Dave Kindred was a well-known and respected sportswriter in the late 20th century with his work in Washington and Atlanta being his most read articles and columns. When he wanted to stop writing and spend more time with his beloved wife Cheryl in their home state of Illinois, that plan was waylaid- sort of.

That is the main topic of this book - Kindred’s writing about the Morton Potters, a girl’s basketball team that was very successful and often reached the Final Four of their state championship. Kindred was asked to do so to keep the twin’s fans updated - and he would be paid in Milk Duds. This “assignment” turned into a great match as the Kindreds became as much a part of Potters basketball as the players, coaches and parents.

After the first section of the book that is a recap of Dave Kindred’s writing career - Act I - the story of the Potters and the Kindreds relationship really takes off. This section - Act II - is a basketball junkie’s dream as Kindred writes about many of the Potters games in great detail. This part of the book is far into the minutiae of the games, which felt like it was a little too much. This is true even for a reader like me, who normally loves reading this level of detail on the game. Here is it was good - almost too good.

Where the book shines, and will tug at the heart of even the most hardened reader, is Dave’s passages about his love for wife Cheryl. It took a tragic event for this to really stand out - Cheryl suffering a debilitating stroke. During this time, which included the worst of the COVID pandemic, Dave did his best work on this book. His devotion to his wife during his visits when Cheryl had good and bad days are clearly evident here. When Cheryl finally passed away, the love expressed by both Dave Kindred and the girls basketball team the Kindreds adopted was quite touching.

I admit to have been ready to mark this as a DNF early in Act II, but I am glad I stuck with it as it’s a book that is very touching and a different typ of love story, heavy on the basketball.

I wish to thank Public Affairs for providing a review copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.

An excellent book for the sports lovers in your life. Kindred shares his love of basketball, his connections with the girls team, and his own personal journey of love and loss. I became so invested in the stories of the girls on the team; it is evident Kindred is a beloved member of their community.

I love memoirs, and found My Home Team to be especially enjoyable. I love non-linear storytelling, and Kindred certainly bounces around. His impeccable memory makes stories from the past easy to become immersed in. Relatedly, I find small town Midwest life to be extremely romantic - the pace is slower, people are friendly, and people seem to have their priorities in order.

The first half of My Home Team was a memoir of Dave Kindred's professional life as a sportswriter in middle America. It details his travels from small town newspaper to slightly larger small town newspaper until he reaches the level of the Washington Post and beyond. There are stories about Muhammed Ali (who called Dave "Louisville") and about the Joe Gibbs era of Washington football. Mostly though it's Daves personal stories dealing with cheapass managers and behind the scenes journalist drama. I enjoyed it. That era of newspapers is over with and it's fun to read about. We don't live in a world where newspapers compete for sportswriters anymore.
The second half is the real winner with this book. It changes not only in topic but in tone. Dave writes the first half of the book in a tell it like it was sort of way, but the emotional impact of seeing those great moments in sports isn't what he's writing. He saves the emotional impact for the second half, talking about aging, love, and finding purpose in writing about high school girls basketball. He follows the local team, the Potters, to almost all their games for years and writes the post game write ups for them. The seasons present an opportunity for Dave to continue to write, and as an opportunity for Dave to bond with his wife and community. Eventually however, his wife has a stroke and is confined to a retirement home.
I wasn't really expecting this sort of story. It was damn sad in parts. It was also exciting sportswriting as we follow the Potters to (spoiler alert) the championship. The mixing of those two emotions worked well for me and made the book better than it's parts. Sports themselves don't matter, but the meaning we attach to them absolute does.

I recognized the name of this author, probably from my sports loving child. I did some quick research and realized that Mr. Kindred wasn’t quite who I thought he was (I thought he covered mainly baseball), but he’s had both a long and deep sports coverage. I took the advice of someone and watched the 60 Minutes interview Ms. Kindred gave a number of years ago. So, I was very pleased to get an advance copy of this book. I’m going to the be the outlier here. This wasn’t quite the book I thought it was going to be. This book is divided into three sections - part one deals with Mr. Kindred’s sport writing career - covering Muhammad Ali’s various fights, moving to different papers, and his passion about writing. That was interesting to me, especially the section on writing with passion and writing well. However, it felt like because he knew about something, even quoting his articles, that the audience would also recall the details about the thing too. In some cases, I did know about the events (Frazier/Ali fights) but in others, I was scrambling to the internet to jog my memory. The second part was about his new adventure reporting on the local high school girl’s basketball team. I’ll admit it, I got a bit lost in this section too. This time it was due to so many names of players and, honestly, while Mr. Kindred’s descriptive writing is fantastic, but I cannot follow basketball in my mind well. I felt the tension of the team hoping to go the distance, and Mr. Kindred’s obvious love and care for the team and the game - but something for me was just off. The third section was about caring for his wife after her stroke. This section was the most heartfelt and touching. I cannot quite explain why this book didn’t work - though I think best would be to say that I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. If you like basketball, like good sports writing, or want to be a journalist, this is a fantastic book to pick up.

Keep it short.. keep it simple.
Such a wonderful writer. Brings small town women’s basketball to life. Made me go searching YouTube for videos.
Wrapped within is the story of a man’s love for his wife.
Read this one now. The iconic sportswriter ha produced a book as good as any of his columns.

I was only interested in this book, because I read that Dave Kindred was a retired former sportswriter, who moved back home and then decided to write about a local high school girls basketball team. That really intrigued me. I also enjoy reading books about people when those people are writers.

After reading it, this basketball team wasn’t just a basketball team. No, this was a powerhouse and they won state championship’s while he was covering them. I covered a small high school boys basketball team as well, and a lot of the stories and people he met along the way, reminded me of those good ole days for me (minus the championships).

In the beginning of the book, he wrote about how he got started as a newspaper sportswriter and towards the end of the book, he wrote about taking care of his wife till she passed away.

This one was a tale of two books for me. Act 1, a retelling of the author's childhood in Illinois and his professional life, was interesting in its scope, but not compelling to me. I actually felt a little misled, because I expected a story about high school basketball. Act 2 was redemption, and to me, was clearly the heart of the tale. The author's love for his wife and the high school team was brilliantly captured and beautifully displayed.

I heartily recommend this. Well done.

I received a complimentary copy of the book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

When I first read the description of this book sounded familiar. So I looked up the author and came across a ten-minute clip from a Sunday news magazine and remember seeing this in the past and knew i needed to read this book right away.

Dave Kindred is an American sportswriter who grew up in smalltown Illinois where he aspired early on to be a sportswriter. He is a prolific writer who has attended dozens of Worlds series, Superbowl's and Masters golf tournaments and was the closet reporter to Muhamad Ali. He was described by one coach as the Michael Jordan of sports writing. He has written for some of the biggest papers and sports magazines. After living around the U.S., he and his wife proved you can return to home again when and where he planned to retire. But hey writers write, and he got the itch when he attends the local girls high school basketball game. When he asks permission to write stories about the team it was a funny meeting as he describes and in return for writing up these stories he gets paid in mild duds. When the author is confronted with life tragedies, he fines that this team provides a lifeline. In the end it is amazing to hear that he has written more articles about this high school team then any big-league sport or sporting event. Sports fan or not this is still a great read. So i have three recommendations, first buy this book, second watch that video and finally read this great book.