This book however is about more than just a boy playing basketball. It is a story about achieving your goals no matter how hard. It’s not just a feel good book about basketball and how Danny gets cut from the team and finds another team to play for and wins. Instead Danny encounters one obstacle after another. Danny’s father (Richie) who has been largely absent from Danny’s life returns and offers to coach an additional 7th grade travel basketball team. This team goes through many challenges as they begin the season. First, there are not enough players for a full team, next it isn’t clear whether the league will allow another team to join. They then go on to lose their first nine games. As they approached the middle of the basketball season, they finally start to win. But just as things are beginning to look better. His dad gets in a near fatal car accident and is no longer able to coach. This was particularly challenging because it was a car accident that ended his father’s NBA career. This book was not only about Danny’s challenges but also his dad as he never really recovered.
The moral of the story is to never give up. It isn’t about the obstacles finally disappearing it is really that every time a new obstacle appears it is not giving up. The difference between success and failure is whether you decide to give up or keep going. In Danny’s case he was about to give up but he had friends who encouraged him to keep after his dream. In all this he never gave up trying. When Danny’s dad couldn’t coach anymore, Danny coached the team with help from his friends Ty and Tess. Danny never let the temporarily setback keep him from going farther.
One of the keys to helping Danny recover from his setbacks was his friends. For example, when Danny was cut from the team, his immediate reaction was to stop playing basketball. However his good friend, Tess, encouraged him to get back in the game. One lesson we learn is that when friends are trying to help us let them help and things will be a lot easier. There are many ways to get around obstacles, for instance, in Danny’s case where there was no one there to coach his team, try your best and coach your team with some help and be brave if there is no one to coach. It is amazing what one can achieve when he sets high goals and works tirelessly to overcome the many obstacles that always seem to appear. I can relate to this because I’ve had friends help me along the way when I have needed it to keep pursuing my goals. Another thing that helped Danny was try to keep a positive attitude. His dad taught this principal when he said, “You never know what day might turn out to be the best day of your whole life”.
Danny is a great example of someone who pushes themselves to overcome trials and obstacles that are holding them back. When trials are holding you back keep pushing and never stop trying to overcome the obstacles and keep pushing just like Danny did. So never stop until you reach success.
