Travel Team Breakdown Travel Team by Mike Lupica is an inspirational novel about present day sports lives in the eyes of preteens. As a “New York Times Number One Best Seller,” this story is a realistic fiction novel, using real sports athletes and NBA teams. This story is about a small point guard named Danny Walker. Although he is the only son of the professional “hometown hero,” Richie Walker, the four-eight twelve-year-old is cut from his school’s travel team due to his size. Attempting to be a factor in his child’s life, Richie Walker creates a new travel team, the Middletown Warriors, to plat all the rejected players that tried out for the main team. Throughout the season, the boys (and girl) learn discipline and legendary work tactics …show more content…
Although Danny is only four-eight, he overcomes great odds by leading a team who rejected him for being small. Since Mike Lupica made the protagonist a short elementary height, it creates a dramatic effect when his father asks him to coach, and then beats his old travel team. Danny Walker was used as a symbol to represent a great basketball mind behind a small middle schooler. The dedication and work ethic Danny has for basketball before and after he coaches the Warriors prove John Wooden’s quote, as he succeeds in being an on-court coach and star …show more content…
I would recommend this book to all basketball players, especially all small point guards or players that were cut from a team because of their body and not their knowledge or skill because I believe that it would help readers develop a love for basketball and inspire players to work harder with a better ethic to achieve everyone else’s goals while exceeding your own. I loved the part where Danny needed to step up and be the coach and the jokes from Will Stoddard about his coaching. I didn’t like how Danny thought about giving up in the beginning because he was cut from a team he once played with for two seasons. Travel Team is overall an awe inspiring novel about a young guard with a love for the game and the skill set to make it big and his drive and will to succeed that kept me on track to find out what Danny would do
As I finished reading the book Foul Trouble by John Feinstein, I thought that this was one of my favorite basketball books that I have read. This book was a fictional book about these two friends named Danny and Terrell who loved to play basketball. In the middle of the book, the team starts to find difficulty winning games, as the team start to make poor decisions. Terrell starts it by partying with people that are trying to recruit him, and he eventually get injured during the parties, forcing him to miss some of the games for the team. As a result, the team starts losing a few more games and the team is concerned if they can make the state tournament now. In this journal I will be questioning if the team would have made it to the state
In the nonfiction book My Losing Season by Pat Conroy, he mainly expresses all the trials and tribulations he goes through as a child and in his current livelihood as senior at Citadel college. Conroy never had a good relationship with his father, no matter what he did the constant banter and hurtful play from his father always lingered. Conroy had a military family which meant that they were constantly moving every year to two years, this never gave him the chance to really settle in with the community and create steady friendships. This also made it hard for him to adjust to the way that certain area played basketball and how well he fit in with the teams. Basketball made him happy and having such an all-star basketball player as a father
Your dreams of being someone may not turn out the way you think they will. The documentary Hoop Dreams is a story about two boys from the ghetto that want to play in the NBA. Arthur ¨Man”Agee goes to Marshalls and William Gates goes to St. Joseph’s which are both situated in Illinois, where their dreams of becoming a pro basketball player vanished. Both of the boys face obstacles that are outside of themselves. Arthur´s family struggled with money, education, and pressure from others hurts him. Also, William struggled with balancing his family with basketball, the pressure from others, and education.
Joes High School’s total enrollment consisted of sixteen girls, and twenty boys. Ten of the boys that had enrolled there played basketball. All of the boys were over six feet tall. Lane Sullivan, the new coach of the basketball team, had never even touched a basketball before he started coaching. Sullivan had never coached anything at all before he started coaching the Joes basketball team. In order to gain knowledge about the sport, he got a book about it. He started coaching in 1927, but before the 1928 basketball season, Joes High School didn’t even have a gym. Instead, they’d practice outside on a dirt court, and two times a week they’d take a bus to the nearest gym, which was ten miles away. In order to play home games, the boys had to play in the local dance hall. The “court” was nowhere near regulation size, and the ceiling was so short that the boys couldn’t shoot an arched shot. The people who attended these basketball games had no place to sit and watch the game, the all stood around the edges of the court and on the small stage. Joes High School finally got their own gym around Christmas time because the people of Joes donated their time and material in order to make it happen.
Students should read this book in a high school English classroom because it demonstrates how relationships can be difficult, but teamwork can help to solve many issues. Hutch realized that it would not help his team to continue fighting with Darryl and by being mad at his father. He was able to take those difficult relationships and form them into positive outcomes and achieve his goal. After winning the championship game, “Hutch made his way through his teammates, and up through the stands and did something he had not done in a very long time: Hutch hugged his father. And his father hugged him back” (Lupica 243). This proves to students that if they continue to work hard and focus on a goal, they can achieve it by being a team player on and off the field.
