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When Jay Rosenstein and I started writing Boxed Out of the NBA, we thought we were writing a light collection of mostly humorous anecdotes from old ballplayers about playing in the minor league. But as we interviewed the old Eastern Leaguers and understood how the league gave a home to players who couldnât make the NBA in large part because of race, we realized we had a much more important and socially significant story. Itâs been our privilege to get to know these gentlemen, and feel like they have entrusted us to tell their story. We want to help them get the respect and recognition they deserve while they are still here to appreciate it.
OK, Iâm stretching a bit to include this on my list.
John Thompson made his mark on basketball as a college coach, not from his two years as Bill Russellâs back-up with the Celtics. But Iâve got a personal interest here: I was a student sportswriter at Georgetown from Coach Thompsonâs second year as coach, and as a junior and senior got to attend his weekly press conferences with the student press. Iâve often said I learned more about life from those meetings in Coachâs office than I did from any other class at Georgetown.
I feel the same about this book, written with Andscape senior writer Jesse Washington. If you read this book you probably wonât agree with all of it, but I have no doubt that youâll learn from it.
The long-awaited autobiography from Georgetown Universityâs legendary coach, whose life on and off the basketball court throws Americaâs unresolved struggle with racial justice into sharp relief
John Thompson was never just a basketball coach and I Came As a Shadow is categorically not just a basketball autobiography.
After three decades at the center of race and sports in America, the first Black head coach to win an NCAA championship is ready to make the private public. Chockful of stories and moving beyond mere stats (and what stats! three Final Fours, four times national coachâŚ
Race has always been a primary issue in American lifeâand a test of how well our ideals as a nation sync up with reality. Because sports are a national passion, they have long put questions of inclusion on full display. Itâs a fascinating, illuminating clash: the meritocracy of sports vs. the injustice of racism.
The National Basketball Associationâs color barrier was not as long-lasting as Major League Baseballâs, but it was in place in 1950 when the more enlightened white owners and talented Black players shattered it.
Author Thomas recalls the economic justification for racism, with how one owner warned another owner that his âplayers will be 75% Black in five years and youâre not going to draw people.â Fears that racial fairness would ruin the NBA were ridiculous, of course. The first Black player drafted and the first to sign a contract were Harlem Globetrotters. Through deep research and interviews, Thomas explains in an engaging manner how the NBA was integrated.
Today, black players comprise more than eighty percent of the National Basketball Association's rosters, providing a strong and valued contribution to professional basketball. In the first half of the twentieth century, however, pro basketball was tainted by racism, as gifted African Americans were denied the opportunity to display their talents. A few managed to eke out a living playing for the New York Renaissance and Harlem Globetrotters, black professional teams that barnstormed widely, playing local teams or in short-lived leagues. Also, a sprinkling of black players were on integrated teams. Modern professional basketball began to take shape in the lateâŚ
When Jay Rosenstein and I started writing Boxed Out of the NBA, we thought we were writing a light collection of mostly humorous anecdotes from old ballplayers about playing in the minor league. But as we interviewed the old Eastern Leaguers and understood how the league gave a home to players who couldnât make the NBA in large part because of race, we realized we had a much more important and socially significant story. Itâs been our privilege to get to know these gentlemen, and feel like they have entrusted us to tell their story. We want to help them get the respect and recognition they deserve while they are still here to appreciate it.
I was on lunch break one day in 2010 walking through Union Station in DC when I saw a very tall, elderly Black man seated at a table in the B. Dalton bookstore with a stack of books in front of him.
I smiled at him and he back and me, and then the man with him said, âDo you know who this is?â I said no. The man said âItâs Earl Lloyd, the first African American to play in the NBA.â It occurred to me then, as it has many times since, that most Americans know about Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in professional baseball, but until that moment I didnât know who did the same in basketball.
And it wasnât until 10 years later, when I finally read the book that Mr. Lloyd graciously signed for me, that I wished Iâd talked with him about his remarkableâŚ
In 1950, future Hall of Famer Earl Lloyd became the first African American to play in a National Basketball Association game. Nicknamed ""Moonfixer"" in college, Lloyd led West Virginia State to two CIAA Conference and Tournament Championships and was named All-American twice. One of three African Americans to enter the NBA at that time, Lloyd played for the Washington Capitals, Syracuse Nationals, and Detroit Pistons before he retired in 1961.
Throughout his career, he quietly endured the overwhelming slights and exclusions that went with being black in America. Yet he has also lived to see basketball - a demonstration ofâŚ
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctorâand only womanâon a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
When Jay Rosenstein and I started writing Boxed Out of the NBA, we thought we were writing a light collection of mostly humorous anecdotes from old ballplayers about playing in the minor league. But as we interviewed the old Eastern Leaguers and understood how the league gave a home to players who couldnât make the NBA in large part because of race, we realized we had a much more important and socially significant story. Itâs been our privilege to get to know these gentlemen, and feel like they have entrusted us to tell their story. We want to help them get the respect and recognition they deserve while they are still here to appreciate it.
