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Can I Keep My Jersey - Paul Shirley



Paul Shirley is 6 feet 10 inches tall, can play basketball well enough to hang around the fringes of the NBA, and has written one of the best three or four pro-basketball books ever, ranking right up there with Bill Bradley's Life on the Runand Bill Russell's Go Up for Glory. It takes the form of a hoopster's travelogue, as Shirley recounts tales of his gypsylike career, playing the game in such hot spots as Yakima, Washington. At each stop across five countries, he reflects on the peculiar basketball ambience of these not-always-sports-savvy locales, and he offers insight into his own sometimes eccentric but always self-aware state of mind as well as the befuddling behavior of his fellow travelers. His triumphs are relatively few but exhilarating, his disappointments frequent and potentially devastating, but he perseveres through humor and the cathartic exercise of writing about his experiences. Shirley's blog, from which much of this book is derived, is well known among hoop junkies, but this print incarnation should reach a much larger audience. Displaying deep reverence for the game and remarkable insight into those who make it their vocation, it's destined to become a classic of sports literature.