hand wringing. Highly recommend!
February 27, 2024
I grew up with three brothers who were very sports minded and played every season. I was the follower- baseball, basketball, golf, football, track...my participation was lacking -my heart was there but not my abilities. However, I was in the "Grandma Row". Always cheering- sometimes the scorekeeper so I could really relate with Mr. Kindred. I also grew up in a super small community where the weekend games were "the social event". Every win was celebrated by all! Good read for me- definitely not for everyone.
March 24, 2024
I enjoyed this book. Kindred is a good writer and as a sports fan it hits my sweet spot. The book is more of a recollection of Kindred's career as a sportswriter and tribute to his deceased wife. It is endearing how his involvement with the small-town Lady Potters basketball team got him through very tough times throughout his wife's illness. Kindred is a very heralded and award winning sports writer but he is very humble when writing about himself. I would have liked more specifics and details on the Lady-Potters amazing runs to state championships. Some of it was vague.
December 26, 2025
An easy and heartwarming read about a longtime sportswriter who ended up covering a small-town girls’ basketball team in Illinois at the end of a career that included Super Bowls, World Series, and a close relationship with Muhammad Ali.
It was fitting to read this while I’m currently covering high school sports in North Dakota. It was interesting to hear about the contrast from what he spent most of his career doing. Just a nice, simple read overall.
It was fitting to read this while I’m currently covering high school sports in North Dakota. It was interesting to hear about the contrast from what he spent most of his career doing. Just a nice, simple read overall.
February 15, 2024
I remember reading Kindred often. And at my age slot, the first have of this book was all fun memories. Once Kindred moves to retirement, the book focuses on the HS girls basketball team. Coverage of the first few years was fun. Then each year after was more of the same, and an understandably slow and melancholy drift into the subjects of aging. Half a book of pleasure
July 16, 2025
This is the best book I have read in some time. Dave Kindred's memoir has it all sports, love, enduring hardships, and re-making yourself.
I was enthralled by the Super Bowls, big basketball games, and Kindred's life as a big-time writer. But it was his time as an elderly husband and girls basketball fan that made the book.
This book will make you smile, laugh, cry, and think.
I was enthralled by the Super Bowls, big basketball games, and Kindred's life as a big-time writer. But it was his time as an elderly husband and girls basketball fan that made the book.
This book will make you smile, laugh, cry, and think.
December 13, 2023
The look, the feel and the impact of a high school girls basketball team on the the players, coaches, community.
As well documented by one of our best sportswriters who thought he was leaving the big city lights of professional sports for a retirement life in his mid West hometown.
As well documented by one of our best sportswriters who thought he was leaving the big city lights of professional sports for a retirement life in his mid West hometown.
January 18, 2024
Dave Kindred is a great writer, no doubt. The book was entertaining but lagged a bit in the second half as it became a blow-by-blow description of the Morton team's games-not all that interesting to the casual reader.
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