All out!
Neal Bernards
Focuses on the key players, coaches, and events in the history of the Kentucky Wildcats, the college basketball team that has won seven NCAA titles in ninety-five years of play.
Read Time: ~6.2 hr
Benching Jim Crow
by Charles H. Martin (2010)
About this book
Chronicling the uneven rise and slow decline of segregation in American college athletics, Charles H. Martin shows how southern colleges imposed their policies of racial exclusion on surprisingly compliant northern teams and explains the social forces that eventually forced these southern schools to accept integrated competition. Martin emphasizes not just the racism prevalent in football and basketball in the South, but the effects of this discrimination for colleges and universities all over the country. Southern teams such as the University of Alabama, University of Mississippi, and the University of North Carolina were obsessed with national recognition, but their Jim Crow policies prevented them for many years from playing against racially mixed teams from other parts of the country. Devoting special attention to the Southeastern Conference, the Atlantic Coast Conference, and teams in Texas, Martin explores the changing social attitudes and culture of competition that turned the tide and allowed for the recruitment of black players and hiring of black coaches. He takes a close look at the case of Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso), the first major white university in an ex-Confederate state to recruit African American athletes extensively. Martin skillfully weaves existing arguments and documentation on the integration of college sports with wide-ranging, original research, including previously unpublished papers and correspondence of college administrators and athletic directors uncovered in university archives.
Setting / LocationGlobal
Story EraModern Era
Protagonist / CoreBenching Jim Crow Lead Character
Readers who enjoyed this also loved
Ball don't lie!
Santiago Colás
Pro basketball player Rasheed Wallace often exclaimed the pragmatic truth Ball don't lie! during a game. It is a protest against a referee's bad calls. But the slogan, which originated in pickup games, brings the reality of a racialized urban playground into mainstream American popular culture.In Ball Don't Lie!, Yago Colas traces the various forms of power at work in the intersections between basketball and language from the game's invention to the present day. He critiques existing popular myths concerning the history of basketball, contextualizes them, and presents an alternative history of the sport inspired by innovations. Colas emphasizes the creative prerogative of players and the ways in which their innovations shape and are shaped by broader cultural and social phenomena. Ball Don't Lie! shows that basketball cannot be reduced to a single, fixed or timeless essence but instead is a continually evolving exhibition of physical culture that flexibly adapts to and sparks changes in American society.
The story of the Phoenix Suns
Steve Silverman
"The history of the Phoenix Suns professional basketball team from its start in 1968 to today, spotlighting the franchise's greatest players and reliving its most dramatic moments"--Provided by publisher.
Cincinnati Bengals
Zach Wyner
Chronicles the history of the professional football team, describing its home stadium, profiling its best players, and listing team records.