THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 8, 1995 TAG: 9501050379
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY ANN G. SJOERDSMA
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
IN THESE GIRLS, HOPE IS A MUSCLE
MADELEINE BLAIS
The Atlantic Monthly Press. $21. 263 pp.
RECLUSIVE 19TH CENTURY poet Emily Dickinson may be the belle of Amherst, but in 1993 it was the Amherst Lady Hurricanes who brought out the beast in this genteel Massachusetts college town.
In her high-spirited but badly titled book, In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Madeleine Blais gives Miss Emily an obligatory curtsy - after all, Amherst is the cradle of American literary pretension and political correctness. But her characters, the hard-driving, competitive girls who hammered through the 1993 high school basketball season to a state championship and stole the heart of a community used to watching boys sink 20-foot jumpers, are straight out of Louisa May Alcott, each one a regular Jo.
That Hope Is a Muscle, that rare book about female athletes, invokes names from literature, rather than from sports, is noteworthy and either refreshing or disappointing, depending upon one's perspective. Blais, formerly with The Miami Herald, writes in reflection, rather than in the moment, taking a humanistic ``big-picture'' approach to basketball. Her season chronicle richly evokes place and character, but lacks the immediacy of game-by-game narratives by sportswriters such as John Feinstein (A Season on the Brink, Forever's Team).
Had Blais known the game better, her book, an important one, would have been more sure-handed and intimate. It also would have appealed more to male basketball fans. As it is, Blais shifts perceptibly from insider to outsider. Too often the University of Massachusetts-Amherst journalism professor relies on nondescript newspaper articles to convey game play-by-play. Too often she seems to have been left in the locker room: ``Forward starter''? Try starting forward. The Stanford ``Cardinals''? Guess again. It's a color, not a bird. The ``Superbowl''? I don't think so.
Blais, a mid-'60s Catholic high school graduate, admits her sports ignorance in a prologue long on PC talk of adolescent girls' insecurities and short on athletic experience. Her sex-role polemics (``This is just one team in one season. It alone cannot change the discrimination against girls and their bodies throughout history.'') wear thin. Much more effective are testimonials by Amherst-area female athletes of earlier discouraging generations.
Ultimately I was won over by the girls, by their dreams and dedication, their team camaraderie and their toughness. Amherst being the upscale town it is, these high-schoolers come with brains as well as manners. Well-bred and, with few exceptions, well-rounded.
Senior stars Jamilia Wideman, an elegant All-American point guard now at Stanford and the daughter of distinguished writer John Edgar Wideman, and Jen Pariseau, her boisterous shooting counterpoint who pledged to Dartmouth, dominate the book as they do the court, but the role players hold their own. Each girl is an intense, engaging presence. For comic relief, their coach, a real regular Joe, supplies the usual bad jokes and motivational ploys.
All quibbles aside, Blais forges a powerful emotional connection with these young women and their generation, and it is that connection, not muscle, that offers buckets of hope. MEMO: Ann G. Sjoerdsma is book editor for The Virginian-Pilot and The
Ledger-Star. by CNB