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A March to Madness: A View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference
It's the book in which America's favorite sportswriter returns to the arena of his most successful bestseller, A Season on the Brink. It's the book that takes us inside the intensely competitive Atlantic Coast Conference & paints a portrait of how college baskettball is coached & played at the highest level. It's the book that takes us onto the courts, into the locker rooms, & inside the high-pressure world of the talented coaches who have helped make the ACC's nine colleges - Duke, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Virginia, Maryland, Wake Forest, & Florida State - world-renowned for their championship basketball teams. The author's afterword to this edition will recap the ACC's current season & preview the 1998-99 rivalries.
501 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
26 people are currently reading
955 people want to read
About the author
John Feinstein
75 books591 followersJohn Feinstein was an American sportswriter, author, and sports commentator.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
December 1, 2020
This is a fine book on the "intensely competitive" ACC conference teams during the 1997 season. I enjoyed it.
For the record, the 5th place team from the then PAC 10 conference (the Arizona Wildcats) won the National Championship that year. It wasn't a fluke.
I wonder if Feinstein ever wished his book had been on the PAC 10 that year instead. ;)
For the record, the 5th place team from the then PAC 10 conference (the Arizona Wildcats) won the National Championship that year. It wasn't a fluke.
I wonder if Feinstein ever wished his book had been on the PAC 10 that year instead. ;)
January 29, 2020
Sahsen ben basketbola merakli oldugum icin aldim ve okudum ama icerisinde efsane yazim hatalari var tabi bu cok onemli degil duzeltilebilir fakat sayisi o kadar fazla ki can sikici olabiliyor. Ceviri bir kitap ve zaman zaman gercekten ceviri sebebi ile anlam eksikliklerini fark edebiliyorsunuz. Son olarak ise ceviriden dolayi mi yoksa kitabin orjinalinde yazarin dili mi boyle bilmiyorum ama cok heyecanli anlar bile kitabi okurken sizde heyecan uyandirmiyor.
March 20, 2009
The ACC has always been known as a competitive basketball conference. But what else do we really know about the ACC?
John Feinstein plunges into the Atlantic Coast Conference, and explores each individual team, as well as each coach. It talks about the rivalries, as well as the history of teams, in a well put cleverly well put together way. Instead of droning on in a massive clump of subjects and managing to squeak in mention of a specific team, he states the subject, than thoroughly takes each team and coach and covers everything there is to know about that team in the subject he's talking about.
John Feinstein is an author I have heard and read a lot about, and is known for his sports book. It's great to read a book by a guy who actually gets sports, and also has a sense of humor to add to his extensive knowledge of the game of basketball. He spent a lot of time with the teams while writing the book, so he has basically everything you want to know as an ACC fan.
Obviously this isn't somethig that was really part of the book, but I found this book really interesting, because it was published in '97, so I will hear about young coaches in the book who are now successful with other teams. And a bunch of player who are now in the NBA, who were playing at the time, and even players who I knew played at a certain school, but I didn't know those were in fact the dates they were playing. It all makes for an even more interesting read.
If, you are a basketball, or you just follow college basketball, or even just make a bracket for the NCAA tournament, this book will become absolutely addicting. Every page you find yourself thinking, "Oh, I think I knew that he played for Duke" or "I never knew Clemson won that year." It's a college hoops fan's dream book.
John Feinstein plunges into the Atlantic Coast Conference, and explores each individual team, as well as each coach. It talks about the rivalries, as well as the history of teams, in a well put cleverly well put together way. Instead of droning on in a massive clump of subjects and managing to squeak in mention of a specific team, he states the subject, than thoroughly takes each team and coach and covers everything there is to know about that team in the subject he's talking about.
John Feinstein is an author I have heard and read a lot about, and is known for his sports book. It's great to read a book by a guy who actually gets sports, and also has a sense of humor to add to his extensive knowledge of the game of basketball. He spent a lot of time with the teams while writing the book, so he has basically everything you want to know as an ACC fan.
Obviously this isn't somethig that was really part of the book, but I found this book really interesting, because it was published in '97, so I will hear about young coaches in the book who are now successful with other teams. And a bunch of player who are now in the NBA, who were playing at the time, and even players who I knew played at a certain school, but I didn't know those were in fact the dates they were playing. It all makes for an even more interesting read.
