06/24/2019

Isaacson, sportswriter for the Chicago Tribune and ESPN, overpromises and underdelivers in this lackluster coming-of-age account of her time on her suburban high school’s basketball team. Isaacson recounts her trials and tribulations with the Niles West High School girls’ basketball squad in 1975—three years after Title IX became law. Her telling feels vague and spotty, especially when quoting dialogue from decades earlier; and too often the details she includes—letters, poems, cheers, and team songs using the tune of 1970s sitcom theme songs—do little to elevate the narrative. In Isaacson’s senior year in 1979, Niles West had a great run, culminating with the state championship win, yet her recap of the season and key plays of that final game lacks intensity. Despite her statement that this book is “evidence of what sports gave to us, of what basketball specifically did 40 years ago to shape our lives today,” she relegates the post–high school experiences of her teammates and herself to a short epilogue. This is a missed opportunity on what could have been a great personal history of the affects of Title IX had on female sports. (Aug.)

Praise for Melissa Isaacson's State :

“In State , Melissa Isaacson perfectly captures the birth of Title IX and a time when high school girls were starting to gain equality in sports and in the classroom, showing us how opportunities on the court can light a path for girls to become their authentic selves in all aspects of their lives.” — Billie Jean King, founder of the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative

“I have known and admired Melissa Isaacson for three decades but never understood where her unending passion for sports was born until I had the opportunity to read State. In this interesting and insightful journey to a different time, Missy provides a wonderful reminder about the lessons these games provide and the unbreakable bonds they create.” — Mike Greenberg, ESPN host and New York Times bestselling author

“Here’s the thing about a story whose ending is known: it needs to be told by a graceful writer, who can use humor in one sentence and tug heartstrings in the next. Melissa Isaacson’s tale of her Niles West girls basketball team capturing a state championship after years of hard work and heartbreak is a wonderful read about determination and dreams realized. But it’s bigger than that. It unflinchingly analyzes behaviors from a tricky time for anyone—high school—that is made trickier by the responsibilities of playing girls sports in a new world, the first few years after Title IX legislation. It captures the powerful bond of enduring relationships that stand the test of time, regardless of how much contact there has been in the years since. Perhaps most important, it reminds us all what can happen when individual desires are set aside for the greater good of a team. The power to create lasting memories is possible. What’s best: Isaacson’s words are merely the vehicle to speak for a transformative team.” — K.C. Johnson, Bulls beat writer, Chicago Tribune

“ State is storytelling at its finest. Melissa Isaacson will captivate readers with this long overdue memoir of heartache and triumph. Many will relate to the experiences Isaacson recaptures, and those who don't will gain a greater respect for trailblazers in women's sports. This book covers the scope and span of life as it can only be told by a daughter, a teammate, an athlete, and a friend. It is full of heart and history—a wonderful combination!” — Marjorie Herrera Lewis, author of When the Men Were Gone

“You’ve probably never heard of the 1975 Niles West High School girls’ basketball team. But theirs is a terrific story, and as fate would have it, their player Missy Isaacson went on to become a superb writer. If you love sports, you’ll love her fascinating, moving, funny, and richly reported account of how her team finally won state.” — Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist and author

“The best sports stories aren’t actually sports stories—they’re stories about life, highs, lows, bonds, exceptionalism, tragedy. That’s what makes Melissa Isaacson’s State such a tremendous piece of work. You think you’re reading about a girls’ basketball team, only to discover you’ve been lifted to new emotional heights. What a terrific read.” — Jeff Pearlman, author of Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton and Football for a Buck

“ State is so much more than just another high school championship story. Melissa Isaacson brilliantly chronicles the individual and team backstory that created this special championship team. State also vividly captures the essence of why a young girl’s equal opportunity to be educated through sport is a civil right and NOT merely a matter of quotas.” — Doug Bruno, head coach of the DePaul University women’s basketball team

“Melissa Isaacson has written a beautiful book about a time and place that is almost unfathomable to us now: when girls’ and women’s sports were not yet popular, widespread, or vital to our culture. And yet the pages of State come alive with the riveting story of a team of high school basketball players whose dreams took them to the place all athletes hope to go: a championship that lives with them to this day. This is their inspiring story. This is Title IX come to life.” — Christine Brennan, USA Today columnist, CNN and ABC commentator, and author of Best Seat in the House and the bestselling Inside Edge

2019-05-12
The unknown story of a high school girls' basketball team in "a monumental place in our nation's history."

Sportswriter Isaacson (Journalism/Northwestern Univ.; Transition Game: An Inside Look at Life With the Chicago Bulls, 1994), who has worked for ESPN and the Chicago Tribune, mixes her personal experience on Illinois' 1979 state championship team with a chronicle of the implementation of Title IX, which "prohibited sex discrimination in any educational program or activity receiving…federal financial aid." The author attended Niles West High School, which had no tradition of female interscholastic sports when she entered. The female teacher who agreed to coach the nascent girls' basketball team knew almost nothing about the game, so she listened carefully week after week as the male coach of the boys' team tutored her. Isaacson and most of her teammates came to idolize their coach, and they respected the boys' coach, too, for his patient role. This coming-of-age memoir, informed by a larger social history, alternates among biographical profiles of the coaches, the author's basketball-playing classmates ("after the passage of Title IX, tennis and badminton were clearly not enough"), parents and siblings of the students, and school administrators. As the narrative progresses and the girls turn into a winning team, Isaacson provides detailed accounts of the frequent victories and occasional losses, sections that may not interest nonfans. An irony of the narrative is that the much-loved female coach departed the high school for personal reasons after inspiring the girls for three seasons, and her replacement was a male teacher/coach. Under his guidance, the girls' team won the state championship during Isaacson's senior year despite numerous rocky moments caused by the coach's awkwardness in dealing with teenage girls. By her senior year, Isaacson no longer played a key role on the team, but she learned how to adjust and take significant joy in the success of the team.

An intimate, at times inspiring account.