Sports-Related Young Adult Literature—Coaches, Youth-Athletes, and Life by Luke Rodesiler and Mark A. Lewis

Greetings from a Spring Break in Scotland. I am so happy that Mark and Luke were able to get this to me early. Life with the grand kids is important. Mark has been a contributor in the past. You can find is post about YA urban fiction here and his post about middle grades graphic novels here. Luke is a newcomer to the blog. The most important thing to remember is that both of these gentlemen are awesome.  Thanks for taking a turn.

Sports-Related Young Adult Literature—Coaches, Youth-Athletes, and Life

In an article appearing in the Winter 2019 issue of The ALAN Review, we built upon Chris Crowe’s (2004) scholarship and shared findings from our research investigating the representation of coaches in young adult literature (YAL). (see the pdf at the bottom of the post) Specifically, we examined depictions of coaches that appeared in 10 award-winning and/or recommended sports-related works of YAL published over 10 years, between 2008 and 2017.
 
As explained in the article, we identified the depiction of five types of relationships between coaches and adolescent-athletes:
 

• coach-athlete, where the coach develops adolescent-athletes’ skills while looking out for their health and wellbeing;
• mentor-protégé, where the coach provides adolescent-athletes mentorship and guidance beyond the field of play;
• counselor-client, where the coach supports adolescent-athletes on a more intimate level as they negotiate hardships life has dealt them;
• victor-victim, where the coach embraces a win-at-all-costs mentality that is detrimental to adolescent-athletes; and
• master-puppet, where the coach manipulates adolescent-athletes not for the sake of winning games but for their own personal reasons.

 
We discuss in more detail how these relationships function in our selected YA texts and the effects these relationships have on the youthful characters’ lives, both inside and outside the sports arena. We encourage you to give the article a look. Perhaps you’ll find some ideas that can support your work with sports-related YAL.
 
Since we didn’t have space to review the selected YAL in the article, we highlight in this post the titles included in our study, each a work of contemporary realistic fiction. We offer a brief overview of each novel and note some of the awards and/or recommendations they received. If you’ve already read some of the books listed, see if you can identify the type(s) of relationship(s) featured between coaches and adolescent-athletes in those novels. And if there are titles below you haven’t read yet, well, what are you waiting for? 

Leverage (Joshua C. Cohen, 2011)
Cohen’s novel challenges the win-at-all-costs culture that is all too common in sports. And it does so with an extremely dark depiction of a football team and its coaches. A coach paying players? Check. A coach distributing steroids? Check. A coach emasculating players? Check. A coach getting teachers to raise players’ grades? Check. A coach encouraging players to injure the opposition? Check. A coach ignoring sexual assault allegations to win a game? Check. In the thick of all that scandal—each offense perpetrated by Coach Brigs, the head football coach—an unlikely friendship emerges between the new football star Kurtis Brodsky, who has already experienced too much trauma, and gymnast Danny Meehan, offering a bit of light in an otherwise dark tale. 

Awards & Recommendations
YALSA Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults, 2012; Booklist Editors’ Choice: Books for Youth, 2011; Starred review, Booklist, 2011

Box Out (John Coy, 2008)
It’s easy to appreciate characters that stand up for what they believe in despite others challenging their convictions. Liam Bergstrom, the main character in Box Out, fits that description. The sophomore is excited to play for the men’s varsity basketball team at his public high school. However, he’s not comfortable with Coach Kloss requiring players to participate in mandatory prayer sessions. After confronting his coach, doing a little research, and recognizing his coach’s manipulative ways, Liam discovers that he must walk his own road, even if it means making a difficult decision. With mentoring from Jack Franzen, the coach of the women’s varsity basketball team, and an introduction to the writings of Walt Whitman, Liam comes to terms with the decision he made.   
 
