Brian Doyle himself explains it best: ""A few years ago I was moaning to my wry gentle dad that basketball, which seems to me inarguably the most graceful and generous and swift and fluid and ferociously-competitive-without-being-sociopathic of sports, has not produced rafts of good books, like baseball and golf and cricket and surfing have . . . Where are the great basketball novels to rival The Natural and the glorious Mark Harris baseball quartet and the great Bernard Darwin's golf stories? Where are the annual anthologies of terrific basketball essays? How can a game full of such wit and creativity and magic not spark more great books?"" ""Why don't you write one?' said my dad, who is great at cutting politely to the chase."" And so he has. In this collection of short essays, Brian Doyle presents a compelling account of a life lived playing, watching, loving, and coaching basketball. He recounts his passion for the gyms, the playgrounds, the sounds and scents, the camaraderie, the fierce competition, the anticipation and exhaustion, and even some of the injuries.

When Victoria Cape moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in the early 1970s, she had no idea that her desire to play basketball would change the game for women and the sport in Tennessee. Encouraged to sign up for basketball by her athletic father, Victoria was in for a shock: the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association endorsed an entirely different form of the game for high school women than the version of basketball commonly played around the country. Women played six-on-six basketball, in which offensive players stayed on one half of the court, and defensive players on the other half-defenders could spend their entire careers without taking a shot. Victoria Cape sued the TSSAA, and her lawsuit paved the way for women to play basketball by the same rules as men and served as an early test case of groundbreaking Title IX legislation. Further adding to the case's history-making precis was the presence of a young Pat Summitt, recently elevated to head coach of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers, who bravely testified on behalf of Cape during the lawsuit. Full Court Press is a valuable addition to research on how individual initiative can bring about social change-in Tennessee, in the sporting world, and as a part of the broader struggle for women's equality. Written in a lighthearted and inspiring style, this book is a must-read for anyone fascinated by the many achievements of Pat Summitt, Tennessee women's basketball, or women's sports history in general.