Overview

Maurice and Vijay are thrilled make their high school's junior football team. But massive media coverage of their coach starts turning up allegations of illegal behavior, including use of crack cocaine. And it soon becomes clear the ego-driven competitiveness that won Coach Jones the mayor's office fuels his abusive coaching style. Maurice and Vijay finally decide that they've had enough. But can they get the rest of the team to help them take control from the man the whole world knows as the Crack Coach? Distributed in the U.S by Lerner Publishing Group.

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9781459409804

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A football coach who's just been elected mayor spirals out of control, and his players suffer. Maurice is a black, Haitian boy in grade nine in an immigrant-heavy part of Toronto. He and his South Asian best friend, Vijay, both make the junior football team. Maurice, in the shadow of his superstar brother, is a coach's favorite, but Vijay just barely makes the cut. Their teammates--especially the grade-10 player benched in favor of Maurice--resent the two. Tensions are aggravated by their coach, the white, newly elected mayor, Bob Jones, who is clearly modeled on Rob Ford. There's no subtle descent--right after the election he's insulting LGBTQ groups and getting kicked out of venues for public intoxication. Soon enough his team practices are beginning to resemble abuse, ethics complaints dog him, and scandals (both racial and crack-related) land him on international comedy programs. While at times Jones seems downright cartoonish, many of his antics seem to have been drawn straight from the headlines from Ford's tenure in Toronto (right down to Ford coaching a football team). The football scenes are a little weak--lots of successful plays, light on details--but the real story takes off once the team finally concludes that the coach must go. The third-person narration is occasionally broken up by text messages and news articles. While more politics than sports, this is fast and unafraid of issues. --Kirkus Reviews -- (8/1/2016 12:00:00 AM)

A football coach who's just been elected mayor spirals out of control, and his players suffer. Maurice is a black, Haitian boy in grade nine in an immigrant-heavy part of Toronto. He and his South Asian best friend, Vijay, both make the junior football team. Maurice, in the shadow of his superstar brother, is a coach's favorite, but Vijay just barely makes the cut. Their teammates--especially the grade-10 player benched in favor of Maurice--resent the two. Tensions are aggravated by their coach, the white, newly elected mayor, Bob Jones, who is clearly modeled on Rob Ford. There's no subtle descent--right after the election he's insulting LGBTQ groups and getting kicked out of venues for public intoxication. Soon enough his team practices are beginning to resemble abuse, ethics complaints dog him, and scandals (both racial and crack-related) land him on international comedy programs. While at times Jones seems downright cartoonish, many of his antics seem to have been drawn straight from the headlines from Ford's tenure in Toronto (right down to Ford coaching a football team). The football scenes are a little weak--lots of successful plays, light on details--but the real story takes off once the team finally concludes that the coach must go. The third-person narration is occasionally broken up by text messages and news articles. While more politics than sports, this is fast and unafraid of issues. --Kirkus Reviews -- Journal (8/1/2016 12:00:00 AM)

A football coach who's just been elected mayor spirals out of control, and his players suffer. Maurice is a black, Haitian boy in grade nine in an immigrant-heavy part of Toronto. He and his South Asian best friend, Vijay, both make the junior football team. Maurice, in the shadow of his superstar brother, is a coach's favorite, but Vijay just barely makes the cut. Their teammates--especially the grade-10 player benched in favor of Maurice--resent the two. Tensions are aggravated by their coach, the white, newly elected mayor, Bob Jones, who is clearly modeled on Rob Ford. There's no subtle descent--right after the election he's insulting LGBTQ groups and getting kicked out of venues for public intoxication. Soon enough his team practices are beginning to resemble abuse, ethics complaints dog him, and scandals (both racial and crack-related) land him on international comedy programs. While at times Jones seems downright cartoonish, many of his antics seem to have been drawn straight from the headlines from Ford's tenure in Toronto (right down to Ford coaching a football team). The football scenes are a little weak--lots of successful plays, light on details--but the real story takes off once the team finally concludes that the coach must go. The third-person narration is occasionally broken up by text messages and news articles. While more politics than sports, this is fast and unafraid of issues.--Kirkus Reviews -- Journal

Author Information

STEVEN SANDOR is an award-winning magazine editor, author, and sports broadcaster. He provides colour commentary for FC Edmonton broadcasts and edits Avenue Edmonton and the Canadian soccer tablet magazine, Plastic Pitch. Steve grew up in Brampton, ON, where he was on the St. Thomas Aquinas swim team. He has written two other sports novel, Replay and Playing for Keeps, both published in the Lorimer Sports Stories series. He lives and writes in Edmonton, Alberta.

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