Pounding the Rock

Book excerpt: Welcome to Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School, in a working-class corner of the Bronx, where a driven coach inspires his teams to win games and championships. Head coach Marc Skelton tells the thrilling story of an entire season, as the Panthers seek to improve on an early exit from the playoffs the year before. But this is a story which extends far beyond the basketball court. It's a profile of a school that, against the odds, educates kids from the poorest district in the country and sends the majority of them to college; of an unusual coach who studies the game with acute intensity and demands as much of himself as he does of his players. At the very centre is a squad of young men who battle against difficulties in life every day, and who don't know how to quit. Pounding the Rock is exhilarating, heart-pounding sportswriting of the very highest calibre.