If, you are a basketball, or you just follow college basketball, or even just make a bracket for the NCAA tournament, this book will become absolutely addicting. Every page you find yourself thinking, "Oh, I think I knew that he played for Duke" or "I never knew Clemson won that year." It's a college hoops fan's dream book.
July 10, 2013
Very detailed yet quite interesting look back to one season in ACC men's college basketball. I remember many of the games discussed but liked reading about the "behind the scenes" and insight into the coaches' histories and personalities. Highly recommend to any college basketball fan!
March 16, 2025
John Feinstein was one of my favorite sportswriters
https://popculturelunchbox.substack.c...
There are a handful of teachers and sportswriters who truly inspired me to become a newspaper sportswriter in my mid-20s. They include one of my journalism professors at Southern Illinois University Bill Ward, Buzz Bissinger and his Friday Night Lights, and of course the likes of Jon Wertheim and Frank Deford at Sports Illustrated.
But arguably my biggest influence was John Feinstein, whose books and Washington Post writings took us deep into the lives of athletes and others intersecting with the sports world. It didn’t matter if it was basektball, football, baseball, tennis, golf, or others, Feinstein wanted to know what drove these people towards winning and sometimes excellence.
He has passed away suddenly at age 69 of possibly a heart attack. But he also had gout and diabetes and, like most sportswriters I knew, had a terrible “always on deadline” diet. That lifestyle was one of the reasons I decided to move away from sports writing.
Feinstein was launched to fame in the journalism world with the publication of A Season on the Brink, a best seller about coach Bobby Knight and the 1985-86 Indiana University basketball team.
Perhaps my favorite Feinstein book is A March to Madness: The View From the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Feinstein was a living log of ACC basketball history, having watched all the way back to the 1960s, “when the ACC game of the week was televised in New York City on WPIX on tape delay.”
Even though he was a Duke graduate, Feinstein always treated the Duke-North Carolina rivalry with a professional reporter’s neutrality. UNC coach Dean Smith had won more games at the point that the book was written in 1998 than any other coach in history and the author said Smith would “literally begin squirming when you ask any question that is even a little bit personal. But I have tremendous respect for him and the program he has created.”
Making me now feel really old, Smith retired in 1997 before the publication of the book. But the elusive mindset and thinking of Smith was excellently captured, as Feinstein’s goal was to understand how each of the nine ACC coaches at that time operated. The short answer is that each and every one of them had a burning desire to play on “Monday night”—code language for the national championship game.
There was never much mingling between Smith and the other ACC coaches. “Part of it came from Smith being the target in the league for so many years. Part of it came from his shyness, which some coaches saw as aloofness.” The UNC coach and Duke leader Mike Krzyzewski had not gotten along since the early 1980s, when Krzyzewski often said that the refs played favorites with North Carolina (funny, it’s always seemed to this Tarheels fan that the refs are in Duke’s pocket).
A funny anecdote: one time a Kentucky coach accused Smith of calling him a sonofabitch, but the Tarheels coach—famously perhaps the only college basketball coach who never used cuss words, the exact opposite detailed in Feinstein’s book on Knight—said, “I smoke and I drink. If I cursed too, my parents would never speak to me again.”
Feinstein’s life story of former Wake Forest coach Dave Odom is probably particularly touching to me, as he grew up in Goldsboro, North Carolina and went on to Guilford College in Greensboro, just like my own dad’s early-life trek. Odom always knew he would be a coach. He bounced around at high schools and colleges in North Carolina before becoming an assistant coach at Virginia when the legendary Ralph Sampson was there. Eventually he was named as Wake Forest’s coach, where he soon recruited Randolph Childress, Rodney Rogers, and one Tim Duncan. Odom saw potential in the “skinny kid from the Virgin Islands. Maybe, he thought, he could redshirt him a year to put some weight on him. Maybe, by his third year at Wake, he could be an effective player. Little did Odom know that the day he signed Duncan, his coaching life would be changed forever.”
Rick Barnes left Providence to coach the ACC’s worst team Clemson. He instituted a slow-down system and the team began to believe in him and also began to win. He also got in spats with Smith as the Jerry Stackhouse-Rasheed Wallace Tarheels dominated the Tigers in all three of their matchups covered in Feinstein’s book, with Clemson’s crowds going crazy over supposedly unfair refereeing and Smith allegedly talking to Barnes’ players on the court. Even the Dean Dome crowds shouted down Barnes constantly, and they are “about as mild as you will find, especially in the ACC.” At the end of the next season, Clemson stunned UNC with a last-second win in the first round of the ACC Tournament. Clemson’s rise had begun.
https://popculturelunchbox.substack.c...
