Reviews for Legacy

The average rating for Legacy based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-08-03 00:00:00 Cathy Mussert The Last Shot is a concise portrayal of institutional racism, localized to college basketball. Frey follows four teenagers as they navigate the NCAA recruitment process while living and balling in the projects of Coney Island, New York. As the stars of their high school team, each young man represents hope for their otherwise blighted community. That hope is overwhelmed by a pervasive pressure associated with the expectation of making it to a D1 school - an expectation that most of Coney Island's best prospects fail to meet. The Last Shot now has - like Hoop Dreams from the same year - a thick layer of irony. As a basketball fan, I know that three of the boys never made it to the professional level. Hearing their dreams deferred (even just their desire to leave Coney Island) is a sad and powerful experience. Frey's prescience renders The Last Shot enduring. His observations about the NCAA and black culture around athletics remain controversial, poignant, and contemporary twenty years later. Put simply, the NCAA treats its recruits with a systemic hypocrisy that is most impactful to and repressive of black athletes. Frey makes his points with a light touch, drawing them out of reflection on actual conversations - including Rick Barnes' magic-act-as-recruitment pitch and Stephon Marbury's dad demanding Frey pay-to-play. Particularly if you are a basketball fan and know who Starbury is, The Last Shot is a must read. Companion Music: Outkast - Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik

Review # 2 was written on 2019-09-26 00:00:00 Tim Wiseman Heartbreaking. I've visited New York 10 years ago with my family. One day i met up with a friend to take the subway from Manhattan to Soho to spend some white man privileged money. In the subway i saw that the last stop was at Coney Island. I've heard the Lou Reed song and read some snippets of it being the place where the working class went to spent some time relaxing. I wish i've read this book before visiting the place. We sat there on the beach sipping some Starbucks coffee and enjoying our freedom. Walking on the boardwalk, seeing the Cyclone and NOT seeing the projects. Maybe i forgot, maybe i just didn't see it, i don't know.. I bought a red t-shirt with with letters saying Coney Island and i wore it the day i passed through customs. The customs agent praised me for visiting the place and i think i misplaced the praise. It was not the case that i knew of the poverty. Or did i just close my eyes to it? I can hardly believe that. So far for my feelings afterwards and during this impressive read. I've been reading a lot of basketball related books the last year and this book kind of stumbled in my lap as some sort of conclusive story. The author follows 3 (maybe 4 if you included the somewhat shorter story of Stephon Marbury) students from Lincoln High school at Coney Island. I've been following NBA basketball pretty closely the last 20 years and i was hoping that i just forgot the names of the 3 kids. Obviously Stephon made quite a name for himself on and off the court. Not all positive though. I just zoom in on the 3 (to me unknown) students. There is Tchaka, the big strong 6,7 foot power forwards with arguablly the lesser talent but still dunks on everybody. His mom decided to flee from the projects at Coney Island to give his son a better chance to escape fate that many of his tallented peers could not escape. Drugs, dealing drugs or ending up dead. Russell is the most talented of the 3 with some dead-eye shooting and lock down defense. He is also very susceptible for stress, he almost jumped from a building after hitting his girlfriend thinking everything went down the drain. Struggling to keep his grades high enough to fit the requirements from the NCAA he hopes to get the recruiting process out of the way as soon as possible. Having not been teached properly from his younger years he is having a hard time to get the grades high enough. It is incredibly hard not to care about his problems, mainly because he is trying harder than everyone else. Lastly there is Corey, the hardest do describe. He wants to be a writer of poetry and if it could be possible get to know every girl that is in his vicinity. Having about the same amount of talent as Russell he is not worrying about the tests results and the improvement of his jumpshot. People find it difficult to get him on the right track because he is to illusive and to smart for his own good. When the book progressed i became more and more afraid of the almost inavoidable heartbreak. Reading how difficult it is for a talented person from Coney Island to meet the requirements and go to college, not only to become a basketball player but just to graduate, it became pretty painfull. I don't know if i would have walked the mile from the cyclone to the Garden, the most famous basketball court from Coney Island if i knew about it then. Maybe i would have been to scared. But i hope i would have tried. Just to see and feel the difference of opportunity. Reading a masterpiece like this makes me sad and grateful at the same time. Darcy wrote with honesty and sincere care about the people he met at Lincoln and the projects. I hope some people in the U.S.A. would do the same. It feels like a lot of people are still looking the other way when it comes to the projects or ghetto's .