{"product_id":"dont-put-me-in-coach-isbn-9780307745385","title":"Don't Put Me In, Coach","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn irreverent, hilarious insider's look at big-time NCAA basketball, through the eyes of the nation's most famous benchwarmer and author of the popular blog ClubTrillion.com (3.6m visits!). Mark Titus holds the Ohio State record for career wins, and made it to the 2007 national championship game. You would think Titus would be all over the highlight reels. You'd be wrong.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e In 2006, Mark Titus arrived on Ohio State's campus as a former high school basketball player who aspired to be an orthopedic surgeon. Somehow, he was added to the elite Buckeye basketball team, given a scholarship, and played alongside seven future NBA players on his way to setting the record for most individual career wins in Ohio State history. Think that's impressive? In four years, he scored a grand total of nine—yes, \u003ci\u003enine\u003c\/i\u003e—points.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e This book will give readers an uncensored and uproarious look inside an elite NCAA basketball program from Titus's unique perspective. In his four years at the end of the bench, Mark founded his wildly popular blog Club Trillion, became a hero to all guys picked last, and even got scouted by the Harlem Globetrotters. Mark Titus is not your average basketball star. This is a wild and completely true story of the most unlikely career in college basketball. \u003cb\u003eA must-read for all fans of March Madness and college sports!\u003c\/b\u003e\"Mark Titus knows a lot of personal secrets of mine. If he revealed any of them in this book, I will kick him right in the testicles. I’m not joking.\"\u003cbr\u003e            -\u003cb\u003eGreg Oden\u003c\/b\u003e (#1 overall pick in 2007 NBA Draft, 2007 1st Team All-American)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Of all the players I’ve coached in my career, Mark Titus is one of them.”\u003cbr\u003e            -\u003cb\u003eThad Matta\u003c\/b\u003e (head basketball coach at Ohio State)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“You want me to give you a quote?  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  You’ve been riding my coattails for years, so of course you want to put my name on your book to sell more copies.”\u003cbr\u003e            -\u003cb\u003eEvan Turner\u003c\/b\u003e (#2 overall pick in 2010 NBA Draft, 2010 college basketball National Player of The Year)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I haven’t read this book and probably never will, but the cover looks pretty cool I guess.”\u003cbr\u003e            -\u003cb\u003eMike Conley Jr.\u003c\/b\u003e (#4 overall pick in 2007 NBA Draft, 2007 NCAA Tournament South Regional MVP) \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"If Mark Titus had been able to play basketball the way he can write, he would have joined his Ohio State team mates in the NBA. No kidding. This is nothing less than a modern-day basketball version of \u003ci\u003eBall Four\u003c\/i\u003e, a terrific look behind the locker room door, funny and profane and real. Great stuff.\"\u003cbr\u003e            -\u003cb\u003eLeigh Montville\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eTed Williams\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eEvel\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003c\/i\u003eHilarious.\"\u003cbr\u003e            \u003cb\u003e-Chicago Tribune\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“As a good-humored book about what Titus calls ‘normal kids who do stupid things’ while playing big-time basketball, \u003ci\u003eDon’t Put Me In, Coach\u003c\/i\u003e should appeal not just to Buckeyes fans but also to anyone looking for a frank, humanizing peek in to the locker room....A funny read.”\u003cbr\u003e            -\u003cb\u003eSports Illustrated \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“\u003c\/i\u003eFor a reminder of the fun that can be had in college sports, turn to Mark Titus...The book, a comic tale of coming to terms with failure, is littered with stories of pranks, jokes, and team hijinks that may turn around that understandably low opinion of college sports. Everybody seems to be having a great time.\u003ci\u003e”\u003cbr\u003e            -\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eTheAtlantic.com\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“It’s not often we notice a college basketball player who, over his four year career, played a total of 48 minutes in 32 games while racking up just nine points. But when that player happens to be Mark Titus, a Brownsburg, Indiana native who parlayed his benchwarming days at Ohio State University into a blog with nearly 4 million views and a new book titled \u003ci\u003eDon’t Put Me In, Coach\u003c\/i\u003e, we make exceptions.” \u003cbr\u003e            -\u003cb\u003eThe Onion’s A.V. Club \u003c\/b\u003e(Indianapolis)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eDon’t Put Me In, Coach\u003c\/i\u003e, [is] a scabrously funny look at what it’s like to almost play for a No. 1-ranked NCAA hoops team.\"\u003cbr\u003e            -\u003cb\u003eThe Free Lance–Star\u003c\/b\u003e (Fredericksburg, VA)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The unique combination of snort-inducing hilarity and insider perspective makes this required reading for younger (or just perpetually immature) hoop heads. A perfect way to pass the time during the tournament’s endless TV timeouts.