All sports fans on my news feed should read this book. Every single one of you. "Play Their Hearts Out" is an eye-opening account of what the players we see on college basketball courts go through before we see them. It's not the rim nailed to a barn, or the neighborhood pick-up game in a cul-de-sac or even twenty-five games a winter with a high school team that paves the path to a college scholarship. All-consuming grassroots basketball with all of its shady operators makes up about 90% or more More...

Play Their Hearts Out is a compelling look into the world of AAU youth basketball and the corruption that is rampant within. George Dohrmann followed Joe Keller and his young star, Demetrius Walker for close to eight years, chronicling their successes and failures on and off the basketball court.

Keller is a man obsessed with becoming an influential figure within the grassroots world of youth basketball. Having lost the chance to do this with Tyson Chandler, who was stolen from him by another co More...

Though it took me a long while to get into this book, when I finally did I was hooked. I think Dohrmann started out just a little slow--the first third of the book felt glacially-paced to me. But as the boys age, the story really picks up, and it's really a very informative and interesting read. For anyone who likes sports, and especially basketball, I feel as if this is a must-read. I have seen the LeBron James documentary (the one that starts with him playing in AAU basketball), but that film More...

Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine explores the cruelty and hostility of youth basketball that has the ability to take the innocence from a teen.

This story follows a youth basketball team coached by Joe Keller, the coach who discovered Tyson Chandler, the NBA center currently playing for the New York Knicks. Joe Keller finds kids from around Southern California at first, but starts recruiting for his team all around the country. Joe Keller hopes to More...

This book captivated me from the description of how the youth basketball system is corrupted. Me, as part of this system, felt like this is very relevant to my life, and would be interesting. This book was originally going to follow coach Joe Keller and his young AAU team in California all the way until the team would split up to go to high school. But, Coach Keller, didn't seem to care about anybody except his star player, Demetrius. This often led him to neglect and not care about his other pl More...

There was a time when the second best avenue to writerly acclaim (the best being investigative journalism) was sports writing, and Dohrmann seems cut from that cloth. He’s a Sports Illustrated writer-Pulitzer winner – and, as this book demonstrates, a bit of an investigative writer himself.

But a bit about the book.

Dohrmann began following what he calls grassroots basketball, i.e., the entrepreneurial AAU system of pre-high school hoops. His main focus is a struggling coach, Joe Keller, and his More...

The "Coach" -- Joe Keller. A man who knows nothing about coaching basketball, but knows there's money in working with potential young phenoms.
The Star Recruit -- Demetrius Walker. A young basketball phenom and Joe Keller's meal ticket.
The Young Basketball Machine -- The AAU--a feeding ground for colleges, not liable to the NCAA or any real rules, peopled with predatory coaches and greased with the money from Nike, Adidas and Reebok.

PLAY THEIR HEARTS OUT is a heartbreaking and eye-opening book More...

This book is about the growth of AAU basketball down to grade school kids. Now, 10 years old are subject to rankings and being heralded as the next LeBron, which is pretty awful if they or their peers haven't finished or started puberty.

The journalist followed a coach (Joe Keller) and his star athlete (Demetrius Walker). Joe Keller is clearly the villain. He's out to get rich off of finding the 'Next LeBron' despite not knowing much about basketball (he fails to teach his players basic ballhandi More...

Kind of like the anti-Blind Side: Both look at a larger sports issue through the story of a talented high schooler, but instead of an uplifting, exceptional tale of a family taking him in out of love, it's a depressing, all-too common story of greed where agents and coaches exploit high school basketball players.

Next time I hear talk of free markets, it will give me pause because this story is Milton Friedman's wet dream of untrammeled capitalism, and I don't like what I see. If your heart does More...

One reviewer billed this book as the Friday Night Lights of AAU basketball, and the book lived up to this lofty standard. The author spent eight years following an AAU team, with much of the focus on the "coach" and the star player, who was once the No. 1 ranked player as an 8th grader.

