From the Tampa Tribune
October 9 ,2005

Amateur Female Athlete Lays Up Well-Crafted Basketball Memoir
By GEORGE MEYER

"She's Got Next: A Story of Getting In, Staying Open, and Taking a Shot," by Melissa King (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin, $13)

Melissa King grew up in rural Arkansas, where there were "no flute lessons or gymnastics," and found a kind of special place in less organized athletic pursuits.

Like playing on municipal basketball courts, where she was often the only girl but where there exists a special equality among those who love the game enough to play by playground rules, which can be rough.

King, who sometimes writes for Sports Illustrated, has a sharp eye for characters in this memoir. More to the point, she defines characters through how they perform on the court, rather than by other demographics such as age, occupation and gender.

Thus, her well-crafted recollections of playing in Arkansas, Chicago and California become a guided tour of pickup games that sometimes become more athletically interesting than anything you're likely to see involving high-priced jocks on TV.

King doesn't flood her zones with feminism or other coded "me-isms." Instead, she runs toward the heart of anyone who has kept playing team sports long after the official teams have disbanded. If you're one of them, then in King you've found someone who gets it.