Ray Scott is a living bridge from the first generation of Black players in the NBA to the modern NBA that emerged in the 1970s.
Through high school in Philadelphia where he played against Wilt Chamberlain, to college in Portland where he first competed against Elgin Baylor, to his formative professional years in the Eastern League where his contemporaries were the leagueâs all-time stars like Sherman White, Wally Choice, and Hal âKingâ Lear, to his early years in the NBA where his mentor was Earl Lloyd, to succeeding Lloyd as an NBA coach and becoming the first African American named NBA Coach of the Year, Scott has soldiered through numerous affronts yet always emerged with grace, dignity, and hope.
âCoach,â as he is called, in this memoir written with prolific basketball writer and former Eastern League player Charley Rosen, demonstrates why he is respected and beloved as both a leaderâŚ
A memoir of hard lessons learned in the racially segregated and sometimes outright racist NBA of the early â60s by celebrated NBA player and the first Black Coach of the Year, Ray Scott. Introduced by Earl "the Pearl" Monroe.
âThereâs a basic insecurity with Black guys my size,â Scott writes. âWe canât hide and everybody turns to stare when we walk down the street. ⌠Whites believe that their culture is superior to African-American culture. ... We donât accept many of [their] answers, but we have to live with them.â
Iâm a storyteller and jack of all trades who grew up on a family farm in Indiana. I can operate a combine, analyze data, or edit a book. Writing about sports can create great stories, but the true beauty lies in the people and circumstances, not the stats and game highlights. Most of my works are nonfictionâpersonal interest, sports, history, and sports history. I enjoy unearthing untold stories, especially when they involve equal rights, underdogs, hidden history, and non-famous people. Everyone has a story to tell.
In the 1990s, I didnât know of any collection of basketball stories and few great basketball books had been written. Dennis Trudell saw the same thing and fixed it with this literary anthology. I appreciated the broad array of stories in the collection. It includes John Updikeâs poem, âThe Ex-basketball Player.â In âPosting Up,â Stephanie Grant captured the beauty of basketball in a story about a teenage girl learning to play the post. Most stories tackle hard topics beyond the basketball court. If you love basketball and literature, you must find this hard-to-find book.
I wanted this book to exist because I love to read and I love basketball.
And there was no gathering of strictly "creative" writing about what is surely one of our most spontaneous, creative sports. While many literary baseball anthologies were available, fans of basketball and writing had only collections of journalism, or journalism mixed with an occasional story and novel fragment. Yet basketball is now our nation's most popular sport (fifty-four percent to forty-six percent over baseball, I read in the newspaper-though we're talking about passion, and how does one measure?). Further, it is a sportâŚ
As I write in Fight Songs, my name has nothing to do with it: It refers to a geography an ocean away, and predates any notion of the American South (or of America, for that matter). I have spent most of my life in the South, though, loving football, basketball, and other sports that didnât always love me back. I became curious about why theyâve come to play such an outsized role in our culture. Why did my home state come to a standstill for a basketball tournament? Why does my wifeâs home state shut down for a football game? Writing Fight Songs was one way of exploring those questions. Reading these books was another.
If youâre a North Carolinian of a certain age and background, reading To Hate Like This is like looking into one of those magnifying mirrors: Youâll see yourself, but with every pore and blemish blown up to comic proportions.
If youâre not a North Carolinian of that age and background, youâll learn much about why we are the way we are. Though ostensibly about the fierce basketball rivalry between the University of North Carolina and Duke, itâs really about the pulls (and repulsions) of home, of family, of history, of language.
Even if you donât like basketball, even if you hate both Carolina and Duke as much as I do, if youâve ever felt deep ambivalence about your place of birth, youâll love this book.
An obsessively personal history of the blood feud between North Carolinaâs and Dukeâs basketball teams and what that rivalry says about class and culture in the South
The basketball rivalry between Duke and North Carolina is the fiercest and longest-running blood feud in college athletics, and perhaps in all of sports. To legions of otherwise reasonable adults, it is a conflict that surpasses athletics; it is rich against poor, locals against outsiders, even good against evil. In North Carolina, where both schools reside, it is a way of aligning oneself with larger philosophic idealsâof choosing teams in lifeâa tradition ofâŚ
NORVEL: An American Hero chronicles the remarkable life of Norvel Lee, a civil rights pioneer and Olympic athlete who challenged segregation in 1948 Virginia. Born in the Blue Ridge Mountains to working-class parents who valued education, Lee overcame Jim Crow laws and a speech impediment to achieve extraordinary success.
Despite playing precisely one year of competitive basketball myself, as a gangly sixth grader in the 1990s forced to play without her (desperately needed) glasses and capable of only granny-style free throws, I fell in love with the sport later in life as a superfan of my local college basketball team, the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Iâm forever interested in players as human beings, and the way forces from their off-court life affect the game and vice versa.
