Coach Lessons on the game of life

Lewis (Liar's Poker; Moneyball) remembers his high school baseball coach, Coach Fitz, a man so intense a room felt "more pressurized simply because he was in it." At the New Orleans private school Lewis attended in the late 1970s, Coach Fitz taught kids to fight "the natural instinct to run away from adversity" and to battle their way through all the easy excuses life offers for giving up. He was strict, but he made such an impression on his students that now, 25 years later, alumni want to name a new gym after him. But the parents of today's students aren't as wowed by Coach Fitz's tough love. They call the headmaster with complaints, saying Coach Fitz is too mean to their children and insisting on sitting on his shoulder as he attempts to coach. A desire to set these new parents straight may be the underlying reason for Lewis's slight book, though he'd probably rather have readers believe he's just written it as a paean to a man who taught him some important life lessons. The book's corny subtitle, lack of heft and hackneyed images of kites flying and fireworks exploding may turn off some readers, but those who persevere will come away with a reminder that fear and failure are the "two greatest enemies of a well lived life." Agent, Andrew Wylie. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

"Old school" coaches like Billy Fitzgerald-tough, intractable, obsessed with perfection-are increasingly rare in American life. In Coach, Lewis, author of the best-selling Liar's Poker, tells a brief but highly memorable story about his high school baseball coach, "Coach Fitz." Legendary among his former players, Fitz applied his typically old-school rigor for decades at the Isadore Newman School in New Orleans, once an institution for the children of Jewish parents. When Lewis, an alumnus of the school and one of Fitz's former pupils, begins his narrative, the institution finds itself caught on the horns of a dilemma especially revealing of our times. While one group of alumni raises money to build and name a new field house in honor of Fitz, another group of parents of current players attempts to have the coach fired for his unreconstructed severity toward their sons. According to the author, Fitz is and has always been the kind of teacher who comes along once in a lifetime (if we are fortunate) and transforms forever the lives of those in his charge by demanding nothing less than total sacrifice in the pursuit of success. Recommended for all libraries.-Vince Brewton, Univ. of North Alabama, Florence (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.