Praise for The Assist

HONORS

A Washington Post Best Book of the Year

A Barnes & Noble “New Voices” / Best Books of the Year selection

A Boston Globe Bestseller

Rosie Book Award Nominee (Indiana High School Book Award, named after Kurt Vonnegut character, 2011)

Iowa High School Book Award Nominee (2012)

DIME Magazine’s Best Basketball Books of All Time 

Rookie Road’s Top Ten Basketball Books

Most Recommended Books’ “16 Best Basketball Books of All Time”

A Rocky Mountain News Favorite Book of the Year (2008)

Praise

“There’s triumph, tragedy, and salvation in this story.” – ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

“With a powerful, moving narrative, Neil Swidey has delivered the rarest of transcendent sports books. Coach Jack O’Brien and his Charlestown players will bring you to your feet, and theyʹll bring you to tears. Most of all, they’ll make you care about a game so much bigger than winning and losing. This is a brilliant book, one that will stay with you.” – ADRIAN WOJNAROWSKI, ESPN Senior NBA Insider and author of New York Times bestseller The Miracle of St. Anthony

“This is a fine piece of journalistic literature; do not make the mistake of thinking it is for sports fans only.” – SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL

“The Assist should be a must-read.” – BILL SIMMONS, Founder of The Ringer/Sportswriter

“Team sports, like life, are never simple. Beneath the concrete final score, there are games within games, small plays leading to big plays…Rarely is that tapestry revealed as fully, and as convincingly, as in Neil Swidey’s The Assist.” – BOSTON GLOBE

ʺ[Swidey] builds narrative momentum and details his subjects with the touch of a skilled novelist. This is a prodigiously reported, compulsively readable book that readers (sports fans or not) will savor.ʺ – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

ʺLike Hoop Dreams, this captivating account transcends its time and place.ʺ – BOOKLIST

“Neil Swidey might have started out trying to tell the tale of an exceptionally successful high school basketball team and their coach, but as he spent time with the subjects of his story, he realized that they could help him explore a much larger story. His book is about basketball, certainly, but it is also about education, race, the hypocrisy with which our games are riddled, and a collection of young men trying to figure out who they are and who they can be.” - BILL LITTLEFIELD, HOST OF NPR’S ONLY A GAME

“This isn’t a great basketball book. This is great literature.” – YAHOO SPORTS

“[Swidey] uses practically unfettered access to detail the ups and downs of O’Brien’s powerhouse program and the coach’s fierce dedication to the players.” – NEW YORK TIMES SPORTS MAGAZINE PLAY

“He shoots, it’s good…Swidey masterfully deploys his observations to make his points.” –  NEW YORK POST

“A classic… This book made me laugh. This book made me cry. This book made me think.” – MICHAEL HOLLEY, NBC Boston host and author of The Big Three.

“One does not have to be from Boston to appreciate Swidey’s writing skills.” – TAMPA TRIBUNE

“Swidey is there for it all.” – NCAA CHAMPION Magazine

“Anyone who cares about Boston and race and hope and hoops will take heart from Neil Swidey’s The Assist, in which decent kids jockey for a lucky break in a world in which decency and luck are often in short supply. Set in compact, feisty, history‐haunted Charlestown, this book is a powerhouse work of literary journalism about a powerhouse basketball program and the coach who wouldn’t take no for an answer.” – MADELEINE BLAIS, Pulitzer Prize‐winner and author of In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle 

“The best story to come out of Boston this season.” – MARK KRIEGEL, FOXSPORTS.COM Columnist and author of Pistol

“A noble debut.” – KIRKUS REVIEWS

“So much of Boston’s history, good and bad, can be seen through Charlestown. So much of our basic humanity can be seen through the games we play. Neil Swidey brings all of that forward with a shrewd eye, a wide‐ranging mind, and an uncommon gift for illuminating our common humanity.” – CHARLES P. PIERCE, Esquire columnist and author of Idiot America and Moving the Chains: Tom Brady and the Pursuit of Everything 

“What happens when a tough-as-nails Boston basketball coach dedicates his life to helping inner-city teens? Success.” Natalie Morales, NBC’S TODAY SHOW

“A great book that should be read by every high school athlete in the country.” – DAN REA, host of NightSide on WBZ Radio 

“Thankfully, The Assist isn't a formula sports story where everything leads up to ‘The Big Game’ that's won in overtime. It's an absorbing examination of at-risk, inner-city youths who succeed against all odds…This is a surprising and fascinating story of how inner-city basketball players outdistance the daily influences trying to pull them down. Only one word can describe such a feat: remarkable.” – ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWSne word can describe such a feat: remarkable.

“The Assist: Get it. Read it. It is really terrific.” – JIM BRAUDE, cohost of Boston Public Radio

“368 pages of fast reading.”  – DIME Magazine

“A must-read for sports fans and even non-sports fans. The book combines both sports history and the history of the city of Boston's educational system, while combining a real life portrait of people's lives that makes this book an easy read.” – LAS CRUCES SUN-NEWS

“Neil Swidey's The Assist, about a remarkable inner-city basketball team, seems to have arrived at the perfect time. Aptly subtitled Hoops, Hope, and the Game of Their Lives, the book introduces us to Jack O'Brien, the near-legendary coach at Charlestown High School in Boston, whose life ‘seemed to begin and end with basketball.’ His devotion to his players' well-being helped keep them off the streets and, in many cases, secured them college scholarships…Swidey, an award-winning journalist for the Boston Globe Magazine, quickly converts his readers into genuine fans of these young men. Like O'Brien, he shows a fanatical devotion to his subject. He follows the team off the court and into the projects, to pizza parties and prestigious tournaments. The Assist will prove indispensable to anyone interested in the art of coaching at any level or in any sport. And by distracting us from the sordid, steroid-fueled headlines, Swidey reminds us why we enjoy watching sports in the first place. " – ANDREW ERVIN, WASHINGTON POST

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Reading Group Guide for The Assist

Race, Class and Public Education: A JFK Library Forum on The Assist