Coach
Before Coach was the man who gave caring yet firm-handed guidance to Ghost, Lu, Patina, and Sunny on the Defenders track team, he was little Otie Brody, who was obsessed with Mr. 9.99 (a.k.a. Carl Lewis) and Marty McFly from Back to the Future. Like Mr. 9.99--and his own dad--Otie is a sprinter. Sprint free or die is practically his motto.
Then his dad, who is always away on business trips, comes home with a pair of Jordans. JORDANS. Fine as fine can be. Otie puts them on and feels like he can leap to the moon...maybe even leap like Mr. 9.99 when he won the Olympic gold medal in the long jump. But one morning he wakes up to find his brand-new secret weapon kicks are missing--right off his feet! And Otie just might have a fuzzy memory of his dad easing them off as Otie was sleeping, but that can't be right, can it?
Unless all the reasons for his dad's "gone's" are very different from what he's been told... Because now, not only are the Jordans missing, but so is his father.
Jason Reynolds is the winner of more than 30 US and international awards, including the 2018 Edgar Award and LA Times Book Prize, Newbery Award, Printz Award and two time Walter Dean Myers Award winner and the 2021 CILIP Carnegie Medal.. A New York Times bestselling author, his books include Long Way Down, Miles Morales, Boy in the Black Suit and the Run series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny and Lu).