There are a handful of teachers and sportswriters who truly inspired me to become a newspaper sportswriter in my mid-20s. They include one of my journalism professors at Southern Illinois University Bill Ward, Buzz Bissinger and his Friday Night Lights, and of course the likes of Jon Wertheim and Frank Deford at Sports Illustrated.
But arguably my biggest influence was John Feinstein, whose books and Washington Post writings took us deep into the lives of athletes and others intersecting with the sports world. It didn’t matter if it was basektball, football, baseball, tennis, golf, or others, Feinstein wanted to know what drove these people towards winning and sometimes excellence.
He has passed away suddenly at age 69 of possibly a heart attack. But he also had gout and diabetes and, like most sportswriters I knew, had a terrible “always on deadline” diet. That lifestyle was one of the reasons I decided to move away from sports writing.
Feinstein was launched to fame in the journalism world with the publication of A Season on the Brink, a best seller about coach Bobby Knight and the 1985-86 Indiana University basketball team.
Perhaps my favorite Feinstein book is A March to Madness: The View From the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Feinstein was a living log of ACC basketball history, having watched all the way back to the 1960s, “when the ACC game of the week was televised in New York City on WPIX on tape delay.”
Even though he was a Duke graduate, Feinstein always treated the Duke-North Carolina rivalry with a professional reporter’s neutrality. UNC coach Dean Smith had won more games at the point that the book was written in 1998 than any other coach in history and the author said Smith would “literally begin squirming when you ask any question that is even a little bit personal. But I have tremendous respect for him and the program he has created.”
Making me now feel really old, Smith retired in 1997 before the publication of the book. But the elusive mindset and thinking of Smith was excellently captured, as Feinstein’s goal was to understand how each of the nine ACC coaches at that time operated. The short answer is that each and every one of them had a burning desire to play on “Monday night”—code language for the national championship game.
There was never much mingling between Smith and the other ACC coaches. “Part of it came from Smith being the target in the league for so many years. Part of it came from his shyness, which some coaches saw as aloofness.” The UNC coach and Duke leader Mike Krzyzewski had not gotten along since the early 1980s, when Krzyzewski often said that the refs played favorites with North Carolina (funny, it’s always seemed to this Tarheels fan that the refs are in Duke’s pocket).
A funny anecdote: one time a Kentucky coach accused Smith of calling him a sonofabitch, but the Tarheels coach—famously perhaps the only college basketball coach who never used cuss words, the exact opposite detailed in Feinstein’s book on Knight—said, “I smoke and I drink. If I cursed too, my parents would never speak to me again.”
Feinstein’s life story of former Wake Forest coach Dave Odom is probably particularly touching to me, as he grew up in Goldsboro, North Carolina and went on to Guilford College in Greensboro, just like my own dad’s early-life trek. Odom always knew he would be a coach. He bounced around at high schools and colleges in North Carolina before becoming an assistant coach at Virginia when the legendary Ralph Sampson was there. Eventually he was named as Wake Forest’s coach, where he soon recruited Randolph Childress, Rodney Rogers, and one Tim Duncan. Odom saw potential in the “skinny kid from the Virgin Islands. Maybe, he thought, he could redshirt him a year to put some weight on him. Maybe, by his third year at Wake, he could be an effective player. Little did Odom know that the day he signed Duncan, his coaching life would be changed forever.”
Rick Barnes left Providence to coach the ACC’s worst team Clemson. He instituted a slow-down system and the team began to believe in him and also began to win. He also got in spats with Smith as the Jerry Stackhouse-Rasheed Wallace Tarheels dominated the Tigers in all three of their matchups covered in Feinstein’s book, with Clemson’s crowds going crazy over supposedly unfair refereeing and Smith allegedly talking to Barnes’ players on the court. Even the Dean Dome crowds shouted down Barnes constantly, and they are “about as mild as you will find, especially in the ACC.” At the end of the next season, Clemson stunned UNC with a last-second win in the first round of the ACC Tournament. Clemson’s rise had begun.
