Jason Reynolds’s young adult novel Coach (2025) is the fifth and final installment in his acclaimed Track series. Functioning as a prequel to the previous four books—Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu—the novel travels back to the late 1980s to tell the origin story of the Defenders track team’s beloved mentor, Coach Otis Brody. The story follows 12-year-old Otis, known as Otie, a talented sprinter who idolizes Olympian Carl Lewis. When a classmate’s public ridicule over his haircut prompts a disastrous attempt at self-barbering, Otie must navigate the pressures of middle school, athletics, and instability within his family and neighborhood with a new, unwelcome vulnerability. The novel explores themes of The Painful Disillusionment of Childhood Hero Worship, Community and Sport as an Anchor Amidst Chaos, and The Illusory Power of Material Status.

A recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, Reynolds is a celebrated author known for his authentic portrayal of the lives of young Black people. Coach is set against the cultural and social backdrop of late-1980s urban America, a period marked in the novel by the rise of athletic superstars like Carl Lewis and Michael Jordan, the burgeoning sneaker culture symbolized by the Air Jordan 3, and the presence of drug-related violence and economic pressure in Otie’s community. By grounding Otie’s coming-of-age story in this specific historical moment, Reynolds examines how aspiration, insecurity, family strain, and community support shape a boy’s understanding of himself.

This guide is based on the 2025 Atheneum Books for Young Readers edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide feature depictions of bullying, addiction, substance use, and graphic violence.

Plot Summary

Coach, the fifth and final installment in the Track series, is set in the late 1980s in Glass Manor, a working-class neighborhood, and follows 12-year-old Otis “Otie” Brody Jr., a seventh grader and aspiring Olympic sprinter who idolizes Carl Lewis. Otie imagines owning a time machine, using it to fast-forward to a future in which he wins a gold medal in the 100-meter dash and then returning to confront his classmate Quentin Carswell.

The conflict begins at a school talent show, where Quentin, a talented artist in seventh grade, targets Otie with jokes about his overgrown, uneven hairline. The mockery stems from jealousy after their art teacher praised Otie’s drawing over Quentin’s. The only person who cuts Otie’s hair is his father, Otis Sr., known as Big Otis, but Dad only does it when he feels like it, and he is away on what Otie believes is a business trip. After school, Otie finds his mother’s razor and attempts to fix his own hairline, accidentally shaving off his left eyebrow. His mother, Sonya Brody, cleans the wound, shaves off the remaining eyebrow for symmetry, and, at Otie’s request, shaves his entire head bald. Together they create a cover story: The shave is meant to reduce aerodynamic drag, similar to the way professional runners wear tight clothing.

At school, classmates mock Otie repeatedly, but his best friend, Torrie Cunningham, an eighth grader raised by his grandmother, accepts the drag theory with enthusiasm. Otie brings the lie to his youth track team, the Defenders, who practice at Martin Luther King Park under Coach Marvin, Big Otis’s best friend and co-founder of the program. During Thursday drills, Otie pushes himself to exhaustion across every distance to prove the bald head works, edging Torrie in the final 100 meters. Teammates begin plucking at their own hair, convinced. Coach Marvin announces that Dudley Anderson, a scout who helped Carl Lewis’s parents get him into the Junior Olympics, a national youth track competition, is coming to evaluate the team.

Otie recalls the moment that made him a runner: Four years earlier, he watched Carl Lewis win gold at the 1984 Olympics on television. When Carl crossed the finish line in 9.99 seconds, the moment leads him toward track, and the following year, Big Otis and Coach Marvin found the Defenders. Dad initially serves as organizer and recruiter because of his back pain, then becomes co-coach to help Otie at practice.

The next morning, Torrie arrives having shaved his own head and eyebrows in solidarity. At school, Otie focuses on his math teacher Mr. Jefferson’s brand-new Air Jordan 3 sneakers, and after class, Mr. Jefferson performs a full 360 dunk in the gym, which the boys attribute to the shoes’ magic. On the way to practice, Otie draws eyebrows on with his mother’s makeup pencil. Mr. Anderson runs the team through ladder-style time trials, but on the final sprint, Otie’s sweat dissolves the penciled eyebrows into his eyes. Despite the pain and exhaustion, he continues running until his body locks up and he collapses. His father returns home earlier than expected and massages the cramps out of Otie’s legs. Mr. Anderson is gone, though Coach Marvin later says he will share his evaluation.

