From the Pahrump Valley Times
June 22, 2005

For love of the game

by Terri Schlichenmeyer

Now, almost every evening, there's a sound you hear around town. It's that rhythmic thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-tang-tang of basketball against concrete. To some, that rhythm is comforting, like a mother's heartbeat. To others, it's a sound so distracting that it's been outlawed in some places.

Melissa King falls in the first category, and in her new book "She's Got Next," she talks about life, basketball, and love.

Basketball was something to do while growing up in Arkansas, and King remembers messing with a ball in the driveway of her family's home. King recalls how she and her brother would shoot buckets and play one-on-one, just for fun.

When she graduated from high school, King went to college, then got a nowhere job. Being young and restless, she began to dream of somewhere cold, high-priced, and crowded, and Chicago seemed to fit the bill.

The self-proclaimed Arkansas Country Girl in The Big City settled into her new life, but King soon felt that community and connection were missing. When she saw an ad for basketball leagues for adults, King knew that she wanted to play. Bad.

While the organized games were fun, they only whetted King's appetite for the game. She began driving around Chicago, looking for gyms and parks where pick-up games were played. She shot hoops at a gym where the women seemed "too nice" to call fouls when fouls were apparent.

She called next at parks where old men showed her that they weren't so old after all. She played with teenaged boys, and girls who were more interested in catching the boys' attention.

It took a vacation, a frigid day and a late train for Melissa King to realize that she needed to return to Arkansas. King eventually returned to basketball, too, but age and "something missing" made her realize that she couldn't play for the rest of her life.

It was then that King fell in love, both with a man and with a group of 10-year-old girls that she was coaching.

Take a bit of memoir, a dash of humor, and wrap it up with sporting passion, and you've got "She's Got Next." Author Melissa King is observant and funny, and her descriptions of the people she meets on and off court will remind you of people who hang out at your local gym or park, waiting for game.

I was happy to see King's self-confidence grow, but I did have an issue with her random, unkind comments about overweight people.

Since King didn't like others judging her by her looks, I thought it unfair of her to judge others by theirs. Fortunately, King is past that attitude by the time she becomes a coach. This last chapter of the book was my favorite, and well worth getting past the snarky parts of King's story.

Even if you don't particularly like the game, or if you're all thumbs at spinning the ball on your finger, you'll like this book. For anyone who's a sports fan, though, "She's Got Next" is a slam-dunk.

Schlichenmeyer reviews books for the Pahrump Valley Times from her home in Wisconsin.