September 3, 2021
For those who love sports, there are few writers who can capture the essence of the drama and the drive of athletic competition as good as John Feinstein. Whether he's writing about golf, football, baseball, basketball or any number of sports, Feinstein speaks both the passion and the language of the game. With "A March to Madness: The View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference," the author goes deep inside ACC college basketball from the start of season all the way to March Madness and the NCAA Final Four.
The Atlantic Coast Conference has some of the best and most competitive college basketball teams in the United States. John Feinstein takes on the 1996-1997 season through all nine ACC teams, their players, coaches and all the games throughout. The author takes the reader inside the lives and minds of the nine ACC coaches: Rick Barnes at Clemson University in South Carolina, Bobby Cremins at Georgia Tech, Jeff Jones at the University of Virginia, Pat Kennedy from Florida State University, Mike Krzyzewski at Duke University in North Carolina, Dave Odom at Wake Forest in North Carolina, Gary Williams at the University of Maryland, Herb Sendek at North Carolina State as well as the legendary Dean Smith at the University of North Carolina.
While both Herb Sendek and Dean Smith declined the author's request for full and complete access, John Feinstein still had unprecedented reach among the seven other ACC coaches and teams during meetings, practices, locker rooms, buses, planes, hotels and wherever ACC basketball took them. While "A March to Madness: The View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference" focuses on the 96-97 season primarily through the eyes of the nine coaches, the reader still gets a great glimpse inside the challenges and conflicts inside and outside the season's games.
The author's strengths lie in his ability to bring out the great human stories behind the road to the Final Four. Each coach has his own style, and his own history with basketball. They all began as players who loved the game, which soon evolved into storied careers paths for them all. John Feinstein also did a great job presenting the monumental challenges both the coaches and players face in each and every game...from moody players, to imperfect refs and bad calls, to fouls galore and raging egos to injured athletes and poor sports. There is SO much that can happen in a college basketball game...winners win, and sometimes those same winners lose badly. There are easy wins, and surprising upsets.
As much as I liked John Feinstein's writing, and appreciated learning about people like Dean Smith and Mike Krzyzewski, I found "A March to Madness: The View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference" to be a challenge to read at times. Yes, I am by no means the target audience for this book, and went into it having close to zero knowledge of the ACC or college basketball. That said, I have read other John Feinstein books and did not feel as lost and confused as I did on this one.
I loved when John Feinstein told a good story, yet other times I found myself lost in terms of who was who, who said what, what seed meant to what conference, what all of the numbers meant, and what the rules were how exactly the NCAA conference was structured. In other words, "A March to Madness: The View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference" may be good, yet for the layman who doesn't know from ACC or NCAA, the book was a challenge to get through.
However, on a positive note, John Feinstein's work on "A March to Madness: The View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference" was good enough for me to root for some coaches and teams, and feel disappointed when they lost. I was angry at refs, and upset when players did not give a game their all. Despite my ignorance to the sport and conference, I still managed to get caught up in the whole thing (at times). There's something to be said for that.
The Atlantic Coast Conference has some of the best and most competitive college basketball teams in the United States. John Feinstein takes on the 1996-1997 season through all nine ACC teams, their players, coaches and all the games throughout. The author takes the reader inside the lives and minds of the nine ACC coaches: Rick Barnes at Clemson University in South Carolina, Bobby Cremins at Georgia Tech, Jeff Jones at the University of Virginia, Pat Kennedy from Florida State University, Mike Krzyzewski at Duke University in North Carolina, Dave Odom at Wake Forest in North Carolina, Gary Williams at the University of Maryland, Herb Sendek at North Carolina State as well as the legendary Dean Smith at the University of North Carolina.
While both Herb Sendek and Dean Smith declined the author's request for full and complete access, John Feinstein still had unprecedented reach among the seven other ACC coaches and teams during meetings, practices, locker rooms, buses, planes, hotels and wherever ACC basketball took them. While "A March to Madness: The View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference" focuses on the 96-97 season primarily through the eyes of the nine coaches, the reader still gets a great glimpse inside the challenges and conflicts inside and outside the season's games.