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e            -\u003cb\u003eKirkus\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The \u003ci\u003eMaxim\u003c\/i\u003e demographic will revel in Titus’s rebellious tales, which come with a heaping portion of snarky, bro-friendly prose, scatological humor, and pop culture references….And under all the pranks and immaturity, Titus is a likable, forthright narrator.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e            -\u003cb\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eMARK TITUS's blog, http:\/\/clubtrillion.blogspot.com, has recorded over 3.6 million views since its debut in late 2008.  He has been featured in the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, ESPN.com, Yahoo.com, the \u003ci\u003eAssociated Press\u003c\/i\u003e, and the \u003ci\u003eCleveland Plain Dealer\u003c\/i\u003e. He has recently attempted to enter the NBA draft and tried out for the Harlem Globetrotters. Titus graduated from Ohio State in 2010, a hero to millions.\u003ci\u003eExcerpted from the Hardcover Edition\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eONE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnybody who has ever been a walk-on for a Division I football  or basketball team will tell you that being likened to Rudy at least  once during a four-year career is pretty much an inevitability. The  general public hears the term \"walk-on\" and immediately thinks that  anyone who couldn't earn a scholarship must have been told his entire  life that he wasn't good enough, before he relentlessly annoyed coaches  for a spot on the team and got life-changing advice from what has to be  the wisest field maintenance guy to ever live.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSadly, this image  of a short, white walk-on caring more about the success of the team than  all of his teammates combined is reinforced every March, when the guys  wearing all their warm-ups on the end of the bench react to routine  plays in the NCAA Tournament like tween girls at a Bieber concert. These  douchers ruin it for the rest of us, as they cement a stereotype for  all walk-ons that forever perpetuates the Rudy comparison. Well, you're  never going to believe this, but not all walk-ons actually fit this  description. I know, I know. It's hard to wrap your mind around the fact  that there are sometimes exceptions to stereotypes, but you're just  going to have to trust me with this one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was fully aware of the  walk-on stereotype when I started my career at Ohio State, which is why  I promised myself that I would do everything in my power to be an  exception. Don't get me wrong, I think Rudy is full of all sorts of  inspiration and is the second-best sports movie ever made. (I'm from  Indiana and played basketball-I'll let you guess what I think the best  sports movie of all time is.) But I've found that very few people make a  Rudy comparison in a complimentary way. Instead, they seem to be  saying, \"I think it's adorable how you try really hard even though you  suck balls and there's no way you'll ever get a chance to play.\" This is  why, from day one, I tried to distance myself from the Rudy comparison  by pulling pranks on superstar teammates, routinely falling asleep  during film sessions, and basically spending every day with the team  trying to figure out exactly how much I could get away with. And as it  turned out, I could get away with a lot.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhenever I reminisce  with my friends and family about my four years of being a dickhead at  Ohio State, they always seem to ask how exactly I was capable of getting  away with some of the things I did. (Don't worry, we'll cover all of my  shenanigans later.) After all, I was the bottom-feeder on the team who  was supposed to just keep his mouth shut and stand on the sideline  during practice until a coach told me to step in for a drill and  essentially get sodomized in my role as human punching bag. You'd think  that it would only take one screwup on my part for Coach Matta to send  my ass packing, but instead he seemed to embrace me as the comedic  relief for the team.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the history of the walk-on-head coach  relationship, this was unprecedented. Never had someone in my position  been given the freedom I was given, which is why I felt a great  responsibility to use this privilege to my advantage. Which brings us  back to the original question: how did I go from being a math major  basketball manager who knew only three people on campus to one of the  loudest voices in the locker room of the number-one-ranked college  basketball team in less than a month? The answer to that lies deeply  buried in a story about drugs, prostitution, love, betrayal, organized  crime in the 1920s, and one man's pursuit of the American Dream.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd by that I mean that the answer has nothing to do with any of those things. Sorry if I got your hopes up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTWO\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI  don't want to brag or anything, but I honestly can't remember getting  my first pubes. You might be confused as to how this could possibly be  bragging, which is why I should also mention that I vividly remember  third grade. Now, I don't want to jump to conclusions, but it seems like  since I can remember third grade but I can't remember getting pubes, I  must have started puberty before third grade. In other words, I had at  least a two-year head start on the rest of my classmates in the race to  become the guy all the ladies wanted to tongue-kiss under the bleachers  at the varsity football games.