It's Book Review Time!

Standing Tall: The True Tales of a Hall of Fame Coach

By Stuart Nachbar

Standing Tall

Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph is an inspirational biography, not a primer on leadership or X’s and O’s as other sports coaches are prone to write. Stringer is a very strong woman who has lived through personal tragedies: a daughter who became stricken with spinal meningitis at 14 months and the loss of a husband to an unexpected heart attack at a relatively young age. She is also a great coach with over 800 career wins who has taken three different schools to title rounds in the NCAA tournament. I have had the opportunity to listen to Stringer speak in person—and you cannot help but be inspired by her as a person and a coach.

For most readers unfamiliar with Rutgers women’s basketball, Standing Tall will more than suffice as an inspirational biography. She goes further into her humanity in print than most coaches ever do. You don’t have to be a basketball fan to appreciate Stringer or like this book.

However, for someone more initiated, the book misses an essential element of Stringer’s character: her sense of humor. She brilliantly uses humor to bring the fans behind her by ranking on her players as only a family-oriented coach could. She loves her players, but she is not shy about mocking their recent athletic shortcomings (as opposed to their character) in public—and it makes them play better.

In this coaching role, Stringer reminds me of the film clips I used to watch of Casey Stengel, the long-time Yankee manager, affectionately known as the “Old Perfessor.” Like Stengel, we laugh along with Stringer when she quips about her team and herself, but never at her. And like Stengel, she knows a thing or two about defense and juggling a line-up. Stringer and Stengel have another similarity: Stengel’s given name is Charles. Stringer’s given name is Charlaine, named after her father, whose name is Charles.

But Stengel had to wait until his late 50’s to become a winner, first in the high minor leagues, then with the Yankees. All but one of his World Series championships came after his 60^th birthday. Stringer just turned 60 this month. Like Stengel, her best moments as a head coach are ahead of her.

Stuart Nachbar operates http://www.EducatedQuest.com , a blog on education politics, policy and technology. He was involved with education politics and economic development for two decades as an urban planner, government affairs manager and a software executive. His first novel, The Sex Ed Chronicles, about sex education and school politics in 1980 New Jersey, was published this past fall.

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