Pounding the Rock: Basketball Dreams and Real Life in a Bronx High School

by Marc Skelton Narrated by Pete Larkin

Overview

Welcome to Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School, in a working-class corner of the Bronx, where a driven coach inspires his teams to win games and championships--and learn Russian history and graduate and go on to college.

In 2006, the Fannie Lou Hamer Panthers basketball team was 0-18. Since 2007, the year Marc Skelton, a New Hampshire native, took over as head coach, the Panthers' record has been 228-68, and they've won three Public School Athletic League championships and one statewide championship. This tiny 400-student school has become a powerhouse on the basketball court, as well as a public education success story and a symbol of the regeneration of its once blighted neighborhood.
**** In Pounding the Rock, Marc Skelton tells the thrilling story of the 2016-2017 season, as the Panthers seek to redeem an early exit from the playoffs the year before. But this is far more than a basketball story. It's a profile of a school that, against the odds, educates kids from the poorest congressional district in the country and sends the majority of them to college; of an unusual coach who studies the game with Talmudic intensity, demands as much of himself as he does of his players (a lot), and finds inspiration as much from Melville, Gogol, and Jacob Riis as from John Wooden; and of a squad of young men who battle against difficulties in life every day, and who don't know how to quit.
**** In a world of all too many downers, Pounding the Rock is one big up, on the court and off. All fans of basketball and of life will rise up and applaud.

Editorial Reviews

MAY 2019 - AudioFile

Narrating in an enthusiastic voice, Pete Larkin brings to life Marc Skelton’s quasi-memoir about coaching a high school basketball team in the Bronx. Skelton provides a thoughtful perspective as he shares his commitment to the success of his players—on and off the court. Larkin’s voice seems a bit on the older side for the author’s first-person story, but that doesn’t take away from the tone he establishes. Larkin’s engaged narration matches Skelton’s cerebral take on coaching; both are genuine in their storytelling manner. This is not a story of wins and losses. It’s about a patient coach who views his team and surroundings through a sociological lens. Larkin helps keep that lens in focus throughout his narration. M.B. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

From the Publisher

Inspiring… A complicated, compelling mosaic about sports, education, and America.” 
—Men's Journal 

“A text full of hope, self-examination, and a profound belief in the young people whom the author coaches and teaches.” 
—Kirkus Reviews 

“Marc Skelton gives us a chance to understand the value of sports as an integral part of the curriculum in our urban school system. He shows how smaller schools give students the opportunity to be influenced by dedicated coaches and teachers to reach their full potential against stiff odds. Reading this book made me reflect on the great relationships with my former players and the memories we have. Pounding the Rock is excellent.”
—Bob Hurley, coach of St. Anthony’s High School, the subject of the bestselling The Miracle of St. Anthony  

“Is Pounding the Rock a book about basketball, being a beloved coach, adolescent boys, education reform, or all of the above? Or is it something else entirely: a good love story that’s hard to put down. What it is, I love it and hated to finish it. It was such a pleasure to keep company with Marc Skelton, his team, and his inspiring colleagues at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School.”
—Deborah Meier, author of The Power of Ideas: Lessons for America from a Small School in Harlem, founder of the Central Park East Secondary School

"Marc Skelton offered a basketball sanctuary in a tiny gym in the Bronx, and his players miraculously became the sanctuary they sought there. His inspiring book Pounding the Rock testifies to the healing power of relationship to elevate kids, stuck in a lethal absence of hope, to a broad-shouldered resilience and the reimagining of their future."
—Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, author of Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion.

MAY 2019 - AudioFile

Narrating in an enthusiastic voice, Pete Larkin brings to life Marc Skelton’s quasi-memoir about coaching a high school basketball team in the Bronx. Skelton provides a thoughtful perspective as he shares his commitment to the success of his players—on and off the court. Larkin’s voice seems a bit on the older side for the author’s first-person story, but that doesn’t take away from the tone he establishes. Larkin’s engaged narration matches Skelton’s cerebral take on coaching; both are genuine in their storytelling manner. This is not a story of wins and losses. It’s about a patient coach who views his team and surroundings through a sociological lens. Larkin helps keep that lens in focus throughout his narration. M.B. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2018-11-26

A high school basketball coach and teacher debuts with a volume about a successful basketball season—and a host of educational, social, and personal issues.

