Paddy on the Hardwood: A Journey in Irish Hoops |  | Author: Rus Bradburd
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Buy New: $19.46
as of 11/20/2009 13:56 CST details
New (20) from $14.34
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 247
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 5.8 x 0.9
ISBN: 0826340261
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.323092
EAN: 9780826340269
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Product Description
Why would a successful college basketball coach walk away from a lucrative job in America's most glamorous sport? The burned out Rus Bradburd, enamored with Ireland and its music, took a job coaching in the lowly Irish Super League, but was unprepared for what he found. Perplexed by the small town Tralee's Frosties Tigers--a cast of misfits and underachievers more concerned with their day jobs, Gaelic Football, and Guinness--he turned to traditional Irish music for wisdom and solace. Paddy on the Hardwood is partly Rus Bradburd's story of his struggle to transform Tralee's Tigers. But it is also the tale of a man making peace with his own life and career. "No reader will come away from this irresistible, honest, and deeply human account without a profound appreciation for Ireland and the beguiling power of its people and culture. Paddy on the Hardwood is a basketball book, to be sure, but also one about questing and, ultimately, finding. And it's all the richer for how it engages things that seem distant from sports, but in the end aren't so unrelated at all."--Alexander Wolff, Sports Illustrated senior writer and author of Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure "Paddy on the Hardwood is hilarious, heartbreaking, and touchingI couldn't put it down. I'm an avid reader, and it's the best sports book I've read in a long while."--Jerry West
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
 Basketball, Fiddlin' and Life November 10, 2009
Patricia J. Petersen (NC, USA)
This is a book for coaches! It is first about a guy spending a couple of seasons in Ireland learning to fiddle and coaching a basketball team that would have to step up a few notches to be rag-tag. However, with Bradburd's history in the America collgiate ranks I saw the work as a metaphor for life in his attempt to coach the game he loves, succeed, and get out before the inevitble "bad ending". If he's like every other coach I've seen, he cannot stay away from the game and hopefully his bad-end journey will have just as many colorful characters filling the pages of that remembrance as did Paddy on the Hardcourt.
 High praise for this well crafted book June 30, 2009
Matt Maloney (Chicago)
This book was not a cliched sports book. The author explores the cultural aspects of Irish life along with the sporting life. It is a refreshing contrast to U.S. professional sports and their selfish participants.
 A book for basketball fans June 10, 2009
Amazonie (USA)
This book will interest someone who has spent half his life playing basketball like I have or in general is an overall sports nut. I was interested in how the game was played professionally overseas, and I came away with a very detailed account of this. I felt like I knew Irish hoops inside and out. That said, I would say this book caters to this small basketball-playing demographic only.
Like most sports books, a co-author or ghostwriter would have gone a long way here. The writing is confusing and at times long-winded. It reads like a self-published book, but it has it's highs along with it's lows. For a basketball fan, it's a great read to see how the Irish approach hoops, and you come away rooting for the author/coach on each page. He's likable, and that will keep you reading.
For anyone interested in coaching or playing overseas, I'd say it's worth a look. Otherwise, I'd say pass on it and enjoy a different type of sports book written by a former coach as well: Andy Roddick Beat Me with a Frying Pan: Taking the Field with Pro Athletes and Olympic Legends to Answer Sports Fans' Burning Questions. It's not all basketball, but neither is this one either (fiddling, marriage, beer.)
Paddy on the Hardwood June 5, 2009
Richard W. Myers (Palm Beach Gardens, FL)
A truly enjoyable read that gives you the Irish experience with a basketball backgound.
Keep on fiddling, Russ
Dick Myers
You don't have to be a sports fan to love this book April 10, 2009
Eric Angevine (Charlottesville, Virginia United States)
If I asked you who won the Irish Super League Championship last year, the proper answer would be "who cares?" We would also accept "The Irish Super WHAT?!?"
Very few people care which team wins the league crown in Ireland's professional league, including the Irish themselves. But since I read Rus Bradburd's Paddy on the Hardwood, I find that I suddenly do care. That is Coach Bradburd's shining achievement in recounting his two years on the Emerald Isle, coaching a mish-mash of unschooled locals and underachieving Americans. He gets the reader to care about the team simply by telling their story honestly - never telling us how to feel.
How does this relate to a college basketball website? For starters, Bradburd was an assistant coach who understudied some of the greatest basketball minds of a generation. He began under Don Haskins at UTEP, where he was lead recruiter of the legendary Tim Hardaway. When he was dismissed from that job due to a relatively minor infraction (again, this is recounted with amazing veracity; "I was guilty" the author flatly states), he joined the staff of Lou Henson at New Mexico State. Growing weary of the recruiting grind, and harboring a very un-coach-like desire to write for a living, Bradburd quit college hoops and completed his MFA in Las Cruces.
The book begins there, as the former college assistant tries to figure out how to get a job that will allow him to spend time writing and practicing his other love - playing the fiddle. A friend tells him about the Tralee Tigers, an Irish team seeking an American presence on the bench. Drawn by the literary and musical traditions of the island, he takes the job, figuring it will take little personal involvement and leave him plenty of time for his other pursuits.
The rest of the story unfolds in a very easygoing way. Unlike other sporting memoirs I've read, it never glosses over the failures, and Bradburd is able to describe the characters that wrought havoc on his attempts at discipline and accountability without making them unlikable. Some favorites emerged for me.
First of all was the tubby American Ricardo Leonard, a former Richmond star gone to seed. I, of course, was picturing Big Ant as I read about him. Leonard is the first of many American expatriates to roll through the mid-sized town on the west coast of Ireland, and certainly the most sympathetic. In Ireland, American players are expected to be the ringers - taller, more athletic, and more skilled than their Irish teammates - each team is allowed to sign two U.S. players and one player from a non-U.S. country, and those three are generally the only paid players on the team. But foreign players on Irish teams are at the bottom of the pro hoops barrel, and the specimens in this book show it. Each has a fatal flaw; they are over-the-hill, unmotivated, awkward, or all three at once. For Bradburd, they almost become a necessary evil.
The Irish players emerge as heroes, as they generally stink, but tend to show the kind of spirit you'd expect from someone who shows up to play an unpopular sport for no pay. It's the love of the game factor, and getting to know these square pegs is one of the true joys of the book. I won't ruin it for you by describing any of them - you have to get it in book-time.
The joy of watching a spirited but clueless amateur grow is one of the major themes of the book. It is skillfully turned on its head in the interwoven scenes of Bradburd attempting to fit into the Irish traditional music scene. As one who was not "born to the tradition", he begins to have experiences that mirror those of his charges - he must "sit on the bench" (albeit with a Guiness in hand) for weeks, watching the masters, before he even begins to bring his own instrument along. As Bradburd begins to grow as a musician, his Irish-born hoops benchwarmers begin to grow as players, and it's a beautiful thing to watch.
I flew through this mesmerizing account. You'd be hard-pressed to find a book that has more attractive subject matter for me: it's about writing, music, basketball, and travel. If they could have found a way to tape some bacon to the outside cover, I'd have been set. Which is to say, I loved it, and literally had trouble putting it down to do my own writing some days.
This book is well worth the read for anyone who loves a good "underdog makes good" story. I enjoyed it so much more than other sports memoirs I'd read because it dared to step outside of the sports mentality quite often. It's refreshing to hear from a coach who is passionate about music and literature, and finds a way to fit them into his daily challenges as a leader and teacher.
Paddy on the Hardwood will, quite simply, make you happy.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
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