Which makes this process of playing for a scholarship not the black version of the American Dream, as I had thought eight months earlier, but a cruel parody of it. In the classic parable you begin with nothing and slowly accrue your riches through hard work in a system designed to help those who help themselves. Here, at seventeen years of age, you begin with nothing but one narrow, treacherous path and then run a gauntlet of obstacles that merely reminds you of how little you have: recruiters pass themselves off as father figures, standardized tests humiliate you and reveal the wretchedness of your education, the promise of lucrative NBA contracts reminds you of what it feels like to have nothing in this world. Page 227

This is by far my favorite book of all time. I have read The Last Shot by Darcy Frey about four times and enjoy it more with each read. Anyone who loves the game of basketball will share my affection for Frey’s masterpiece. The true story of Stephon Marbuy and his high school teammates depicts their ultimate struggle to succeed in the projects of Coney Island, New York. The summer before my junior year of high school I attended Five-Star Basketball Camp. A speaker told a story about when Stephon Marbury attended the camp and dove for a lose ball on the concrete outdoor basketball court. The moral of the story was Marbury’s determination, already the number one high school player in the country Stephon could miss every shot that week and still gone to any college he chose. The speaker instructed everyone to buy Darcy Frey’s book when they returned home, because it may enlighten everyone about their opportunities, blessings, and much more. And was he ever right…

The Last Shot is the journey of four young men attending the famed Lincoln High School of Coney Island, New York and their pursuit of a better life through basketball. Entering the 1991-92 school year Russell Thomas, Corey Johnson, Tchaka Shipp, and Stephon Marbury are the core of Coach Bob Harstein’s Lincoln Rail Splitters basketball team. Senior players Thomas, Johnson, and Shipp are joined by freshman sensation Marbury through a long season where their goal is capturing the city title earning Division I basketball scholarships in the process. Darcy Frey’s responsibility is to follow the young men during the school year documenting their experiences with the ills of recruiting, violence and drugs in their community, passing the SATs, and the pressure of making it out of the Coney Island Projects by way of an athletic scholarship that many feel is their “last shot.�

The book is an open window into the lives of the four boys attempting to escape poverty. The young men accept for Tchaka Shipp live in the projects of Coney Island, standing in the middle of the projects is the “Garden,� a basketball court where players hone their skills without interruption from drug dealers, violence, or vandalism. The inner city version of Madison Square Gardens holds the respect of the entire community. Equipped with lights and break away rims “The Garden� is filled with the hope that basketball can be a portal out of the projects. Easily talented enough not all four boys have the high hopes of becoming NBA superstars. You cannot help, but be drawn to Russell Thomas, working hard on his game in hopes of becoming a registered nurse after his college education moving his family out of the projects never to return. We follow Russell through the stress of passing the SATs and the headache of being recruited. Tchaka Shipp on the other hand is one of the top post players in the country determining which Division I school will give him the opportunity to grow into the NBA player he dreams to become. Frey takes the reader on trips inside Shipp’s recruiting visits through the Big East as Tchaka listens to pitches from coaches such as P.J. Carlesimio and Rick Barnes giving best effort to sell the senior their University. He receives letters from the likes of Jim Bohiem of Syracuse ensuring him not to worry about NCAA sanctions against his program for giving players money pushing Shipp to become an Orangeman. Corey Johnson is a head in the clouds young man who is athletically gifted, but does not love the game. His love is his poetry. Oh yeah and there is Stephon Marbury…

The story of Stephon Marbury is an interesting one. Juvenile Starbury is the youngest of four boys. Eric, Donnie, and Norman were all basketball stars at Lincoln High School, but were not rewarded with Division I basketball scholarships and rich NBA contracts so many young men dream of. The weight of the families last shot is on the freshman point guard’s shoulders and he knows it. Memorizing the exact number of seats in Madison Square Garden, dreaming of “milky� Nissan Sentras colleges will give him, and how much Kenny Anderson’s new contract is worth, Marbury allows Frey to bring us along for a ride with the #1 player in his class since he was 10.

Darcy’s book has you forget your reading visualizing Lincoln practices, summer league games, and recruiting visits. You feel you’re are sitting in the car with the boys discussing their parents frustrated mind frames of never escaping the Coney Island Projects along with their own hopes, dreams, and sorrows. A friend of mine has two boys who play high school football and basketball, I shared with him Frey’s book, and now his kids are reading the book. I strongly suggest you pick up this book too.

I am finally understanding the danger that represents in Coney Island. If Corey lived anywhere else- certainly if he had grown up twenty-five miles north, in one of the New York’s white suburbs- he would play the offbeat writer whose poor grades and popularity with girls earn him a four-year sentence at a midlevel school like Colgate, to be served while his classmates all go Ivy. In the movie version, Corey would be played with dashing ennui by Matt Dillion or Keanu Reeves, and he would end up in the climactic scene getting the girl and a job after he learned to stop slacking off. But Corey fools around in an arena where there is, of course, no such thing as a safety school- nor, for that matter, safety nets of any kind- and where the credits usually roll on far less sanguine endings… In Coney Island, however, you deviate from the one and only path to college at extreme personal risk- scholarships for athletes being significantly easier to come by than those for underachievers or ghetto poets. Page 197