Skelton, once an all-state player in his native New Hampshire, had drifted away from basketball, but then he returned to the sport when he began teaching history and English at Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in the Bronx, a school whose praises he sings throughout ("a touchstone for small school success in the city"). Within a few years, he had built a team that won two city championships and one state crown. As the author guides us through a recent successful season, he steps away occasionally to talk about his family, educational issues—he is opposed to high-stakes standardized testing and the narrow curriculum that exists because of it, and he's deeply worried about what he sees as the deleterious effects of the charter-school movement on public education—his classes (he especially loves teaching Russian literature), and his valued colleagues at the school. Throughout, Skelton sprinkles literary allusions and quotations, including elements of Moby-Dick (probably the most frequent), Rabbit, Run, and Troilus and Cressida. The focus, of course, is on the author's players, their practices and games, and relationships. He chronicles how he deals with injuries, players quitting the team, and with his own passion for the game and for winning, a passion that often manifests itself in shouting and punching his notebooks. His diction is not always fresh or surprising. "Life is not easy," he writes; his wife is "my best friend." Some readers may be surprised by how little Skelton discusses race given the school's location in "one of the most segregated sections" of NYC. Although there is one moderately tense moment with local police officers, the author is more focused on the individual players and students than on their value as racial metaphors.

A text full of hope, self-examination, and a profound belief in the young people whom the author coaches and teaches.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169211405
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	03/12/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Part 1: The Preseason

Walfri
 
Walfri Restitulo has a white towel around his neck and securely tucked into his red practice jersey, and he’s bent over, madly pounding the rock against the wood floor. The towel is wet. He’s in his fourth year of high school and he’s working towards his first championship in his final season. Two years ago, if you had asked me what was the likelihood of Walfri being a starter or the captain, I’m not sure I would have said anything. He had a lot of work to do. And he has done that work, the necessary work, to become a very good player. He was cut his freshman year. His sophomore year he played in only a handful of games. His junior year he displayed a brief but dominating excellence that faded right before the playoffs. All these ups and downs seemed to drive him to show everyone that he was a very good basketball player and he was determined to play consistently. He was the player who learned more in a loss than a victory. He was at times outwardly resistant. But inwardly he was disciplined and self-critical. He was always searching for ways to improve himself. As a six-foot two-inch power forward, Walfri used his intelligence to gather rebounds. He wasn’t able to inhale rebounds off the rim like Charles. Instead he was physical. He wore guys down. He loved to play chess and he played basketball with a grandmaster’s mind. There’s no doubt in my mind when Walfri is in his forties, he will be the best player in the Over 40 League. He has a toolbox full of gambits and post moves.

When I think about Walfri’s improvement, he may be like no other player I have ever coached. He is now working on his post moves. Up and under. Baby hook. Reverse layup. Now he was averaging close to double digits in points and rebounds. The towel now resembles a yoke.

At this point Walfri is looking like a character in Ilya Repin’s painting Barge Haulers on the Volga. Walfri starts at the baseline dribbling two basketballs. Charles is behind him, holding onto Walfri’s hips for added resistance. Charles gets dragged as if he’s in an invisible sled past the free throw line all the way to half court. They switch roles. Now Charles has to dribble two balls simultaneously while Walfri crouches down and pretends to be an anchor.

At seventeen, sometime next season Charles will leave Fannie Lou as the all-time leader in points, rebounds, blocks, and games played. He’s known for his dunks and quiet demeanor. If you were going to go to the beach, you would want to invite Charles. He would carry the coolers, the pails and shovels, inflatable rafts, chaise longues if necessary. Without a doubt, he is the foundation of our defense and offense. Now he is getting a lesson about hard work from Walfri. It seems Walfri carries the success of the team on his back like the towel around his neck. He is his own biggest critic. He works like this all season.

