In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle; A True Story of Hoop Dreams and One Very Special Team
They Were a Talented Team with a Near-Perfect Record. But for Five Straight Years, When it Came to The Crunch of the Playoffs, the Amherst Lady Hurricanes-A "Finesse" High-School Girls' Basketball Team of Nice Girls from A Nice Town-Somehow Lacked the Scrappy, Hard-Driving Desire to Go all the Way. Now, Led by the Strong Back-Court of All-American Jamila Wideman and Three-Point Specialist Jen Pariseau, and Playing beyond Their Personal Best, this is Their Year to Prove Themselves in the State...
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They Were a Talented Team with a Near-Perfect Record. But for Five Straight Years, When it Came to The Crunch of the Playoffs, the Amherst Lady Hurricanes-A "Finesse" High-School Girls' Basketball Team of Nice Girls from A Nice Town-Somehow Lacked the Scrappy, Hard-Driving Desire to Go all the Way. Now, Led by the Strong Back-Court of All-American Jamila Wideman and Three-Point Specialist Jen Pariseau, and Playing beyond Their Personal Best, this is Their Year to Prove Themselves in the State Championships. Their Season to Test Their Passion for the Sport and Their loyalty to Each Other. Their Time to Discover Who they Really are. In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle is the Fierce, Funny, and Intimate look into the Minds and Hearts of one Group of Girls and Their Quest for Success and, Most Important of all, Respect. Publishers Weekly When Pulitzer Prize-winner Blais pokes gentle fun at Amherst, Mass., where an infuriated teen-aged athlete in the heat of the fray may yell, ``You ignore your inner child!'' you suspect this will be a special book. And it is, as the reader follows the Amherst High girls basketball team-the Lady Hurricanes-in the 1992-93 season, from game one on December 15 to the final game on March 16, when they all but obliterated Haverhill, 74-36, to win the state championship. While this is the story of well-bred, upper-middle class, genteel girls who learned to be tough, it is also a picture of a changing period in American sports history, when a town rallied around its female athletes in a way that had previously been reserved for males. Alternately funny, exciting and moving, the book should be enjoyed not only by girls and women who have played sports but also those who wanted to but let themselves be discouraged. (Jan.)
\ Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly\ When Pulitzer Prize-winner Blais pokes gentle fun at Amherst, Mass., where an infuriated teen-aged athlete in the heat of the fray may yell, ``You ignore your inner child!'' you suspect this will be a special book. And it is, as the reader follows the Amherst High girls basketball team-the Lady Hurricanes-in the 1992-93 season, from game one on December 15 to the final game on March 16, when they all but obliterated Haverhill, 74-36, to win the state championship. While this is the story of well-bred, upper-middle class, genteel girls who learned to be tough, it is also a picture of a changing period in American sports history, when a town rallied around its female athletes in a way that had previously been reserved for males. Alternately funny, exciting and moving, the book should be enjoyed not only by girls and women who have played sports but also those who wanted to but let themselves be discouraged. Jan.\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalThis oddly titled book chronicles the 1992-93 girls' basketball season at Amherst High School in Massachusetts. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Blais manages to tell the story both as an outsider as when describing intellectual small-town Amherst with its liberal quirks and as an insider, privy to the players' thoughts and diary entries. The central themes are the team's intense camaraderie, as characterized by their rallying cry "Hoop Phi" i.e., "the thing that people search for in their lives" and the complex emotions among the players. Their constantly joking coach knows just when to push, as when he transforms Kathleen's unaggressiveness into meanness by inventing her alter ego, "Skippy." This will be of interest to high school athletes and their parents. Recommended for public and high school libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/94.]-Kathy Ruffle, Coll. of New Caledonia Lib., Prince George, B.C.\ \ \ School Library JournalYAA much-needed addition to sports writings for women, this is a true account of the development of a state championship high school basketball team from Amherst, MA. Extremely readable and compact, it covers a disappointing season's end to a triumphant one the following year. It is anecdotal and details the physical and psychological efforts each of the Hurricanes puts into the development of her team. Individual stories cover jealousy, antagonisms, practice habits, diverse family situations, and sexual harassment. The integration of personalities combines to sweep the young women into a tremendously strong steamroller of a team. Two of the stars, both sure of college scholarships upon graduation, get a lot of input, but lesser team members with interesting views and problems are also featured. There is a wonderful feeling of community in this small town New England setting. The building of the will to win as a team recalls such movies as "Hoosiers" or "A League of Their Own." A compelling choice.Frances Reiher, Kings Park Library, Fairfax, VA\ \
