About the Author

My Story Writing Can I Play? 

I wrote the first edition of Can I Play? in 2005, and I owe it to a torn rotator cuff.

For years I had been telling myself, secretly, that I wanted to write a novel. A story. I never told anyone, and I never started. Then, coaching volleyball, I tore my rotator cuff. Back in those days that meant a five-inch scar and months of painful therapy. Call it fate or call it God intervening, but suddenly I had nothing but time.

It sounds a little theatrical to say I started the book writing with my left hand, but I did. Eventually I figured out how to prop up my right arm so my right index finger could help. A month or so later I had both hands back, and by then the story had me.

I had no idea how to write a novel. What I knew was volleyball, players, and the world they live in. My goal for it to be a fun inspiring read for players and coaches.

I was a club coach traveling the country with my teams, so I promoted the book everywhere we went. To my surprise, people really liked it. Some coaches started using it as their preseason read. I had been coaching longer than most of them, and I had never once thought of doing that with my own team. We live and learn from our peers.

In the end, it sold tens of thousands of copies to kids, parents, and coaches over the years. But the moment I knew the book was good came from John Dunning, the head coach at Stanford. I had handed him a copy at a coaches clinic. A month or so later he contacted me, told me he loved it, and for the next eight or ten years I worked for him at his summer camps, until I retired.

I knew there was more to Keli’s story, so I kept writing. The series follows her through the rest of high school, two years of tough choices and living with what those choices cost, until the last day, when she faces the biggest one. Stay or go. Stay with the boy next door, her best friend Ashley, and the family she has built, or go where the last two years have been leading her. 

A couple of parents who were teachers bought it for their daughters I coached, and after reading it themselves, they came to me and said, "I need 25 copies for my classroom." That list of teachers grew organically to a couple dozen. The one thing they started to ask for, when they got copies of the 2nd and 3rd books, was a study guide or key that would make life easier.

After I retired, the books sat for ten years as a fond memory. Until my daughter-in-law picked up a copy, read it, and said, “John, you need to republish this. It’s a great book.” Her words kept coming back to me. Being poorly retired, if that’s even a phrase, I decided to bring the books back. 

Can I Play is a fun series, we talk about kids, but if you read it you're going to be find yourself too.