While I was aware of the arguments that the AAU system was a major cause of the degradation of team basketball, to see the system in action was downright repulsive. The "coach", after identifying Demetrius Walker More...

As someone with a bit of personal experience in the world of AAU basketball, this was a fascinating read. Dohrmann follows one particular coach, Joe Keller, during an eight-year journey to establish himself as a SoCal powerhouse, but he uses this framework to tell the story of the evolution of youth basketball as a whole, and how the system has been hijacked by the shoe companies. I used to see these kids of very limited means coming to elite basketball camps with unbelievable loads of Nike and More...

Not many of the people that are the focus of this come off very well. The coach is odious. Demetrius is ultimately pitiable, although kudos to him for picking the pieces up a bit (he is on his second college in as many years), some of the parents are worrisome - particularly Aaron's mother - although bravo to Justin's mom! Many of the other coaches are just as bad as Keller, although certainly not all. Ben Howland doesn't come off great but a damn sight better than Tim Floyd is apparently didn't More...

This book made me so glad that I am a girl. I grew up playing AAU basketball in tournaments all over the nation, and I attended some recruiting camps after receiving letters from colleges in middle school like these kids in the book, but neither my more talented friends, nor I ever faced the crazy pressures that these boys did. Shoe companies were not lining up to take advantage of girl basketball players, and for that, I am so thankful. The free gear and the money that was thrown at the coaches More...

What a sad book. But I guess that real. The good guys get screwed. The bad guys are rewarded and the naive are taken advantage of. Even though I was depressed by the end of the book (and my subsequent internet searching), I find that I was quite fascinated by the story and the characters therein.

None of the characters have really found the success it seemed would come so natural to them - with the possible exception of the villain coach Joe Keller (who apparently has become filthy rich - just n More...

I bought this book as a Christmas gift for my dad and as I started wrapping it, I thumbed through it, read the cover and decided I'd read it to see what I thought. Wow, what a great book! Eight years of investigative reporting and George Dorhmann has written a Pulitzer prize-winning non-fiction account of a group of incredibly talented boy basketball players.

This book details the inner world of AAU basketball for players beginning at the age of 10. The author is credible and believable and seem More...

If I read a better book in 2012, I'll be very shocked and pleasantly surprised, as this book is about as good as it gets.
The author, George Dohrmann, follows an AAU basketball team and its players,coaches and parents for eight years. This book has been called by some people the "Friday Night Lights of youth basketball." I couldn't disagree more. I actually liked some characters in Friday Night Lights. No, the Hamlet of youth basketball is probably better.
Although without giving away the ending, More...

"Really liked it" might be a bit misleading.

George Dohrmann deserves much credit for this in-depth look at the "grassroots" basketball underbelly, especially if it can raise enough of a stink to inspire some real change.

I'm guessing, though, that it won't, which is a shame. There's just too much money to be made via the exploitation of these young athletes and when parents are part of the gang gathering at the feed trough, it's hard to see much hope for the situation.

If you have kids and aspir More...

This is a very interesting book, especially for someone who has a child/children who play sports at a high level. The book illustrates the morally questionable (and highly profitable) "grassroots" basketball system that funnels kids from grade-school age travel through college recruiting. As with all sports, it is not necessarily the early stand-outs that ultimately reach the highest levels nor are those with the most talent coached/guided to reach their greatest potential. And as with life, the More...

I'm sad that in depth expose journalism only happens in book form today. It's not sad that George Dohrmann received unprecedented access into a major feeding ground into the professional basketball ranks.

Is it sad that for every AAU success story that there is dozens of kids who allow their grades and lives to stall, hinged on the hopes of a basketball future? It's nearly an addiction which stunts the lives of children for their exploitation by men and by a system designed to siphon money from t More...

