Book Review: Aspire Higher: Winning on and off the Court with
Determination, Discipline, and Decisions. Written by Avery Johnson
with Roy S. Johnson. Published by HarperCollins, 2008.
On page four of his book, Avery Johnson tells the story of a young
player that he recently had in training camp that was very good at
numbers, but not so good at basketball. Avery's assessment was that
the guy "needed to be on Wall Street, not in the NBA." He summed up
his assessment of the potential player by saying that "Basketball
wasn't his gift - numbers were." Unfortunately, a similar assessment
of Avery Johnson must be made: Writing isn't his gift - basketball is.
Avery's current position as head coach of the Dallas Mavericks does
leave me with a dilemma when the Mavericks play. While I am a great
fan of Avery because he represents to me all that is good in the NBA,
and I am always quietly rooting for his personal success, I
simultaneously despise the asinine owner of the Mavericks and wish
that they could lose every game. Regardless of Mark Cuban's existence
in the equation, I have always admired Avery both for his playing, and
now for his coaching, and I purchased his book because of that
admiration. But Avery should stick to coaching. His writing simply is
not of a quality that justifies the killing of trees.
Roy Johnson, editor-in-chief of Men's Fitness magazine, is the co-
author of the book. One would assume that a pur****ted journalist such
as Roy Johnson was needed to co-author the book in order to add a
degree of polish and writing style that might be missing from the
skill set of your average NBA coach, but in the case of Aspire Higher,
one's assumption would be wrong. Roy Johnson failed miserably in this
endeavor. I must admit ignorance of any of Roy Johnson's other
journalistic endeavors, so I am not certain as to whether he is just a
horrendous writer, or if his "co-authoring" was limited to
proverbially urinating on Avery's proverbial leg and telling him it
was proverbially raining. Regardless of Roy Johnson's actual role in
"co-authoring" this book, I would advise all retired athletes who are
aspiring authors to steer clear of the co-authoring skills of Roy.
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