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI towered over all my friends, and  I was even taller than most of my brother's friends, despite them being  three years older than me. In fact, I was so much bigger than other  kids my age that I had to get a special desk made for me in elementary  school because I couldn't fit in the regular desks. Seriously. I was  basically just like Robin Williams in Jack, only I wasn't completely  covered with hair, and instead of being socially awkward about my size I  dunked on fools on the seven-foot rims during recess. (Also, I wouldn't  have completely blown the chance to get it on with Fran Drescher like  Jack did, but that's a discussion we'll have to save for another time.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy  size made me a natural fit for basketball, and I quickly fell in love  with the game. Since my dad was the athletic director at a local high  school when I was growing up, I always had access to a gym and would  often stay for hours after the high school games on Friday and Saturday  nights to shoot around. Sure this mostly consisted of me throwing up  half-court shots and trying to drop-kick the ball in from the top row of  the stands, but that's not the point. The point is that I sacrificed my  Friday nights and therefore never got the chance to get a pants tent  from watching Topanga during TGIF, all because I wanted to get in the  gym, work on my game, and try to get better so I could make it to the  NBA someday. Besides, those half-courters and shots from the bleachers  proved to be useful years later when I made \"Mr. Rainmaker,\" my  critically acclaimed YouTube video.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll this \"practice\" also paid  off in the short term, as I instantly became a beast in the local rec  league. But after a few years of playing in a league with just kids from  my town, I ended up quitting because (a) the refs were dads of other  kids in the league, which is to say they secretly despised me for  destroying their sons and took out their frustration by calling  criminally unfair fouls on me, and (b) our league had a limit on the  number of points one person could score in a game. That's right-the  league punished kids for being talented, which is the most ass-backwards  philosophy I've ever heard of. What kind of Communist thought process  was behind this decision to deter success in the interest of fairness?  Last time I checked, this is America. And in America it's not only  encouraged to beat up on the little guys to get ahead in life-it's  necessary. Anyway, just so we're clear, I'm blaming my lack of an NBA  career on the cheesedicks in charge of my youth rec league. They put  handcuffs on me at an early age, and I never was able to break free from  them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI reached my boiling point with the rec league when I  blocked the shot of some dweeb who wore shirts with wizards and dragons  on them and the refs called me for yet another bogus foul, only because I  was a foot taller than the other kid. Instead of throwing a tantrum and  causing a scene like most kids my age would have done, I waited until  the game started again, sat down at half-court, took my shoes off, and  cried for my mom in the bleachers to take me home. (Remember, kids:  always take the high road.) Sure my outburst was ridiculous, but there  was solid reasoning behind my behavior, considering it was obvious to me  that the rec league wasn't challenging me enough and I was in desperate  need of better competition. Ya know, competition that didn't play in  jean shorts or keep an inhaler in its back pocket during the game.  Thanks to AAU basketball, I more than found what I was looking for.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor  those who don't know, the Amateur Athletic Union oversees tournaments  all over the country for amateur athletes in a variety of sports. But in  basketball circles, \"AAU\" is basically just another way of saying \"club  basketball,\" as the fundamental idea behind AAU teams is that they are  made up of the best players from several towns and even states, as  opposed to teammates coming from just one town. The truth is that AAU  governs only a very small fraction of the hundreds of tournaments that  players could potentially play in during any given summer, but since it  is the foremost organization in amateur sports, its name is synonymous  with summer basketball. When I started playing AAU in 1997, it wasn't  nearly as huge as it is now- some kids today would rather play AAU  during the summer than play for their school teams-but it was still a  good opportunity for me to test my skills against the best. More  importantly, it gave me a chance to not feel like an ogre for being the  only one on the court with armpit hair.