The author's strengths lie in his ability to bring out the great human stories behind the road to the Final Four. Each coach has his own style, and his own history with basketball. They all began as players who loved the game, which soon evolved into storied careers paths for them all. John Feinstein also did a great job presenting the monumental challenges both the coaches and players face in each and every game...from moody players, to imperfect refs and bad calls, to fouls galore and raging egos to injured athletes and poor sports. There is SO much that can happen in a college basketball game...winners win, and sometimes those same winners lose badly. There are easy wins, and surprising upsets.
As much as I liked John Feinstein's writing, and appreciated learning about people like Dean Smith and Mike Krzyzewski, I found "A March to Madness: The View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference" to be a challenge to read at times. Yes, I am by no means the target audience for this book, and went into it having close to zero knowledge of the ACC or college basketball. That said, I have read other John Feinstein books and did not feel as lost and confused as I did on this one.
I loved when John Feinstein told a good story, yet other times I found myself lost in terms of who was who, who said what, what seed meant to what conference, what all of the numbers meant, and what the rules were how exactly the NCAA conference was structured. In other words, "A March to Madness: The View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference" may be good, yet for the layman who doesn't know from ACC or NCAA, the book was a challenge to get through.
However, on a positive note, John Feinstein's work on "A March to Madness: The View from the Floor in the Atlantic Coast Conference" was good enough for me to root for some coaches and teams, and feel disappointed when they lost. I was angry at refs, and upset when players did not give a game their all. Despite my ignorance to the sport and conference, I still managed to get caught up in the whole thing (at times). There's something to be said for that.
June 21, 2018
Because I can sit for hours and read minutiae about the sidelines, coaching decisions, and team drama of college basketball, Feinstein can keep writing these sorts of books and I'll keep reading them. Admittedly, I'm several decades behind, but some/many of the players (now former players) and coaches are still relevant, or the memories of their performances are fresh enough to keep these stories relevant. Feinstein is adept at weaving numerous stories from each team in the 1990s era ACC into one comprehensive narrative that I never tired of reading. I'll continue to read his work, and I'll catch up to him some day...
May 24, 2020
A classic for basketball lovers. Feinstein is a master storyteller and he really lucked out with this season. It's a shame that the two coaches with the stories most worth telling in the year he wrote about were the two that gave him the most limited access. The Gary Williams and Dave Odom scenes are the best, as are the many officiating controversies. I get that the point of the book is the coaches, but I would have loved to see more about the players and the fanbases. It's really the fans and the history that make the ACC what it is. Still, it's one of the best books about an insane and indescribable sports phenomenon that I've read.
January 20, 2023
This book serves as a quasi-sequel to Feinstein's book A Season Inside which followed several coaches and players from the 1988 college basketball season. This book is similar and follows several of the same coaches like Rick Barnes and Gary Williams. However these coaches are in the Atlantic Coast Conference along with ACC stalwarts Dean Smith, Bobby Cremins and Mike Krzyzewski. The book follows these coaches through a full season of ACC basketball all the way to the Final Four. I believe A Season Inside was Feinstein's masterpiece. I enjoyed this one but would have rather seen him with some players too.
November 18, 2022
I really enjoyed this book. Certainly, having attended Wake Forest from 1994-1998 was a huge point of interest for me in reading this. But since this era of ACC basketball is now completely finished, with Coach K's retirement, it was all the more interesting to read so much about Dean Smith, K, and the rest of the coaches in the ACC during that time. Seeing the player names brought back many fond memories as well.
March 30, 2019
A very good, in depth, honest coverage of the lives of college basketball coaches and the players in the ever competitive A.C.C. It is amazing how these coaches are so "inbred" in their little networks, and Feinstein reveals how insecure these men really are.
April 28, 2024
A deep dive into the entire season of ACC basketball in 1997. It was enjoyable reading about Tim Duncan, Vince Carter and Antwan Jameson and reliving 27 years ago but I’m not sure this is for the casual fan.
September 27, 2017
Too much Rick Barnes and not enough Gary Williams.
August 24, 2018
Decent book, talks about March Madness on the Atlantic Coast Bracket that included many good teams, and had many good games.
December 5, 2021
Great read for College basketball fans
March 10, 2022
I read this book 20 years to late.
July 11, 2022
Not a better writer about college basketball in the role than John Feinstein. The access he gets is incredible.
May 29, 2023
I really miss Maryland in the ACC.
September 10, 2024
A must read if you like ACC basketball.
May 12, 2025
The good: You get a great look into an ACC season.