Dohrmann uses his considerable reportage skills to uncover the cesspool that is AAU basketball. We see the greed and exploitation that young boys are subjected to in the coaches' quests to "make it". I hope that this book leads to some changes in the amateur youth basketball system, to better protect players and ensure that they are given all the opportunities in life that their talent will allow them,

A compelling piece of non-fiction that serves--through following a star player and his AAU coach from grade school through high school--as an expose on the underbelly if amateur basketball. The hook is set during the prologue when the coach, Joe Keller, finds future NBA player and US Olympian Tyson Chandler, only to have a rival coach steal Chandler away through false promises to Keller. Amazingly, that was the last instance in the book that I felt any sympathy for Keller. It's a good read for b More...

I really enjoyed this book and became attached to many of the people that Dohrmann follows. At its core, it's a story about Demetrius Walker and the ways in which the grassroots basketball system chews him up and spits him out. At various points I found myself wanting to stop the story to give Demetrius advice. It seems even the author had a hard time remaining strictly a biographer and it's hard to blame him.

The planets that orbit Demetrius are interesting in their own right. Coach Keller, Aaro More...

I am a die-hard sports fan. Evidence of this fact is not hard to find ; For instance I spent the majority of yesterday afternoon watching preseason NFL games - All in anticipation of the Broncos opener. (and the debut of Touchdown Jesus Tim Tebow) Basketball, and the NBA's Denver Nuggets rank second in the hierarchy of my rooting heart. At least where the so-called 'major' sports are concerned. Despite all that I rarely read sports related books. My reasoning for this is simple. I can usually pl More...

I learned three things from this book: 1) Joe Keller is an awful basketball coach and an even more awful human being, 2) AAU basketball and the shoe companies that feed it are exploiting children horribly, and 3) it is impossible for an 11-year old to live up to the expectations of being called the best anything.[return][return]That said, I really enjoyed Dohrmann's writing and his journalism in researching the book. It is a topic he obviously worked hard over a long period of time on, and his i More...

This book was received as part of an Early Reviewers Program.


This narrative is like watching a train wreck.

It is a fascinating journey with a group of kids through their youth, starting at about age nine, all the way through middle school and to high school, and that all important time where they strive to achieve a scholarship. Its core focus is on the young talent Demetrius Walker, and his relationship with his Coach, Joe Keller.

The narrative covers all the elements: the hope, the hard More...

If you are interested in basketball, this is a fabulous book.mwritten by a Sports Illustrated Pulitzer prize winning author tells the story of kids as young as 10 years old and their AAU basketball teams. The main character is Demetrius Walker, who was featured in an SIbarticle at the age of 14, as the next Lebron James. He was used and discarded by a corrupt AAU coach, Joe Keller, who now runs basketball camps and is a multi millionaire. You will recognize many of the names in this book if you More...

This book does an excellent job of delving into the world of grassroots basketball, including the players, coaches, schools, shoe companies, and big money that comprise it. One of the biggest things I liked about the book was that the book covers about an 8-10 year period. The author started following this particular team from the absolute beginning and continued covering it until the end. That to me distinguishes it greatly from other sports books that just cover one season or that don't start More...

There have been a bunch of things written about the unseemly world of high-stakes youth sports, and this book follows the standard path: locate a group of talented, naive kids, and follow their stories over time (in this case, eight years). So while Play Their Hearts Out seems like an update on Hoop Dreams or The Last Shot, it is original by virtue of showing how much has changed since those stories were told. This is a shocking indictment of the business of youth basketball.

The story's villain, More...

*Disclaimer - I received this book from a Goodreads giveaway.

First and foremost I want to thank Mr. Scallen for being a phenomenal coach, both in soccer and basketball for a good chunk of my childhood. While I always knew that you were a good coach, I never realized how great of a coach you were. Teaching the fundamentals, making sure that players remained friends for years afterward, and instilling confidence among a large group of adolescent boys couldn't have been easy, but you did it.

George More...