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHREE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'll never  forget the first time I played against Greg Oden and Mike Conley, mostly  because that one game changed my life forever. I can't remember what  year it was, but it was definitely during either the spring or the  summer when my AAU team played theirs in some tournament somewhere in  Indiana I think. They had nothing but athletic black guys (redundant, I  know) from Indianapolis on their team and were by far the best AAU team  in the country, despite the fact that back then Greg wore Rec-Specs that  made him as intimidating as Richard Simmons's vagina. Meanwhile, my  team was full of stereotypical white guys from the suburbs who masked  our athletic deficiencies with solid fundamentals and the collective  ability to make it rain from anywhere on the court. I would say that  heading into the game the clash of cultures conjured up memories of the  Princeton upset over UCLA in the 1996 NCAA Tournament, but the truth is  that since I was barely in junior high, I was most likely oblivious to  who we were playing and probably only agreed to go to the game because  my dad promised to take me out for pizza afterward. Nonetheless, even  though I was just a dipshit little kid who probably had no idea what was  going on, I can say with absolute certainty that this singular game was  the most pivotal moment in my basketball career and, to a lesser  extent, my life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI won't bore you with the play-by-play rundown  of the game, but I will say that the first half played out exactly like  you'd think it would. Mike and his absurd athleticism dribbled circles  around us and either laid the ball in or dropped it off to Greg for a  thunderous board-slap layup (the seventh-grade version of a dunk).  Meanwhile, on the other end of the court, our offense was a well-oiled  machine predicated on being in the triple-threat position, setting  flawless screens, pump-faking way too much, and shooting almost nothing  but threes. This back-and-forth contrast of styles went on for two  quarters and left us trailing by 15 at halftime, mostly because Mike and  Greg were getting layups every time down the court, and we couldn't  make enough threes to keep up with them since we were in seventh grade  and it was just short of a miracle that we could consistently get the  ball to the rim in the first place. Still, despite our inability to play  any defense whatsoever, the fact of the matter was that we were only  down by 15 to a team that should've been blowing us out. Wait, did I say  only 15?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHeading into the second half, we knew that we had to  make some adjustments to avoid getting run out of the gym, so our coach  decided to implement a 2-3 zone. By switching to a zone and compacting  our defense around the basket, we would hopefully negate the athleticism  of the guys on the other team and force them to shoot jump shots  instead of getting wide-open layups. In other words, we were going with  the \"if he's black play back and if he's white play tight\" philosophy,  which is unquestionably the greatest defensive strategy in the history  of basketball (although it's not exactly clear on how to guard Latinos,  Asians, or Native Americans).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis instantly proved to be a good  move. Since Mike and the rest of the guards on the other team were  accustomed to getting to the basket whenever they wanted, they had never  had any reason to practice shooting threes and weren't all that great  at it. Knowing this, we basically forced them to match our style of  play, and for a while the game turned into a three-point contest that  featured them bricking shot after shot and us having the exact amount of  success that you would think white guys from Indiana would have.  Eventually, they figured our zone out and turned up their defensive  intensity when the game mattered most, but for a quick second we gave  them a scare that would have surely turned the seventh-grade AAU  basketball world upside down. Even though we ran out of gas down the  stretch and came up a little short, we managed to expose a serious flaw  in a seemingly flawless team and only lost by seven, which was by far  the closest any team had come to beating them up to that point.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo,  how did this game \"change my life forever,\" or whatever dramatic phrase  I used earlier to make this story sound more interesting? Well, what I  failed to previously mention is that I was a mismatch nightmare for Greg  and Mike's team and played out of my mind for most of the game. As a  six-foot-two seventh-grader with a wet jumper, I was too big for little  guys like Mike to guard me, and I was too good of a shooter for big guys  like Greg, who usually never leave the paint on defense, to guard me. I  was essentially a juniorhigh version of Dirk Nowitzki, all the way down  to the fact that I also considered Detlef Schrempf a personal hero of  mine (but only because his flat top was damn near immaculate-not quite  on the same level as Chris Mullin's, but then again, whose is?). I lit  Mike and Greg's team up to the tune of 18 points and 7 rebounds (and no  assists because passing is entirely unnecessary), which doesn't sound  like much at first, but when you consider that high school band parties  have twice as much scoring as a typical seventh-grade basketball game,  it arguably becomes just as impressive as Wilt's 100 or Kobe's 81.","brand":"Anchor","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305276920037,"sku":"NP9780307745385","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307745385.jpg?v=1767725525","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/dont-put-me-in-coach-isbn-9780307745385","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}