Awards & Recommendations
Booklist Top Ten Sports Books for Youth, 2009; Starred review, Booklist, 2008; chosen as a Junior Library Guild Book

Foul Trouble (John Feinstein, 2013)
It’s true that sports-related literature is about so much more than sports alone. Still, Foul Trouble is a basketball book; it is steeped in the world of amateur hoops and explores the dark underbelly of big-time college recruiting. Playing for Coach Wilcox, Terrell Jamerson has become the top-ranked high school basketball player in the country. His teammate Danny Wilcox, the coach’s son, is a budding star drawing attention from Division I college basketball programs as well. The two navigate life as elite prospects, which isn’t easy when boosters, coaches, agents, and hangers-on—each with their own self-serving agenda—are making promises that, undoubtedly, come with strings attached. Unfortunately, playing the recruiting game does not come quite as easy to Terrell and Danny as competing on the hardwood.
 
Awards & Recommendations
YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, 2014; Starred review, Kirkus Reviews, 2013; Starred review, Booklist, 2013

Exit, Pursued by a Bear (E. K. Johnston, 2016)
Johnston sensitively tackles another systemic problem in our society—the pervasive sexual assault on women. The story begins with Hermione Winters, captain of the high-profile cheerleading squad at her high school, leading her team during the annual summer cheerleading camp. The summer, however, ends with her being drugged and raped at the closing social. Coach Caledon, Hermione’s cheerleading coach, is a pillar of support for Hermione as she endures her senior year through the ensuing trauma. While the connection with the Shakespeare play seems flimsy, Johnston does well to engage the reader, both in terms of building empathy for Hermione—and, thereby, for lived others suffering similar trauma—and creating suspense for whether Hermione’s attacker would be discovered or not.
 
Awards & Recommendations
Canadian Children Book Centre’s Amy Mathers Teen Book Award, 2017; YALSA Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, 2017; a Booklist Best Book, 2016

Not if I See You First (Eric Lindstrom, 2015)
We also recommend Lindstrom’s novel as one of the better choices on this list, primarily because of the dynamic characters of Parker Grant and her father but also due to its focus on a female athlete finding ways to continue competing despite losing her sight after a car accident. Parker wears colorful head scarves that cover her eyes and has created a set of non-negotiable rules for how others should act toward and around her. Unfortunately, “The Rules” has disrupted formerly close relationships, including one with an ex-boyfriend who has recently transferred to her high school. As she works on her track skills with Coach Underhill, who recruited Parker after seeing her run in the park, she also works on building stronger relationships with her family and friends.
 
Awards & Recommendations
Handi-Livres Prize: Best Teen Youth Book, 2017; YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, 2017; a Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Book, 2015

Darius & Twig (Walter Dean Myers, 2013)
If Foul Trouble is a sports-related novel for sports fans, then Darius & Twig can be considered sports-related literature for readers who aren’t clinging to the sports angle. The novel is a coming-of-age story about a pair of best friends, each with their own unique talents, growing up in Harlem. Darius is a creative writer developing his own alter ego, Fury, a peregrine falcon. Twig is steadily climbing the ranks as a successful middle-distance runner. Together each is learning how to live his own dream, but interactions with sketchy relatives, run-ins with members of a local gang, and dealings with an assortment of sordid characters from the sports world—namely Coach Day and his associates—aren’t making it easy.   
 
Awards & Recommendations
ALA Coretta Scott King Author Honor, 2014; Booklist Editors’ Choice: Books for Youth, 2013; a Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Book, 2013

Ghost (Jason Reynolds, 2016)
The first installment of Reynolds’s “Track Series,” Ghost relates the story of Castle “Ghost” Crenshaw and his budding relationship with his new track coach. Ghost and his family have a tragic past, which he keeps a secret from even his closest friends. This past and his decision to attempt to bottle it up has stirred an angry view of the world. However, Coach Brody—who grew up under similar familial and cultural circumstances—realizes that Ghost is holding something back and wants to give Ghost a chance to use track as a way to further understand how he can lead a more productive life. Ghost doesn’t always make the best decisions—he gets in fights at school and commits petty crimes—but Brody continues to give Ghost a chance at redemption while holding him accountable for his missteps. Ghost is another strong contribution to YAL by Reynolds, and we recommend reading the entire series.
 
