Hurricane Season: A Coach, His Team, and Their Triumph in the Time of Katrina - Softcover

Thompson, Neal

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1416540717 ISBN 13: 9781416540717

Publisher: Free Press, 2010

Synopsis

There's always a point in the season when you're faced with a challenge and you see what you're capable of. And you grow up" - J. T. Curtis, head coach, John Curtis Christian School Patriots On Saturday, August 27, 2005, the John Curtis Patriots met for a grueling practice in the late summer New Orleans sun, the air a visible fog of humidity. They had pulled off a 19-0 shutout in their pre-season game the night before, but it was a game full of dumb mistakes. Head coach J. T. Curtis was determined to drill those mistakes out of them before their highly anticipated next game, which sportswriters had dubbed "the Battle of the Bayou" against a big team coming in all the way from Utah. As fate played out, that afternoon was the last time the Patriots would see one another for weeks; some teammates they'd never see again. Hurricane Katrina was about to tear their lives apart. The Patriots are a most unlikely football dynasty. There is a small, nondescript, family-run school, the buildings constructed by hand by the school's founding patriarch, John Curtis Sr. In this era of high school football as big business with 20,000 seat stadiums, John Curtis has no stadium of its own. The team plays an old-school offense, and Coach Curtis insists on a no-cut policy, giving every kid who wants to play a chance. As of 2005, they'd won nineteen state championships in Curtis's thirty-five years of coaching, making him the second most winning high school coach ever. Curtis has honed to a fine art the skill of teaching players how to transcend their natural talents. No screamer, he strives to teach kids about playing with purpose, the power of respect, dignity, poise, patience, trust in teamwork, and the payoff of perseverance, showing them how to be winners not only on the gridiron, but in life, and making boys into men. Hurricane Katrina would put those lessons to the test of a lifetime. Hurricane Season is the story of a great coach

About this title

Review

""Hurricane Season" is a powerful book about who we are, and who we each strive to be. The story of Coach J.T. Curtis and his football team, it is also the song sung by real people succeeding to complete the mission each has been called to, often against seemingly impossible odds. I think this is a beautiful read for parents of both boys and girls, and I believe it's an especially powerful book for parents, mentors, and teachers of boys and young men." -- Michael Gurian, Author of "The Wonder of Boys" and "The Wonder of Girls"

"The concept of 'overcoming adversity' is certainly nothing new in the world of sports. Here, though, we see a truly extraordinary example of boys and men facing raw trauma and striking back with both passion and purpose." -- Jeffrey Marx, author of "A Season of Life"

"A rousing, well-told tale that is poignant and inspirational. With grace and beauty, Neal Thompson shows us that the human spirit cannot be conquered, even in the ashes of Katrina." -- Buzz Bissinger, author of "Friday Night Lights"

About the Author

Neal Thompson is a veteran journalist who has worked for the
Baltimore Sun, Philadelphia Inquirer, and St. Petersburg
Times, and whose magazine stories have appeared in Outside,
Esquire, Backpacker, Mens Health, and The
Washington Post Magazine. He is the author of two critically acclaimed
books, Light This Candle: The Life and Times of Alan Shepard, America's
First Spaceman and Driving with the Devil: Southern Moonshine,
Detroit Wheels and the Birth of NASCAR. Thompson and his family live
in the mountains outside Asheville, North Carolina. Visit his website at
www.nealthompson.com

About this edition

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1416540717
• ISBN 13: 9781416540717
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 328