Walking home, Dad tells Otie not to respond to embarrassment by harming himself. They run into Otie’s other best friend, Gordon “Goose” Richardson, their neighbor whose older brother belongs to Glass Manor’s largest crew, the Clippers, which is involved in drug dealing. At the apartment, Dad presents Otie with a pair of Air Jordan 3s. When Sonya arrives, she locks the Jordans in the family’s safe cabinet, explaining that valuable items are kept secured because of the risk of theft and violence. That night, Otie’s parents argue behind their bedroom door, as they often do when Dad returns from his trips. While the TV plays, Otie discovers footage of Carl Lewis doing the long jump and watches it repeatedly.

At a Saturday car-wash fundraiser, a purple DeLorean pulls up driven by Biscuit, the boss who funds the Clippers. When Otie eagerly tells Biscuit he is a future world champion, Biscuit suggests “a different kind of running” (136) could get him a car like his. Big Otis steps between them and shuts the conversation down. That evening, Biscuit smashes a car phone into Big Otis’s face outside the apartment building after Dad mocks his purchase. Otie chases the DeLorean down the street before his father calls him back, warning him and pulling him away from the situation.

On Tuesday, Dad takes Otie for his first barbershop visit. On the walk to school afterward, he tells Otie that Mr. Anderson did not select him for the Junior Olympics, explaining that his body giving out during the tryout affected the decision. Dad encourages him to continue training, telling him that at 12, he will have another opportunity the following year and can also compete in the long jump. Dad also reveals that Torrie was selected and gives Otie permission to deliver the good news. At school, Otie receives increased attention in his fresh haircut and Jordans. Meanwhile, Mr. Charles, the local store owner, tells Otie he saw Big Otis behaving unusually.

Coach Marvin begins teaching Otie long-jump fundamentals, including the “penultimate,” the second-to-last step before takeoff in which the hips drop before the jump. That night, Dad teaches Otie how to clean his sneakers carefully, noting that creases cannot be undone. Otie wears the Jordans to bed. In the morning, both the shoes and his father are gone. At practice, Dad does not show. Coach Marvin explains that the shoes are not responsible for Otie’s performance, noting that Michael Jordan did not wear Air Jordans when he began his basketball career.

After practice, Mr. Crampton, Dad’s friend and cabdriver, drives Otie across town. Hanging from his rearview mirror is a TBNR ornament, the same initials on Big Otis’s gold chain. At a gas station, they find Big Otis holding Otie’s Jordans, appearing exhausted. Dad hands Otie the shoes, still clean and unsold, and says he is not okay but is trying to be.

At a family meeting, the truth emerges. Years ago, a car accident destroyed Dad’s back and ended his athletic career at 23. In constant pain, he accepted a free sample of a drug at the barbershop, and the addiction took over his life. Sonya installed the safe cabinet because possessions kept disappearing. Mr. Crampton reveals he is Big Otis’s sponsor, and that he has been in recovery for 10 years. The “work trips” were stints in rehabilitation. TBNR stands for Tomorrow’s Brand-New Rehabilitation. Otie is deeply upset. He nearly uses a derogatory term for his father’s addiction before Sonya slams her fist on the table and forbids it, insisting Dad is still a person who is fighting. Dad admits he almost sold the Jordans but stopped because the creases meant they were only for Otie’s feet. The family drives Dad to the facility, where he checks himself in. Otie hugs him goodbye and whispers, “Back to the future” (241).

On the ride home, Otie cries. He asks Sonya to lock the Jordans in the safe and to shave his head bald again, this time leaving the eyebrows. Big Otis misses the championship meet, where Otie wins first in the 100-meter dash and attempts his first competitive long jump. The jump is unsuccessful, but Coach Marvin lifts him in celebration. Torrie finishes second, and both boys hold up palms reading “9.93,” the time Dad once ran as a young man. Dad also misses Otie’s 13th birthday and Torrie’s trip to the Junior Olympics, from which Torrie and Dennis return with gold medals.

Dad returns from rehab in time for the 1988 Summer Olympics. Carl Lewis finishes second in the 100 with a time of 9.92, faster than Big Otis’s unofficial 9.93. Dad becomes angry and reaches for a beer. Sonya shouts there is none in the fridge, and Dad goes outside to talk with Mr. Crampton. He later returns with a beer before leaving again. Otie stays and watches Carl Lewis win gold in the long jump, reacting with excitement. When Sonya asks if he still believes he is going to the Olympics, Otie confirms he does. Sonya tells him that if the Olympics do not work out, he would make a good coach, since coaching is in his blood. Otie thinks about designing a time machine for his father shaped like a taxicab, to carry him back to before the accident that changed everything.