My Home Team
A Sportswriter's Life and the Redemptive Power of Small-Town Girls Basketball
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By Dave Kindred
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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.
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“Revered sports journalist Kindred…shares his own story, from his roots in Illinois to stints at newspapers like the Washington Post to a return to his hometown, where he enthusiastically and generously volunteers to cover the Morton High School women's basketball team, the Lady Potters, a commitment that brings him joy and carries him through difficult times. Admirably, Kindred avoids self-pity whether he's writing about personal losses or professional setbacks. Instead, he cites the inspiration of other legends, like earlier sportswriter Red Smith, and the camaraderie among contemporary sportswriters.”Booklist, starred review
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“What must the 16-year-old point guard have thought as this bespectacled septuagenarian doddered down to speak to her after the game, asking her about that pick-and-roll she ran in the third quarter as if he were interviewing Muhammad Ali after a championship fight? How could she have guessed that he had in fact done that very thing in his life . . . but now felt that this game, that she, was more important? One of the many wonders of the sportswriter Dave Kindred’s memoir My Home Team: A Sportswriter’s Life and the Redemptive Power of Small-Town Girls Basketball, is that by the end of the book, not only will that girl understand exactly why her game is more important, but so will the person holding the book.”Wall Street Journal
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“An iconic American sportswriter returns to his Midwest roots and finds his greatest story…An enjoyable, poignant, meaningful memoir.”Kirkus
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“For those of us who followed his career as a columnist and reporter, this book brings back memories of some of his most memorable stories, interviews and experiences… It provides great insights into the life of a sportswriter at all levels and the trials and tribulations of family life and aging in a changing world.”Eric Sondheimer, The Los Angeles Times
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Dave Kindred told me not to read this book. I ignored him and so should you. Gorgeous and searing, My Home Team is the story of a big time sports columnist, the envy of every American male: the guy sitting at the 50-yard line of every Super Bowl. The guy invited under the covers by Muhammad Ali. The guy, of course, is Kindred, who having seen it all, and written it all better than anyone could, grew tired of it all, and took his high school sweet heart home to the heartland where life turned as cruel as the rural Illinois winter. When loss piles upon loss, Kindred finds a new story and a new love in a girl’s basketball team that saves his lifeJane Leavy, New York Times-bestselling author of The Big Fella
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Dave Kindred has been a hero and a mentor of mine for more than 40 years. He can write funny or sad or smart. He does all of the above in My Home Team: A Sportswriter's Life and the Redemptive Power of Small Town Girls Basketball. This is a brilliant example of why Dave is Dave and why anything he writes is superbly done. You will laugh, will cry and you will be very glad you took the time to read this book.John Feinstein, author of Feherty
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Spectacular.Joe Posnanski, bestselling author of The Baseball 100
- On Sale
- Sep 12, 2023
- Page Count
- 304 pages
- Publisher
- PublicAffairs
- ISBN-13
- 9781541702202
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Praise
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“Revered sports journalist Kindred…shares his own story, from his roots in Illinois to stints at newspapers like the Washington Post to a return to his hometown, where he enthusiastically and generously volunteers to cover the Morton High School women’s basketball team, the Lady Potters, a commitment that brings him joy and carries him through difficult times. Admirably, Kindred avoids self-pity whether he’s writing about personal losses or professional setbacks. Instead, he cites the inspiration of other legends, like earlier sportswriter Red Smith, and the camaraderie among contemporary sportswriters.”Booklist, starred review
-
“What must the 16-year-old point guard have thought as this bespectacled septuagenarian doddered down to speak to her after the game, asking her about that pick-and-roll she ran in the third quarter as if he were interviewing Muhammad Ali after a championship fight? How could she have guessed that he had in fact done that very thing in his life . . . but now felt that this game, that she, was more important? One of the many wonders of the sportswriter Dave Kindred’s memoir My Home Team: A Sportswriter’s Life and the Redemptive Power of Small-Town Girls Basketball, is that by the end of the book, not only will that girl understand exactly why her game is more important, but so will the person holding the book.”Wall Street Journal
-
“An iconic American sportswriter returns to his Midwest roots and finds his greatest story…An enjoyable, poignant, meaningful memoir.”Kirkus
-
“For those of us who followed his career as a columnist and reporter, this book brings back memories of some of his most memorable stories, interviews and experiences… It provides great insights into the life of a sportswriter at all levels and the trials and tribulations of family life and aging in a changing world.”Eric Sondheimer, The Los Angeles Times
-
Dave Kindred told me not to read this book. I ignored him and so should you. Gorgeous and searing, My Home Team is the story of a big time sports columnist, the envy of every American male: the guy sitting at the 50-yard line of every Super Bowl. The guy invited under the covers by Muhammad Ali. The guy, of course, is Kindred, who having seen it all, and written it all better than anyone could, grew tired of it all, and took his high school sweet heart home to the heartland where life turned as cruel as the rural Illinois winter. When loss piles upon loss, Kindred finds a new story and a new love in a girl’s basketball team that saves his lifeJane Leavy, New York Times-bestselling author of The Big Fella
-
Dave Kindred has been a hero and a mentor of mine for more than 40 years. He can write funny or sad or smart. He does all of the above in My Home Team: A Sportswriter’s Life and the Redemptive Power of Small Town Girls Basketball. This is a brilliant example of why Dave is Dave and why anything he writes is superbly done. You will laugh, will cry and you will be very glad you took the time to read this book.John Feinstein, author of Feherty
-
Spectacular.Joe Posnanski, bestselling author of The Baseball 100
