True Fans: A Basketball Odyssey

This book was inspiring! It made me want to break up my usual routine and look for adventure, meet new people, and enjoy the beautiful simplicity of life. It provides wonderful insight into the human spirit and is delightfully uplifting, with fresh wholesome ideas for adults and youth. A great book for book clubs, people heading out on retirement- ready to start a new life, a friend needing a new outlook on life- you name it. I loved it!

Having recently completed a far more modest bicycle pilgrimage myself, I really loved this book. Dan has a gift for expressing the range of emotions that these kinds of trips seem to engender. I am grateful to him for allowing me to relive them through his narrative.

"You'll never know the effect you are having on the people around you," a stranger says to Dan Austin during the course of this book, in which he chronicles the cross country bicycle journey he made with his brother and best friend, from California to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. The stranger was talking about the fact that when you witness someone pursuing their dream, no matter how trying it may seem, it really makes you stop and think, "Am I doing everything I can be doing with my life?" "True Fans" will make you stop and ask the same questions. Make no mistake, it's a celebration of basketball, and a cracking good road trip story. But as you experience the road trip with these three characters, you can't help but ask yourself if you've seen as much of this country as they have, and if you haven't, on what else have you missed out? For those who are fans of the documentary film whose making is chronicled in this book (as I am), you may be surprised to find that the book is even better. Why? Because there are so many terrific moments that happened while Dan's cameras were not rolling - which couldn't be included in the film because there was no footage of them - but the mind has no roll out mechanism, and they are all beautifully captured in prose. The book takes a deeper look at what happened on the trip, explores the details of how you survive such a journey, and adds a whole new level to the experience. It's filled with marvelous, magical, unexpected anecdotes, and wonderful little narrative set-ups and payoffs that are so satisfying they feel like they should have been invented for a fiction novel -- but they all really happened. It's surprisingly emotional, and you may even find yourself shedding a tear when our heroes finally arrive at their destination. Such are the fruits of hard won dreams. I am not a sports fan, by the way. I'm the last person who would ever be reading a book about basketball. But this book is about the people, and it transcends the subject and makes you care regardless of whether you have ever watched a game in your life. And if you haven't, it makes you want to. Highly recommended.

Sludge, Sprinklers, The Perfect Hoop. What is this all about? When I first purchased True Fans I assumed it was a book strictly about basketball. After reading the first few chapters I realized it was a book about three guys from Utah who were on their way to becoming heroes for their love of the sport. Along their journey they also came across many great Americans who also became heroes for their acts of kindness in helping Dan, Jared & Clint reach their destination. These American Heroes are the names on the basketball enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame, brought there by the 3 friends. You'll also read about their battles with water sprinklers, and how they survived on sludge, a 700 calorie, carb loaded casserole of pasta, rice & soup packets. You'll also find out how they found the perfect hoop, nailed to a barn in rural Indiana. True Fans is a book for everyone, very inspiring as well as very entertaining. After reading it, you will, become a TRUE FAN !!!!!!!

First off...you've got to see the DVD "True Fans"...meet Dan and Jared and Clint...Uncle Gary...all the "Heroes" along the way... go visit Dans' website [...]...get a sense of who Dan is...and what he's been doing since he made "True Fans". and then, read the book, "True Fans, A Basketball Odyssey". Saying that this is just a movie/book about a bike trip cross country, is like saying "Touching the Void" is just another mountaineering story, that "Siddartha" is just a coming of age book, or that "Stranger in a Strange Land" is just a book about a guy who comes back to earth after being away for awhile... Joe Simpson didn't just make it back to camp, Jack Kerouac didn't just write a book about driving cross country, pesto isn't just basil and pine nuts, Guiness isn't just beer, and True Fans isn't just a film about three guys on bikes with a basketball in tow... It's about beautiful days...not so beautiful days...and quiet wisdoms...It's about tapestry and texture...It's about family, friends, and Calvin Klein... It's about what it takes to get from point A to point B... In whatever time it takes... [...]Because this is a trilogy...a set...a series.Each of these alone will make you smile...but the three together will charm you in a quiet...heartfelt...and "Heroic Way". Like it? Loved it!