One Small Town, One Crazy Coach: The Ireland Spuds and the 1963 Indiana High School Basketball Season

$26.00

Roos, Mike (Author)

ISBN: 0253010284

Publisher: Quarry Books

Binding: Paperback; 280 pages

Pub Date: September 17, 2013

In the summer of 1962, the peripatetic and irrepressible Pete Gill was hired on a whim to coach basketball at tiny Ireland High School. There he would accomplish, against enormous odds, one of the great small-town feats in Indiana basketball history. With no starters taller than 5'10, few wins were predicted for the Spuds. Yet, after inflicting brutal preseason conditioning, employing a variety of unconventional motivational tactics, and overcoming fierce opposition, Gill molded the Spuds into a winning team that brought home the town's first and only sectional and regional titles. Relying on narrative strategies of creative nonfiction rather than strict historical rendering, Mike Roos brings to life a colorful and varied cast of characters and provides a compelling account of their struggles, wide-ranging emotions, and triumphs throughout the season.

Biographical Note: Mike Roos is Professor of English at University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College. His website is http: //www.mikeroos.com.

Roos, Mike (Author)

ISBN: 0253010284

Publisher: Quarry Books

Binding: Paperback; 280 pages

Pub Date: September 17, 2013

In the summer of 1962, the peripatetic and irrepressible Pete Gill was hired on a whim to coach basketball at tiny Ireland High School. There he would accomplish, against enormous odds, one of the great small-town feats in Indiana basketball history. With no starters taller than 5'10, few wins were predicted for the Spuds. Yet, after inflicting brutal preseason conditioning, employing a variety of unconventional motivational tactics, and overcoming fierce opposition, Gill molded the Spuds into a winning team that brought home the town's first and only sectional and regional titles. Relying on narrative strategies of creative nonfiction rather than strict historical rendering, Mike Roos brings to life a colorful and varied cast of characters and provides a compelling account of their struggles, wide-ranging emotions, and triumphs throughout the season.

Biographical Note: Mike Roos is Professor of English at University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College. His website is http: //www.mikeroos.com.

Review Quotes:

[Roos's] gift for descriptive detail, his deep knowledge of both the game of basketball and the culture of southern Indiana hamlets, and his from-the-heart dedication to the narrative materials at hand make One Small Town, One Crazy Coach a compelling read. -- "Bloom Magazine"

One Small Town, One Crazy Coach is a piece of Indiana basketball history that reawakens memories of the glory days of high school teams in Southern Indiana.--Chris May "Executive Director, Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame"

Review Quotes:

You don't need to know a lot about basketball to fall in love with this book. It's more than a book about basketball. It's about the people of Ireland, the way they thought, the things they hoped, and their lives. -- "Little Indiana"

For anyone who grew up in this 'basketball crazy state' . . . One Small Town, One Crazy Coach is a must read. Mike Roos takes us on a wonderful trip back to when Hoosier Basketball was the ONLY game in town . . . not just a story about High School Hoops . . . but an inside look at that glorious era when Indiana Boys basketball meant everything to an entire community. --Mike Blake "NBC Sports Commentator"

Mike Roos has captured for basketball fans and general readers alike the essence of what Indiana basketball and small town life was all about in the 1960s. Along the way, there's lots of 'string music' that will send readers right back to a bygone golden era of Hoosier Hysteria. --Joe Dean "Color commentator for SEC basketball"