Dead Coach Walking: Tom Penders Surviving and Thriving in College Hoops

Tom Penders is a great coach and a very personable guy. He has taken these attributes as well as over 30 years coaching experience and woven it into a great book about college basketball. Unfortunately not without its weaknesses. For example some chapters are written in first person penned by Tom Penders, some are written in third person written by the co-writer. I found this inconsistency to be inappropriate and distracting and not something I recall reading in any other book without appropriate disclosure. Also, the book can be somewhat rambling and "only slightly" self serving.Now, with negative disclosures out of the way let me say that I really enjoyed reading this book. As a U of Memphis booster I've seen Penders coach numerous times in Houston and Memphis. He's light hearted and enjoyable to watch. He always has a very entertaining team that is fast, furious and great shooters even though his teams were less talented than the Memphis teams. He should have beaten us many more times than he did so I always considered ourselves quite lucky when we played. But, I loved playing them as you knew it would be a great game and also that Penders would be entertaining on the sideline.I know Penders for the good run at Houston and the solid years at Texas. I really didn't follow his extended career at Tufts, Columbia, Fordham, Rhode Island, and George Washington. The book goes in to great detail of how he got into coaching and the great runs he had at all these schools, no failures at any. Yes, he was fired at Texas. But, welcome to big time athletics and his NCAA record has to have him listed as one of their best coaches ever there.In addition to his coaching career and philosophy there are plenty of personal stories of his family as well as recommendations on how to improve college athletics. Overall this book does a great job of demonstrating his personal characteristics and, with the flaws notated earlier, I still recommend the book highly. For an additional treat, also follow his Twitter account as he does a great job there even though he is often too soft on those in his coaching fraternity.

The author has shared his experience with us in a very direct unfiltered manner. His former players are referenced in terms of their talent, temperament and the families they came from; not their statistics He paints a picture of greedy AAU operatives as they influence the college game in a manner very similar to the way Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs greed influenced the destruction of our economyLike Donald Trump the author holds nothing back in describing the coaches who inspired and those who floated below the radar.Bob KNIGHT is the best of all the rest as he profiles the other coaches of his era.A great read for any college basketball fan.

I really liked Coach Penders candor in this book. He expresses clear thoughts about subjects such as the NCAA, NCAA Basketball, Coaching, Recruiting, and the media without being fearful. I appreciated this. I also thought it was great to read about his career and gain night into those teams. In short, this book was a good read.

I thought the book was great, especially Part II. Coach Penders' blunt and straightforward discussion of the NCAA, AAu basketball and their shady characters, his evaluation of officials, comments about ESPN announcers and other segments of that part of the book were refreshing because he tells it like it is. Rarely does a coach or former player give such honest opinions about the inside. I will read it a second time to capture more of the many details he laid out.

Great insight as to referees, AAU and college coaching.

I have seen Penders teams play, enjoyed his wit and style. Good to hear this first person account. Somewhat repetitive, not as hot as I might have hoped for but a good fast read.

I enjoyed the insight to various teams that Tom had throughout his career. He is a friend of mine through the University of Houston. He has some candid comments on AAU and reporters that I found quite interesting.

This is the best book about basketball Very honest and straight forward. Wish I had known about this three years ago when it came out