There are few other moments more exhilarating than that first game of the Rutger's women's college basketball season when the fans are back at the RAC, listening to the band, and watching the team come out to start their season to a Big East title and ultimately a Final Four appearance. The anticipation of how we will see players unfold under Coach’s tutelage hangs in the air.  I love the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.  And with that love goes absolute respect and admiration for Coach C. Vivian Stringer.   On so many levels Coach Stringer inspires and leads both players and fans that we need to reflect on all that she and her staff have accomplished along with the promises of what is yet to come.

When I knew that Coach Stringer was going to be putting out an autobiography, I waited with great delight for the opportunity to be able to be immersed in the history of the sport I love so much.  I knew I was going to be shown the unique perspective of basketball history from one of the great legends of the game. With this book, we readers were going to be allowed into a deeper, more personal,  relationship with Coach Stringer and the events of her life. With that insight we would be able to see how she had achieved everything throughout her career. Accomplishments I had witnessed from the stands for so many years. For myself and all readers, this was going to be a special treat.

The reader can enter this book from the obvious parallel so starkly evident, between Coach Stringer’s battle with racism to make her school cheer leading team, a battle that is revisited so publicly and dramatically thirty plus years later with the Imus incident and her team in 2007.  What ended up being even more profoundly affecting to me was how she truly opened up her inner world to us.  From the first page, Coach Stringer shares through her stories of growing up the tests that have brought her to where she is today.  Much of what surrounded and made up what we fans know of her public persona as coach, leader, and as an inspiration to everyone from all walks of life in countless ways is revealed and shared with readers.  This autobiography is more than a recount of events it is an intimate conversation between Coach and “players” of all types.

Basketball, her passion and ours, has been the conduit by which she has had the opportunity to teach her players, along with those in the stands, about the life lessons of inner strength and courage along with never letting your teammates or yourself down. Coach Stringer strives to teach her players how to be the best, most complete person they each can be. To have no fear... to hold their head high, and to have very few regrets.

I took my time reading Standing Tall. This is a book best savored in small bites. Each bite allows a reader time to enjoy Coach Stringer’s stories. To have them inspire and comfort a reader as they comforted me during a time when I needed to reach within myself to face my own fears.  Even through a book Coach Stringer still motivates her “players” even if they are the ones on the stands.

One story in particular; about fear, and one seemingly so innoccusous, resounded to summarize Coach Stringer for me. In order to receive her degree at Slippery Rock, Coach Stringer had to pass a swim exam.  Her challenge here was that she was deathly afraid of swimming.   With the help of her husband Bill, she passed the test.  Sometimes we need the help of others to accomplish our goals.

When Coach Stringer arrived at Cheyney State, she was assigned to teach, of course, a swimming class. She struggled again with her terror but Coach Stringer had had enough.  And in true Coach Stringer fashion, she made a decision. It was her sheer determination, self-direction and force of will that led her to lock herself in the pool area until she dove in because she was not going to let her fear get the better of her. Coach Stringer went on to reflect that this decision was probably a reckless thing to do she knew that there was no other way for her.

To paraphrase Frank Herbert, “Fear is the mind-killer…the little death…” Somehow Coach Stringer has managed to continue to find that strength and inner resolve to rise up against that every time.  Against any adversity, and through almost incomprehensible family and personal tragedy, over and over again, Coach Stringer has refused to give in. This most of all, this is the life lesson Coach Stringer teaches.  This lesson of never giving in is seen in her and Rutger’s incredible advance over the past few years up the Top 25 polls.

It is this lesson that really hit home for me.  This inspiration I needed within myself, the inspiration I look to and find in Coach Stringer. We readers and fans are fortunate as all of the many that have passed through her programs to be able to look to Coach Stringer’s teachings and stories to  learn so much more than just the x’s and o’s of the game.

Facing fear, moving forward with your head held high with respect for yourself and others.  Not only overcome fear but challenge it head on with no way shape or form keeping you from standing, as tall as you can.  Basketball and these life lessons are not just about that bouncing orange ball.  But this is just one fan’s perspective from the stands.  Get the book and read it yourself to see what you learn from Coach Stringer.

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Editor’s Note:  Standing Tall is published by Crown.  The ISBN Number is:  978-0307406095  and can be purchased on line at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.  Alison Shaman is an IT professional and a member of  Rutgers Cagers Club.