Thursday, March 22, 2012

Mark Titus- Don’t Put Me in Coach (Doubleday)

How can I best describe Don’t Put me in Coach?

Don’t Put me in Coach is Rudy for the South Park Generation…or A Season on the Brink with Beavis and Butthead. That’s close, but this book lacks the hero who works hard to overcome adversity and achieve his dream of playing a division 1 college sport and while there is references to occasional fisticuffs, no chairs were thrown by any crazed coaches.


The books parenthetical title sums it up; My Incredible NCAA Journey from the End of the Bench to the End of the Bench. Hardly inspirational stuff, though the so-called millennial generation may find Mark Titus’ success as a smart-ass blogger who chronicled his time as a walk on bench jockey at Ohio State amusing.

Clearly the goal of the book was not for Titus to wax poetically about the beauty of sport and the dedicated athletes who work hard to pursue championships as way to many blowhard sports writers have done over the years. Titus doesn’t spend a whole lot of time or ink worrying about trying to preserve relationships with his teammates; more often than not he set about trashing and bad mouthing the guys he played with.

It’s pretty clear that Titus was handed the golden ticket and his goal wasn’t to hone his game and crack the lineup, but to see exactly how far he could push the envelope or maybe the better analogy is, how hard he could push before his finger broke through the toilet paper.

Don’t Put Me In Coach ends up being a chronicle of a dysfunctional sports family…imagine your family’s Thanksgiving dinner, but with a bunch a really tall guys who spend way too much time together. There’s bound to be some laughs, someone is gonna get hurt and it’s no surprise when someone snaps and comes to blows.

As goofy as some of the stories are, they do ring true. That, and having crossed paths with him during my couple year stint working in the NBA Development League, I totally believe Titus’ story about his short time roommate Ivan Harris. But you’ll have to pick up the book to get the details!




No comments: