Today, Norm Goldman, Editor of Bookpleasures.com is pleased to have as our guest, Steven M. Reilly author of The Fat Lady Never Sings: How A Football Team Found Redemption On The Baseball Diamond.

Good day Steven and thanks for participating in our interview.

Norm:

Steven, could you tell us why did you feel compelled to write The Fat Lady Never Sings? Is there an underlying message in your book for kids?

Steven:

I felt it was a story that should be told. I think a lot of us have a time in our lives where we say “I should write a book.” Well, after fourteen years, I finally decided to do it. I think there are several messages for kids in the book. The first is that you should never quit. The second is that, in sports, if you leave everything you have on the field, you are not a loser. The third is if you play the game subservient to team goals, the rewards are endless.

Norm:

How did you manage to remember all of the games you described in your book? Did you keep a diary?

Steven:

That’s an excellent question, Norm. No, I didn’t keep a diary. The games I was involved in and the players and fellow coaches I was associated with were just that memorable. Additionally, back then we had a small-town newspaper called the Evening Sentinel that has since been gobbled up by a more regional newspaper. The coverage was fantastic and I saved nearly all of the clips. In addition, during the championship year, my wife, Sue, took several rolls of photographs every game which we handed out to the players and kept a copy. The pictures made the memories more vivid. As to the championship game, my brother Fred videotaped most of it until his VCR’s batteries ran out in the extra innings as did everyone else’s.    

Norm:

Do you believe that amateur sport is too much controlled by coaches, leagues and overzealous parents?

Steven:

I don’t think its controlled too much by coaches. I think it’s the influences outside a team that sometimes makes things difficult. A team is really like a family and I believe most coaches really care for their kids. I’m not a teacher, but I can tell you that at least on the high school level, the coaches certainly don’t do it for the money.

As to overzealous parents, I think there are some parents who just don’t get it. Sadly, I see it more today than I did thirty years ago. I believe a lot of it is caused by the All-Star concept on the Little League level. On the high school level, it’s driven by the battle for athletic scholarships as a way to fund a college tuition. I believe that the reduced availability for college scholarships and low cost loans as well as the higher cost of education today has fueled that. As a result, less and less kids play more than one sport, but that’s another subject.         

Norm:

How do you deal with unruly parents or parents who complain that their kids are not getting enough field time?

Steven:

I always tell a parent that I’d be happy to sit down with them and talk to them about their son after a game, but never during a game. I think a little preventive medicine can go along way with respect to that. When most parents know you really care about the progression of their son’s ability and their welfare, they are more receptive than when you give them the impression you don’t. Believe it or not, the players know who the best players are or who should and shouldn’t be on the field at any given time. The trick for success is to be able to determine where a player’s ability best fits in to help the team. 

I think this phenomenon is not unique to high school baseball, but there are facets to high school baseball that make getting players more playing time more difficult than it has to be. It can be improved. In football and basketball, you can remove and substitute players all the time, but in baseball its limited. Can you imagine what high school basketball would be like if you could only substitute for your players once. 

Norm:

Are you a believer in the win-at-all costs philosophy that infects professional sports where there is a tendency to bench weaker players in favor of stronger ones maximizing a team’s chances of victory?

Steven:

I think there is a vast difference between professional sports which today are mostly a business and simply driven by money. The true professional champions are the ones who make team goals subservient to individual goals. That’s why we long so much for the players of yesteryear who would have played hard whether you paid them or not.

There are some pros who we all admire because they respect the game of baseball. I am a very competitive person and want to win, but if I had a daughter, I would still let her win at checkers. I believe in working as hard as one can every day, never quitting, preparing as much as one can and competing within the rules while finding ways for players to contribute. If I do that, I’ll win my share of games and have fun at the same time.   

Norm:

Have any of the baseball players you coached gone on to play professional baseball? If so, how successful have then been in the professional leagues?

Steven:

I had the rare privilege of coaching an extremely gifted player who was drafted in the second round of the Major League draft. He was not only a talented player, but one of the finest young men I ever coached. But unfortunately, I believe the business of baseball prevented him from making the Major Leagues. That may sound biased, but I believe there are a lot of talented players who should have made the majors who didn’t for reasons other than the game itself. I also coached a young man who went on to be the Division III college player of the year and he didn’t get drafted. Go figure.     

