Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine

A tour de force of reporting (The Washington Post) from a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist that examines the often-corrupt machine producing America’s basketball stars

Indispensable. -The Wall Street Journal
Often heart-breaking, always riveting. -The New York Times Book Review
Tremendous. -The Plain Dealer

Winner of the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sportswriting* Winner of the Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Youth Sports

Using eight years of unfettered access and a keen sense of a story’s deepest truths, journalist George Dohrmann reveals a cutthroat world where boys as young as eight or nine are subjected to a dizzying torrent of scrutiny and exploitation. At the book’s heart are the personal stories of two compelling figures: Joe Keller, an ambitious coach with a master plan to find and promote the next LeBron, and Demetrius Walker, a fatherless latchkey kid who falls under Keller’s sway and struggles to live up to unrealistic expectations.

Complete with a new where-are-they-now epilogue by the author, Play Their Hearts Out is a thoroughly compelling narrative exposing the gritty reality that lies beneath so many dreams of fame and glory.

One of GQ’S 50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century * One of the Best Books of the Year: Los Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Kirkus Reviews

This edition includes an exclusive conversation between George Dohrmann and bestselling author Seth Davis.