The first personal traits that Coach Dale was forced to exhibit were his toughness and his assertiveness. On his first night in Hickory he met the men of town in the barbershop who were all willing to provide their experience and insight on the team and how to coach. Coach Dale had enough self confidence to know that none of these “insights” were going to help the Hickory team win basketball games and let them know they weren’t welcome by turning his back and walking out. Additionally, he was forced to demonstrate his toughness twice more on the first day of practice by telling the temporary coach, “Secondly, your days of coaching are over,” and then by standing up to the group of men after he dismissed Buddy from the team. These actions made no friends of the men; however, th...
I chose this particular book because I am a huge basketball fan and I have always been intrigued by street basketball. I was also very interested in this book because I have lived in the inner-city for brief periods of time so I could somewhat understand some of the things that went on throughout the book. This book also gives great insight into the relationship between sports and society and how the two are closely related.
With through the roof expectations and tough love that Summitt once experienced from her father that she later relayed to her girls, one eight national championships. A team a school, that had no women’s basketball uniforms, lacked a locker room, and the attention from outsiders was nothing but a dream at the time, and turned them into a team and gave them a reputation that any rational person would deeply respect. Her book is full of thrilling memories, stories, and good times, illustrations that is hard for Summitt to rekindle now they just are as clear as they once were.
On the gridiron he played receiver and scored nineteen touchdowns in his first year of Pee Wee football. He would soon move in with his coach, Frankie Walker, after he learned of LeBron nearly dropping out of school. After moving in, he won his elementary school’s attendance award. The Walkers also had him doing chores with the other kids; this little settlement molded him into a responsible kid. “Walker also had a positive impact on LeBron’s basketball. Among other things, he taught the youngster to shoot with his left hand.” It is safe to say Walker was a big contribution to Le...
In the book, the authors detail the lives of the players and those around them. The impact of being away from family also takes center stage, from dealing with the death of parents and siblings to coping with changes in family dynamics. The game of basketball also helped the girls get away from the Indian Wars and the Dawes Act that had occurred before the boarding school was founded. For many of the girls, basketball was a grounding force that continued to foster an important sisterhood among team members.
Travel Team takes place in the present time in Middletown, New York. In the story, Danny Walker, the main character, gets cut from the town travel team because he is too short. Danny is one of the best players in the town. Since Danny gets cut from the travel team, his dad decides to coach his own travel team with Danny on it. After the first practice, their team looks very bad, and Danny is certain that they will not win a game. Danny was about to quit the team, but then Colby Danes, the best girl basketball player in their league, and Ty Ross, joined his team. Ty Ross is the best basketball player in their league and he quit the travel team that cut Danny to play with him at the end of the season. Danny’s team then beat the travel team
Have you ever watched a basketball game? Basketball is a great all-around sport that people love to watch and play.The professional level of basketball is extremely complicated, making it a great and fun sport. Starting from the early 1900’s and traveling all the way to the 21’st century, basketball has truly evolved from 8 teams to 30 and the NBA adding more rules each year.
Everyone wants to get better at something, but some want it more than others. In “How to Transform an Everyday, Ordinary Hoop Court into a Place of Higher Learning and You at the Podium”, the narrator wants to get better at basketball, so he wakes up everyday at 4:30 to go with his dad to his work. Everyday, the narrator would wait 3 hours in his dad’s car until the gym opened, only to sit on the bench and watch the other men play basketball. Finally, one of the best players, Dante, tells the narrator he can play but he’ll get “smoked”. However, the narrator proved him wrong. The narrator learns that if you persevere, work hard, and have confidence, your dreams may come true. In How to Transform an Everyday, Ordinary Hoop Court into a Place
Without doing this your team will be un organised and possibly have some upset parents and as a coach this is a must do. It is important to know if the coaching will take place by phone, face to face. If it is face to face discuss where and a time and how much notice to give you if they do cancel or reschedule (Miller).” Therefore, That is why communicating with both the children and the parents is another important must do for a basketball coach. Additionally, understanding children and how they can be in general psychologically. Social relationship benefits is a great benefit from basketball and here is why. Basketball requires communication between players because it is the only way a team can truly play the game right and win without any communication at all the team would be in for a doomed season or even a lot of injuries due to lack of teamwork. In order to have teamwork work you need to be able to communicate with other players which is another thing a coach must teach their players to do. Some kids also gain new friends from their team which is where social benefits comes into place. A thing most parents want kids to get from anything is gaining new friends and learning better communication skills especially at their young age of just getting used to outside of their homes. ”Social relationships and roles change drastically as
When you look at a basketball what do you see? Most would see an orange, sphere, shaped rubber ball. There are black lines and real leather. If you look closer, you would even see the size of the ball in which you are playing with. A basketball could be just a toy for many, or even represent a release for others, but for me, it means a lot more. A basketball represents my blood, sweat, tears, passion, sacrifice, and most of all, a sense of belonging, like a family. At this moment in my life, there are only three things I devote my life to- family, friends, and basketball. Basketball has shaped my life probably more than anything else. Basketball has instilled in me a vicious will to achieve and embrace my ambitions instead of fearing them. Basketball gave me an open opportunity to try something new. New opportunities and experiences are not such a big deal anymore. From academics to personal matters, the lessons that I have learned from basketball has impacted my life.