Norm:

In Canada, where I live, there is no such thing as athletic scholarships. How valuable are these scholarships when some are given out by third and fourth rate colleges and where in some instances it is known that athletes graduate college without knowing how to read or write.

Steven:

Wow, Norm, I can tell you have a strong opinion on this as do many people in the U.S. For some students in the U.S., an athletic scholarship is the only way they will ever have an opportunity for a good college education. Even state sponsored schools are still expensive. As a result, even middle class families in the U.S. cannot afford to send all their kids or even one kid to college.

The pressure builds on high school students to not only project with their grades and fight for shrinking academic scholarship funds, but also to excel in a sport to gain even a partial athletic scholarship. I certainly agree major college sports has simply become a big business and for some sports and programs it really amounts to a minor league program for the pros.

The proof in that is the number of young athletes who leave college to enter a pro draft or the corporate sponsorship of major athletic events. Unfortunately, unless people wake up, I think we will soon see business sponsorship of high school athletic events and even ball fields named after them. Naturally, any school that graduates someone who doesn’t know how to read or write is certainly a disgrace.   

Norm:

I notice you are an attorney. How do you manage your time between your practice and coaching of a high school baseball team?

Steven:

Thank you for asking that question, Norm. The simple answer is, with great difficulty.   However, for transactional matters, many clients today cannot afford to leave work to visit their lawyer and actually desire evening or weekend appointments which I provide as long as they don’t mind seeing me in baseball garb. Court matters are another story, but I try the best I can to schedule them around the season.  

Norm:

What has your experience been like with self publishing? Do you recommend it over traditional publishers?
 
Steven: 

The only thing I wish I knew more about before I started is the extent to which mainstream publishers still shy away from self-published books. I thought my book was a great fit for a specific main stream publisher. The representative liked my query, or so she said, but stated that as a rule, her company wouldn’t get involved with a self-published book.   

I was demanding of my self-publishing company, but I’ll give them credit, they stuck it out and didn’t give up on me. I think if someone wants to self publish, they should first read the many fine books out there that exist on the subject and scour the internet for the many websites and articles they can find and then make up their mind.      

Norm:

What challenges or obstacles did you encounter while writing your book? How did you overcome these challenges?

Steven:

The most difficult thing by far was the editing process. Each time I would come up with a new draft, my editor would continue to advise me that the work needed more and more dialogue. I read a couple of books on the subject of dialogue and kept plugging away, mindful that I had to keep the dialogue true to the events as they occurred.    

Norm:

Will there by any unique ways you'll be marketing your book that is different from how others authors market their books?

Steven:

Well, I haven’t reversed shoplifted it yet, but have thought about it. I placed the book in a sports store called Blanchette’s Sporting Goods in nearby Shelton(shameless plug) and that has proved successful. I placed it in a hospital gift shop, a train station coffee house, a newspaper store and a Hallmark cardshop. I have been passing out cards, placing bookmarks at Libraries, sending out postcards, spoke at Rotary and the Derby Public library. I am awaiting my eight-week placement at the local Barnes and Noble. I’m also going to be speaking to English classes at Derby High. My next move is to try and employ small removal sticky-note type ads such as the ones you see on newspapers now. I was thinking of approaching a pizza restaurant named in the book to see if they’ll put them on their boxes. As you can see, I’ve read one too many marketing books.        

Norm:

What is next for Steven Reilly?

Steven:

Well, the events that I talked about in The Fat Lady Never Sings, only make up about half of my coaching days. Hopefully, it won’t take me fourteen years to start the process again, but right now I am still coaching and living more books. 

Norm:

Is there anything else you wish to add that we have not covered?

Steven:

You’ve covered just about everything, Norm. I’d just like to say that if you want to read a story about young men persevering and redeeming themselves against the odds, or if you just want to laugh and be entertained, then I think the book will appeal to you, whether you are an athlete, fan, parent or a coach. I’d also like to thank you Norm for this opportunity, you’re the best.       

Thanks once again and good luck with The Fat Lady Never Sings:

The above interview was conducted by: NORM GOLDMAN:  Retired Title Attorney: Editor & Publisher of Bookpleasures. Here are  Norm Goldman's Reviews    

To read Norm's Review CLICK HERE