The bad: It's repetitive and not edited well (Example: A Dean Smith quote is attributed to someone else).
The bad: It's repetitive and not edited well (Example: A Dean Smith quote is attributed to someone else).
May 13, 2008
I have read more than a few John Feinstein books, and I do not think that he is ever better than when he is writing about college basketball. This book follows the ups and down of the nine (before the conference was forever tainted by the inclusion of BC, Miami, and Va Tech) member institutions of the Atlantic Coast Conference during the 1996-1997 season.
The 96/97 season was truly memorable, especially with the competitiveness of the ACC. In a lot of ways, 96/97 was one of the last really great years of the conference with so many great and very good teams throughout the conference. I think the conference is a bit top heavy now with Duke and NC at the top and the rest of the league usually a bit far behind. In 96/97, at the top of the conference you had UNC with Dean Smith making one last run at the Final Four, Duke becoming the Duke we would all grow to hate with jump shooting specialists like Steve Wojo and Trajan Langdon and even more annoying people like Greg Newton, Wake Forest with Tim Duncan, Clemson with Buckner and McIntyre and coached by Rick Barnes, and Maryland, starting to come into their own with Gary Williams coaching folks like Laron Profit and Keith Booth. Even the average teams in the conference, like Virginia and Florida State seemed a lot better during that season. Indeed, the depth of quality teams in the league during that season, has really not been surpassed since that period.
What I appreciated the most about the book was the stroll down memory lane. So many memorable players and coaches like Ricky Peral of Wake Forest, Jeremy Hyatt of NC State, Serge Zwicker of UNC, and Kerry Thompson of Florida State have really been forgotten until I read this book. Locally, although I had fully converted to my alma mater (who would soon sign an up and coming coach in Billy Donovan after this season) during that period, 96/97 should be remembered as the last year of the Pat Kennedy era. (Well overshadowed by Dean Smith’s retirement that same year). Kennedy always had his teams prepared and it is interesting to note that FSU has only been in the NCAA Tourney once (the very next year) since Pat Kennedy left. He brought talent to the school and in all honesty, even though basketball was always an afterthought, Kennedy brought the program to heights it had not previously been at, it is a bit sad he is not recognized locally for his coaching ability.
At times, the book is a bit too much of a love fest to Coach K, but that is understandable considering where Feinstein went to school. I really appreciated all of the mini-biographies of the coaches; however, I thought the section of the book detailing the NCAA Tourney felt a bit rushed, especially after the shot by shot account of various early season games like Duke vs. Indiana in the NIT and Wake Forest and Virginia going through the usual early fare of non-conference cupcakes. A nice break for me in the eun of classic novels I have been reading lately.
The 96/97 season was truly memorable, especially with the competitiveness of the ACC. In a lot of ways, 96/97 was one of the last really great years of the conference with so many great and very good teams throughout the conference. I think the conference is a bit top heavy now with Duke and NC at the top and the rest of the league usually a bit far behind. In 96/97, at the top of the conference you had UNC with Dean Smith making one last run at the Final Four, Duke becoming the Duke we would all grow to hate with jump shooting specialists like Steve Wojo and Trajan Langdon and even more annoying people like Greg Newton, Wake Forest with Tim Duncan, Clemson with Buckner and McIntyre and coached by Rick Barnes, and Maryland, starting to come into their own with Gary Williams coaching folks like Laron Profit and Keith Booth. Even the average teams in the conference, like Virginia and Florida State seemed a lot better during that season. Indeed, the depth of quality teams in the league during that season, has really not been surpassed since that period.
What I appreciated the most about the book was the stroll down memory lane. So many memorable players and coaches like Ricky Peral of Wake Forest, Jeremy Hyatt of NC State, Serge Zwicker of UNC, and Kerry Thompson of Florida State have really been forgotten until I read this book. Locally, although I had fully converted to my alma mater (who would soon sign an up and coming coach in Billy Donovan after this season) during that period, 96/97 should be remembered as the last year of the Pat Kennedy era. (Well overshadowed by Dean Smith’s retirement that same year). Kennedy always had his teams prepared and it is interesting to note that FSU has only been in the NCAA Tourney once (the very next year) since Pat Kennedy left. He brought talent to the school and in all honesty, even though basketball was always an afterthought, Kennedy brought the program to heights it had not previously been at, it is a bit sad he is not recognized locally for his coaching ability.
At times, the book is a bit too much of a love fest to Coach K, but that is understandable considering where Feinstein went to school. I really appreciated all of the mini-biographies of the coaches; however, I thought the section of the book detailing the NCAA Tourney felt a bit rushed, especially after the shot by shot account of various early season games like Duke vs. Indiana in the NIT and Wake Forest and Virginia going through the usual early fare of non-conference cupcakes. A nice break for me in the eun of classic novels I have been reading lately.
March 9, 2010
A thoroughly captivating book. Just as Feinstein's The Last Amateurs left me annoyed that I hadn't followed basketball more closely in college, A March to Madness clued me in to all the ACC basketball I had only halfheartedly kept abreast of in high school.
Feinstein does a great job of going back and forth between the nine different ACC schools (as of 1997). He provides a backdrop for each school, and each coach, and manages to interweave all the different storylines as each of the teams move in and out of each other's particular spheres of tradition and ethos. Just thinking about the logistics of how this book must have been mapped out gives me a headache. But somehow when I was reading it, everything seemed to flow nicely.
This book also drove home two points for me:
1. Coaching college basketball is hard. The hours are ridiculous, most of these guys' marriages end in divorce, the stress is off the charts, there's no job security, no set path into the profession, no guarantees from year to year, and you constantly have to recruit new kids because there's a built-in expiration date on every player you coach. Not to mention, at the end of the day, you don't get to play a minute of the games, which, if I were that close to the action, would drive me crazy.
2. Everything is fleeting. Seven of the nine coaches in the book are no longer with the same team (only Krzyzewski and Williams remain). Players leave early. Heck the ACC doesn't even look the same these days (VA Tech, Miami, and stupid BC are in the mix). It's disconcerting, though it makes the exceptions that much more noteworthy (see the two coaches above).
Finally, it was fun to come across future NBA players' names and know where or how they were going to end up; the chance to meet guys like Tim Duncan, Matt Harpring or Vince Carter in a different context, before they turned into the people the world knows them as today was an enjoyable thing.
Feinstein does a great job of going back and forth between the nine different ACC schools (as of 1997). He provides a backdrop for each school, and each coach, and manages to interweave all the different storylines as each of the teams move in and out of each other's particular spheres of tradition and ethos. Just thinking about the logistics of how this book must have been mapped out gives me a headache. But somehow when I was reading it, everything seemed to flow nicely.
This book also drove home two points for me:
1. Coaching college basketball is hard. The hours are ridiculous, most of these guys' marriages end in divorce, the stress is off the charts, there's no job security, no set path into the profession, no guarantees from year to year, and you constantly have to recruit new kids because there's a built-in expiration date on every player you coach. Not to mention, at the end of the day, you don't get to play a minute of the games, which, if I were that close to the action, would drive me crazy.
2. Everything is fleeting. Seven of the nine coaches in the book are no longer with the same team (only Krzyzewski and Williams remain). Players leave early. Heck the ACC doesn't even look the same these days (VA Tech, Miami, and stupid BC are in the mix). It's disconcerting, though it makes the exceptions that much more noteworthy (see the two coaches above).
Finally, it was fun to come across future NBA players' names and know where or how they were going to end up; the chance to meet guys like Tim Duncan, Matt Harpring or Vince Carter in a different context, before they turned into the people the world knows them as today was an enjoyable thing.
July 28, 2007
A story of the 1997 ACC basketball season. The central character in the story is ACC Player of the Millennium Jeremy Hyatt. Each of the (then) 9 ACC teams are followed on an in depth basis. Some of the coaches gave more access than others, so there was more written from their perspective. Then-NC State coach Hreb Sendak, in his first year of coaching, limited John Feinstein's access to the team, but not even that could take away from the brilliance of State's senior guard/forward, Jeremy Hyatt. Hyatt (with a small amount of help from his teammates) managed to throw off the shackles of an 0-8 conference start to become the first #8 seed to advance to the ACC Tournament finals, dethroning, demoralizing, and generally embarrassing Mike Krazewski and the evil Dukies.
Unfortunately, not even the genius of Hyatt could overcome the conspiracy of Dean Smith and his cronies in referee stripes in the title game. I swear to you that there were black helicopters circling the Greensboro Coliseum that day.
