Breaking Back: How I Lost Everything and Won Back My LifeHarper Collins, 2009 M03 17 - 288 pages James Blake's life was getting better every day. A rising tennis star and People magazine's Sexiest Male Athlete of 2002, he was leading a charmed life and loving every minute of it. But all that ended in May 2004, when Blake fractured his neck in an on-court freak accident. As he recovered, his father—who had been the inspiration for his tennis career—lost his battle with stomach cancer. Shortly after his father's death, Blake was dealt a third blow when he contracted zoster, a rare virus that paralyzed half of his face and threatened to end his already jeopardized career. In Breaking Back, Blake provides a remarkable account of how he came back from this terrible heartbreak and self-doubt to become one of the top tennis players in the world. A story of strength, passion, courage, and the unbreakable bonds between a father and son, Breaking Back is a celebration of one extraordinary athlete's indomitable spirit and his inspiring ability to find hope in the bleakest of times. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 6
... never before. I was at a major crossroads, a time in which my life and my career were largely in the hands of fate, despite all the efforts I was making to get better. Things could have gone either way for me then: I could have gotten ...
... never supposed to make my living as a jock. If most adolescent athletes have “sports parents,” then I had “school parents”—a mother and father who revered education above everything else and treated it as a lifelong pursuit, not just ...
... never really materialized in many ways because I never allowed it to overtake my worldview. My parents' inclination toward truly loving life and expecting the best from it shaped my entire outlook, helping me to believe in the inherent ...
... never seen him before, and how he wanted to make sure that person saw something he or she would never forget (writer Bob Greene dubbed this expectation of witnessing something otherworldly the “Jordan sideshow”), a sentiment that had ...
... never really have. But at the end of 2003 there were two people that I sought out for advice about my situation. One was Brian, who from the time we began working together had instilled in me a philosophy of “getting better” as the only ...
Contents
1 | |
7 | |
It Could Be Worse | 35 |
Requiem for a Superman | 63 |
Five Minutes of Hitting | 115 |
Plan B | 147 |
If You Can Win One Set | 175 |
You Can Win Two 175 7 Fire It Up One Time Bam 203 8 Getting Better 241 Epilogue 257 Glossary | 265 |