Coach Izzy

Coach Isabella Soto analyzes game tapes well past midnight on a school night in April … a month after her season ended. Ten years since winning the State Championship as a player, Izzy’s team is poised to accomplish a similar feat this season. An experienced squad will return, built on her principles of character, trust, and sisterhood–with toughness as its trademark. The Gold Ball is within reach. Her school’s needs, however, outweigh her personal desires, and Coach Izzy is summoned to take on a challenge for which she feels she may not be qualified, and which could hinder her girls’ chances for that championship run. Then, two months before the season begins, a fateful accident compels Izzy to reexamine her earlier decision, sending her down a path few coaches ever experience. Set along the Front Range north of Denver in a high school much different from Oro Hills, Coach Izzy challenges the reader to examine the values of high school athletics and the true purpose of coaching.

Like the first two novels in the Cheetah Basketball Series, Coach Izzy is serious basketball that also speaks of empowerment, of challenging society’s preconceived notions about gender abilities. And while Izzy and her high school teammates have moved on from their championship season in Oro Hills, their love for one another and the game that brought them opportunities beyond their wildest dreams continues to unfold.