Fatigue has set in. They do this at least a dozen times. Their toil in this gym is laudable. They enjoy the hard work. After the practice was over Walfri said, “We have a lot of work to do.” Only then did I know he could lead us to a championship. He somehow knew that even after a grueling two-hour practice, there was more work to be done. He was like Mr. Bob Moses in that sense. Just because you had gone down to Mississippi and forced the Democrats to include the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in the convention as delegates, the work was not done.

Walfri was impeccably cool. Sometimes too cool for school. More than once he had been seen playing cards or dice in school. He retained some habits he had picked up from his block. “I don’t see anything wrong with it,” he would always declare. “I finished my work.”

He was right. He always finished his work. He had an above-90 average. Walfri would stop by my room when he felt stressed-out by another teacher. One time he clearly wanted to see if could tell me his side of the story before an email or phone call could be made. He’d rushed into my room and said, “Coach, you wouldn’t believe what happened.” It was always something minor. He cajoled his teachers or used his phone in class. Never anything sordid, but his responses were defensive, not offensive.

Usually it was a case of Walfri wanting to see what boundaries he could push. He felt like he was always respectful until someone disrespected him. Then a verbal confrontation might happen. He was a gentleman until he was pushed, poked, and prodded into something he didn’t want to do, like fight. Yet he liked to argue. He was competitive. He wanted to know what you were thinking.

His first two years on the team were about Walfri pushing boundaries with me. Once, when he was a sophomore, he kept asking me why he didn’t play. I explained to him he practiced slow, so games would be like if he was on a tricycle at the Indy 500. While he had a smooth jumper it took him some time to release it, and I said it would be something we could work on in the offseason. He didn’t buy it. Therefore he continued to sit on the bench during games.

In the second quarter of a close game during his sophomore year, he went into a game.

We were on the road and it was a lively crowd. On the first possession, Walfri caught the ball near half court and, before he could turn around, was jumped by two defenders who ripped the ball from him and scored a layup. We made eye contact after the play. He knew I was right. After that moment, Walfri and I had a better understanding of each other. He needed to trust me, and I also needed him to play through mistakes.

“I took strides every day to get better — I practiced any chance I could, morning, noon and night,” Walfri once told me his senior year. I believed him. He became an essential part of the team. I didn’t intentionally minimize his playing time his sophomore year to maximize his desire to improve and reap the benefits of his heady play his senior year, but it did seem to work out that way.

He lives with his older brother, younger sister and mother. His mom is from the Dominican Republic. I never asked about his dad, and Walfri never told me anything about him. He never revealed much of his hardscrabble life in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. He did share an essay with me that he had written. In it were the things he wanted me to know: how much his mom valued education, how much basketball gave him discipline and a drive to improve himself. But it was the first line that stuck me like a pin. “Have you ever had negative influences everywhere you go?” The second line was even more illuminating. “Or having to be worried that there are dangerous people almost everywhere you go?” I was moved by the absolutes in his questions. Everywhere? In the second line he qualifies it with the adverb “almost,” and I would like to think that school, home, and basketball are where he can feel safe.

“You see and hear things you aren’t supposed to at a young age,” Walfri declared in a text once. The Bronx makes you grow up faster. Fifteen-year-olds mask their real age. Seventeen-year-olds act and function better than most adults I know; they have jobs, cars, some even have children. By nineteen some are already to retire, having lived a tumultuous life. When you regularly hear about twenty-one-year-olds being murdered, you cannot take your teenage life for granted. Why should it surprise me that when Walfri sees an eighty-two-year-old Bob Moses, he is most impressed that he’s eighty-two? He has seen too many young lives cut short.

Walfri plays through pain. His knees hurt after practice, but he never complains. During his junior year he caught an elbow at practice that left a large gash near his left eyebrow. He wears a scar there now. He wore a facemask to practice the next day. In the three years he’s played for me, he didn’t miss one practice. He played sick. He played when things weren’t going right at home. He showed the younger kids what it meant to be dedicated. Basketball is where Walfri went to escape the streets and to avoid trouble. The team all followed his lead and worked hard in practice because of him. Every championship teams needs a leader like Walfri.

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