Every baller has a player they absolutely idolize, whether itâs someone who makes the Sportscenter highlight reels on the regular or the best dunker at their local basketball court. For Shot Clockâs Tony, itâs Dante, who took his AAU team to the championships twice. But when Dante is killed by a police officer, everything changes.
This book brings you all the exciting game action youâd expect from a book with that title and cover, but itâs also a story about grief and loss (a sweet spot for me, always) and the intersection of racial justice and sports. I canât wait for the sequel coming out in fall 2024.
Former NBA All-Star Caron Butler and acclaimed author Justin A. Reynolds tip off the first book in a new middle grade series about a young boy trying to make his mark on an AAU basketball team coached by a former NBA star in his hometown. Perfect for fans of The Crossover and the Track series. A Junior Library Guild Selection!
Tony loves basketball. But the game changed recently when his best friend, Dante, a hoops phenom, was killed by a police officer. Tony hopes he can carry on Danteâs legacy by making the Sabres, the AAU basketball team Dante tookâŚ
Iâm a storyteller and jack of all trades who grew up on a family farm in Indiana. I can operate a combine, analyze data, or edit a book. Writing about sports can create great stories, but the true beauty lies in the people and circumstances, not the stats and game highlights. Most of my works are nonfictionâpersonal interest, sports, history, and sports history. I enjoy unearthing untold stories, especially when they involve equal rights, underdogs, hidden history, and non-famous people. Everyone has a story to tell.
Mike Roos did a great job telling this true story of Indiana high school basketball. Roosâs father was the high school principal that hired that crazy coach referenced in the title. He used extensive interviews and years of rewrites to recreate meetings, locker room pep talks, and dialogue. Not only is this a good story, but Roos showed readers what is wonderful about creative nonfiction. It reads like a novel, but itâs genuine nonfiction.
In the summer of 1962, the peripatetic and irrepressible Pete Gill was hired on a whim to coach basketball at tiny Ireland High School. There he would accomplish, against enormous odds, one of the great small-town feats in Indiana basketball history. With no starters taller than 5'10", few wins were predicted for the Spuds. Yet, after inflicting brutal preseason conditioning, employing a variety of unconventional motivational tactics, and overcoming fierce opposition, Gill molded the Spuds into a winning team that brought home the town's first and only sectional and regional titles. Relying on narrative strategies of creative nonfiction rather thanâŚ
I am an author whose works have spanned several genres, from mysteries (I won an Edgar for Strike Three Youâre Dead), to psychology (I coined the word âpsychobabbleâ and wrote a book about it), to humor (Bad Cat andBad Dog were both bestsellers), and, more lately to nonfiction, including Such Good Girls, true story of three Jewish women who survived the Holocaust. I have worked in television as a comedian, writer, and producer, and as a senior editor in the publishing industry, but my first and enduring love is the magic of writing.
The little-known story of promoter Eddie Gottliebâs South Philadelphia Hebrew Association team begins in the 1920s when professional basketball in this country was often played in a cage-encircled court to protect the athletes from the rabid fans in Philly and other cities in the hard-scrabble Eastern League. The unathletic Gottlieb kept the SPHAs at the top of the pack, along with Harlemâs all-Black Renaissance team. The story ends in the 1940s when helped organize the whites-only Basketball Association of American, the forerunner to the NBA. Gottlieb, who coached the original Philadelphia Warriors, spent the last 30 years of his life preparing each NBA seasonâs schedule by hand with a pencil and a legal pad.
Iâm a narrative nonfiction writer whose subjects range from politics to professional football, from racial conflict to environmental destruction, from inner-city public education to social justice to spinal cord injury. The settings for my books range from the Galapagos Islands to the swamps of rural Florida, to Arctic Alaska. I typically live with and among my subjects for months at a time, portraying their lives in an intimately personal way.
While the titles mentioned so far focus on high school teams spending their winters inside gymnasiums with referees on the court and fans in the bleachers, this one, written vibrantly by a staffer for Sports Illustrated magazine, shifts outside, to a blistering hot summer on the asphalt courts of Flatbush in Brooklyn, where teenage boys (including future legends Fly Williams and Albert King) and full-grown men play a tougher game, replete with trash-talking, flashy in-your-face moves, and tests of manhood that often turn to violence, with no officials to enforce order or rules, and few bystanders besides aging ex-athletes betting a few dollars on the outcomes, and other pickup teams waiting to take on the winners. As on inner-city playgrounds across the country, the game of basketball offers a rare respite from otherwise grim lives framed by poverty and the almost complete absence of hope.
In 1974, Rick Telander intended to spend a few days doing a magazine piece on the court wizards of BrooklynâÂÂs Bedford-Stuyvesant. He ended up staying the entire summer, becoming part of the playersâ lives and eventually the coach of a loose aggregation known as the Subway Stars.Ă Telander tells of everything he saw: the on-court flash, the off-court jargon, the late-night graffiti raids, the tireless efforts of one promoter-hustler-benefactor to get these kids a chance at a college education. He lets the kids speak for themselves, revealing their grand dreams and ambitions. But he never flinches from showing us howâŚ