The Last Shot

A rich and poignant chronicle of the hopes, hardships, devotion, and deceptions experienced by young basketball players from New York's meanest streets, The Last Shot offers a "brilliant, aching portrait of what has gone wrong in our cities, and by extension, in our country" (James North, Chicago Tribune Sunday Book Review).

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For the average American boy, a basketball scholarship to college is not a necessity. But for many young athletes at Lincoln High School in Coney Island, New York, it is the only escape from the crime and poverty of the inner city. In "The Last Shot", author Darcy Frey chronicles the hopes and aspirations of four of Lincoln High's most promising players. What Frey finds is an environment that, by stressing the game above all else, has left its young athletes with nowhere to turn but to the glamorous coaches, slick recruiters, and million-dollar athletic companies who offer everything but guarantee nothing. Gracefully and compassionately written, "The Last Shot" is a startling and disillusioning expose of inner-city life and the big business of college basketball.