Awards & Recommendations
National Book Award Finalist, Young People’s Literature, 2016; YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, 2017; Starred review, Kirkus Reviews, 2016

All American Boys (Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely, 2015)
There probably isn’t much more we can say about Reynolds and Kiely’s story that hasn’t already been said by critics, award committees, educators, and youth, so we’ll simply add our praise to a book that represents the best of YAL. Quinn Collins’s high school basketball coach, Carney, provides a stark reminder of the tension present in race relations in U.S. society. As Quinn grapples with how to feel about what happened to Rashad and what to do about his relationship with the brother of the police officer who brutally beat him up, his coach’s actions and words greatly contribute to his final decisions on how to act. Reynolds and Kiely’s novel is timely and should be part of any secondary classroom library. 
 
Awards & Recommendations
Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Literature, 2016; ALA Coretta Scott King Author Honor, 2016; YALSA Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Readers, 2017

Winger (Andrew Smith, 2013)
Ryan Dean West (aka Winger) is an up-and-coming rugby player at his boarding school. He is also hopelessly in love with an older girl, Annie, who only sees him as a friend. Making his life more complicated, he must endure several bullies who dominate the dorm life and his free time, causing him to constantly evade certain contexts and attempt not to get into trouble with the two teachers who serve as dorm monitors. Under the tutelage of Coach McAuliffe, Winger improves his play on the field, but his personal life becomes more complicated—both in terms of romance and friendship—leading to several new highlights but also tragedy. This selection was not one of Mark’s favorites, but it and its sequel Stand-Off (the preview on this Amazon link includes a spoiler for Winger) have received numerous good reviews.
 
Awards & Recommendations
YALSA Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults, 2014; Booklist Editors’ Choice: Books for Youth, 2013; a Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Book, 2013

​The Running Dream (Wendelin Van Draanen, 2011)
Readers are sure to find inspiration in multiple characters in The Running Dream. Jessica Carlisle, the main character, is a track star whose life has been forever altered in a traffic accident requiring the amputation of her right leg below the knee. She struggles adjusting—to her crutches, to her first prosthesis, to the stares of her peers and passersby—yet receives support from Rosa, a classmate with cerebral palsy. Jessica soon returns to the track with the aid of Coach Kyrokowski, who trains her and helps raise funds to purchase a prosthetic leg for running. This time, though, Jessica’s not running for herself; she’s running to help Rosa experience the thrill of crossing the finish line. Who can’t get behind that?
 
Awards & Recommendations
Schneider Family Book Award, 2012; YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, 2012; Golden Sower Award – Young Adult, 2013

​In closing, we want to reiterate that high-quality sports-related YAL is about so much more than middle and high school youth engaging in athletic endeavors. Yes, the characters in these books strive to improve their prowess in the arena, but they are more than “jocks.” They also grapple with other social and cultural aspects of their lives and their communities, including sexual assault, race relations, (dis)ability, bullying and homophobia, and separation of church and state. We imagine that many young readers might pick up some of these books because the covers include footballs, cleats, basketballs, and performing athletes, but after turning the last page they will find themselves thinking about more than who won or lost a game.
 
In our article for The ALAN Review, we offer some implications for teachers and teacher educators of our study on the fictional coaches represented in these texts. We believe that teachers would do well to provide opportunities for young readers to analyze depictions of coaches for positive and negative traits so they can more critically consider the actions of the coaches they see in their school hallways and on their televisions. We also believe that these texts can provide teacher candidates moments to think about the kinds of youth-teacher-coach relationships they want to build with the students in their classrooms and the athletes playing in their arenas; therefore, we encourage teacher educators to include sports-related YAL on their syllabi.
 
We hope you’ll enjoy some of these YA titles that tackle both sports and life.
 
Luke and Mark

“I thought coaches were supposed to  set an example”:
Coaches’ Divergent Roles in Young Adult Literature
​by Luke Rodesiler and Mark A. Lewis 

Luke Rodesiler, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Secondary Education - Language Arts
Purdue University Fort Wayne
rodesilerl@gmail.com
 
Mark A. Lewis, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Literacy Education
Loyola University Maryland
malewis2@loyola.edu
​