Still, we could all learn something from this book. That is, ACC teams that wear blue are the embodiment of all evil. Please, burn your UNC and Duke gear. Do it think of the children!!!!
Unfortunately, not even the genius of Hyatt could overcome the conspiracy of Dean Smith and his cronies in referee stripes in the title game. I swear to you that there were black helicopters circling the Greensboro Coliseum that day.
Still, we could all learn something from this book. That is, ACC teams that wear blue are the embodiment of all evil. Please, burn your UNC and Duke gear. Do it think of the children!!!!
April 14, 2016
The book I read for this quarter was called "A March to Madness." It is written by John Feinstein who I thought was always a great author and always made some very good books. This book however was one of the greatest books I have read in a long time. This book is talking about college basketball the whole book, so obviously if you do not like college basketball this is not your book. If you do like college basketball though then this could be one of your favorite books. In this book they talk about what college basketball was like in the 90's in the Atlantic Coast Conference. This book will tell you the brutal time all these teams went through in the conference. It gives you a rundown of the history of all the teams in the conference. It goes through the players each team had, the coaches and their background story. You learn a lot about the coaches mostly in this book and what their lives were like. It also explains in great detail how hard it is to be a college basketball coach, especially in the ACC. These guys are the best of the best and this book really shows how great they really were. It also shows you how hard it is to be a college basketball player. They make it look so easy on television, but in real life it is one of the hardest sports ever. I highly recommend this book for all the college basketball fans out there, it will make you love the game so much more.
November 2, 2015
For me, the blush is off the rose in regards to D1 NCAA sports. It's a modern form of slavery. Young men and women are working their butts off so the NCAA can make billions of dollars off them and the "student athletes" are getting virtually nothing in return. A travesty. That being said, I was less than inclined to pick up a book chronicling '97-'98 Atlantic Coast Conference NCAA D1A basketball season. It'll be dated, I thought. But no, it's a very entertaining read. John Feinstein loves sports, and he writes a good story. It's not dated. And while acknowledging the cynicism that is modern day college athletics, Feinstein captures the beauty and excitement of sport, as well as "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat".
March 14, 2011
The ACC is one of the top basketball conferences. John Feinstein gives the reader a look at the 1996-97 season from coaches' perspectives. It is more about the coaches than the games themselves. In a season that started with Wake, Maryland and Clemson ranked in the top 5, Carolina 0-3 in the ACC, Tim Duncan a senior, Herb Sendek a rookie coach, and Dean Smith closing on Adolph Rupp's record, join Smith (Carolina), Rick Barnes (Clemson), Mike Krzyzewski (Duke), Pat Kennedy (Florida State), Bobby Cremins (Georgia Tech), Gary Williams (Maryland), Sendek (NC State), Jeff Jones (Virginia), and Dave Odom (Wake) as they each try to make March Madness.
August 6, 2016
There's nothing I love more than books about decades-old sports rivalries. This was also fun because I'm pretty sure I went to at least one of the Georgia Tech games that season (although probably not against an ACC team since I never went to a game they lost). Feinstein's a great writer and I really respect all of these coaches so much after reading them, especially Krzyzewski (I'll always hate Duke but after reading about how he would visit Valvano in the hospital every day, I like him a lot more.)
October 5, 2013
A great book! John Feinstein at his best! Although Feinstein is a wonderful writer, his books on basketball are his best. In this particular book, there is much to learn about the daily happenings in the Atantic Coast Conference. It feels like you have a front row seats at the games. It feels like you are in the locker room, before and after the games. It feels intense in breathtaking way! Pull up a chair and enjoy the marvelous words offered by Feinstein once more. You will not regret it!
September 1, 2008
This was a great look at the 1996-97 college basketball season in the ACC. What is amazing is Feinstein's access to all the coaches throughout the season. He did a good job in this book avoiding repetitive elements and staying away from injecting himself into the story. It is fascinating to see some of the "behind the scenes" chronicles, particularly Coach K of Duke and Gary Williams of Maryland. A great read.
February 11, 2016
As a life long ACC basketball fan this is a dream come true. Feinstein does a great job of even handedly describing the entire season of each team in the ACC. I happen to be a Duke fan, but rest assured that the season profiled is when Coach K had to leave halfway through it to have his hip replaced. Duke does not perform well so you can't accuse me of bias.
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