Can we give credit where credit is due? Chris Lear is a great writer. Anyone who has read Running with the Buffalos would know this. He does it again here. I pretty much already knew the Newbury Park story in detail and the book was still gripping. Very well written and inspiring. Lear should write books more often.
And how about some credit to Brosnan? Would there be a story for Lear to tell if Brosnan had not built this program and guided his amazing athletes through this saga? Brosnan may over promote himself in a way that many find annoying but I think the lesson here is that coaches have to work hard for the team to be successful. Brosnan deserves credit for dedicating himself 100% to his mission; we should wish our kids' coaches would be this all-in. When I look at our local results, there are only a few teams that are ever good in a huge city full of people where you can assume the talent is equally distributed. So 95% of the coaches are putting in no effort. In conversation with our local rival's coach (he's rapidly building a dynastic type team here), we're both astonished at how much resistance there is when someone starts having success. He's got haters around here the same way Brosnan does.
You really should read the book before judging whether it is good. Even if you hate Brosnan the entire story is pretty fascinating as I'd never thought about many of the aspects of what he had to manage behind the scenes (managing the team through confusing COVID restrictions, dealing with the huge celebrity around the team which has probably never happened in high school cross country before).