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Yea! Wildcats!
A small town coach takes over a large city basketball team and guides them to the state finals
319 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1989
About the author
John R. Tunis
47 books11 followersJohn Roberts Tunis "the 'inventor' of the modern sports story",was an American writer and broadcaster. Known for his juvenile sports novels, Tunis also wrote short stories and non-fiction, including a weekly sports column for the New Yorker magazine. As a commentator Tunis was part of the first trans-Atlantic sports cast and the first broadcast of the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament to the United States.
After graduating from Harvard and serving in the Army during World War I, Tunis began his writing career freelancing for American sports magazines while playing tennis in the Rivera. For the next two decades he wrote short stories and articles about sports and education for magazines including Reader's Digest, The Saturday Evening Post and Esquire.
Tunis' work often protested the increasing professionalization of sports in America. He believed that amateur participation in sports taught values important for good citizenship like perseverance, fair play and equality, and that the emphasis on professional sports was turning America into a country of spectators. His sports books also tackled current social issues such as antisemitism and racial equality.
Though Tunis never considered himself a children's writer, all but one of his twenty-four books were published for juveniles; their success helped create the juvenile fiction book market in the 1940s. Books like Iron Duke (1938), All American (1942) and Keystone Kids (1943) were well received by readers and critics. Iron Duke received the New York Herald Tribune Spring Book Festival Award for best juvenile novel and was named a The Horn Book Magazine Best Book. The Child Study Association of America gave its Golden Scroll Award to Keystone Kids.
In his tribute to the writer, Bernard Hayes said "Tunis has probably made good readers of millions of young people." His success with the juvenile audience helped change the publishing industry. Along with writers like Howard Pease, his books demonstrated to publishers that there was money to be made in targeting books for teenagers. His influence went beyond simply creating a market for young adult books. "In his attempt to link sports with the communities in which they are played, he broached some highly significant issues in the literature written for and about America's youth", according to John S. Simmons in John R. Tunis and the Sports Novels for Adolescents: A Little Ahead of His Time. Tunis never considered himself a writer of boys' books, insisting his stories could be read and enjoyed by adults. He felt that the word "juvenile" was an "odious... product of a merchandising age". Despite his dislike of the term, Tunis' novels helped create and shape the juvenile fiction book market.
After graduating from Harvard and serving in the Army during World War I, Tunis began his writing career freelancing for American sports magazines while playing tennis in the Rivera. For the next two decades he wrote short stories and articles about sports and education for magazines including Reader's Digest, The Saturday Evening Post and Esquire.
Tunis' work often protested the increasing professionalization of sports in America. He believed that amateur participation in sports taught values important for good citizenship like perseverance, fair play and equality, and that the emphasis on professional sports was turning America into a country of spectators. His sports books also tackled current social issues such as antisemitism and racial equality.
Though Tunis never considered himself a children's writer, all but one of his twenty-four books were published for juveniles; their success helped create the juvenile fiction book market in the 1940s. Books like Iron Duke (1938), All American (1942) and Keystone Kids (1943) were well received by readers and critics. Iron Duke received the New York Herald Tribune Spring Book Festival Award for best juvenile novel and was named a The Horn Book Magazine Best Book. The Child Study Association of America gave its Golden Scroll Award to Keystone Kids.
In his tribute to the writer, Bernard Hayes said "Tunis has probably made good readers of millions of young people." His success with the juvenile audience helped change the publishing industry. Along with writers like Howard Pease, his books demonstrated to publishers that there was money to be made in targeting books for teenagers. His influence went beyond simply creating a market for young adult books. "In his attempt to link sports with the communities in which they are played, he broached some highly significant issues in the literature written for and about America's youth", according to John S. Simmons in John R. Tunis and the Sports Novels for Adolescents: A Little Ahead of His Time. Tunis never considered himself a writer of boys' books, insisting his stories could be read and enjoyed by adults. He felt that the word "juvenile" was an "odious... product of a merchandising age". Despite his dislike of the term, Tunis' novels helped create and shape the juvenile fiction book market.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 10, 2012
Yea! Wildcats tells the story of a basketball coach in small-town, basketball mad, Indiana. Coach Don Henderson is the young, rising coach and he immediately angers the powerful locals by kicking five starters off his team.
The next year, with things going better, he befriends the town’s most powerful man and father to one of the boys who replaced those suspended. He also meets the town’s outcast newspaper editor and learns a more than a little about how small towns operate.
This story is about much more than the struggles of a team to win the basketball games, it is about corruption, power, coercion, and the way things work. Henderson finds that each win that brings him closer to the state championship increases expectations and pressures. Is the game about the kids or the adults who watch and profit from it in various ways? We all know the answer to that.
I’ve been in small towns and the picture Tunis portrays rings true. This is much more than a sports story and I’d urge everyone to read it.
The next year, with things going better, he befriends the town’s most powerful man and father to one of the boys who replaced those suspended. He also meets the town’s outcast newspaper editor and learns a more than a little about how small towns operate.
This story is about much more than the struggles of a team to win the basketball games, it is about corruption, power, coercion, and the way things work. Henderson finds that each win that brings him closer to the state championship increases expectations and pressures. Is the game about the kids or the adults who watch and profit from it in various ways? We all know the answer to that.
I’ve been in small towns and the picture Tunis portrays rings true. This is much more than a sports story and I’d urge everyone to read it.
May 10, 2012
Read it as a preteen. Reread the book as an old guy. Still can carry me back to my youthful time.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews