Author: Bijan C. Bayne
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442238976
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
Year round on Martha’s Vineyard Island off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, residents and vacationers have played basketball—almost since the game was invented. The Oak Bluffs summer league on the Island was innovative, ethnically diverse, welcomed female players, and fostered thousands of friendships. President Obama, NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving, and Family Matters sitcom star Jaleel White have all played basketball on Martha’s Vineyard, as did future college stars, authors, war heroes, and entrepreneurs. Their stories touch current events from World War I through the Civil Rights Movement—and even include the filming of the blockbuster Jaws. Martha’s Vineyard Basketball: How a Resort League Defied Notions of Race and Class follows the rich history of basketball on the Island and tells the stories of the players and coaches themselves. During the heyday of Martha’s Vineyard basketball in the 1970s and ‘80s, the courts provided a place for friendships that looked past social class and race—a unique situation given that nearby cities such as Boston were sites of violent demonstrations against integration. Original interviews with those who were there not only reveal the racial dynamics on Martha’s Vineyard, but also relate amusing anecdotes of encounters with celebrities that include Charles Lindbergh, James Cagney, Frank Sinatra, and future star James Taylor. Martha’s Vineyard Basketball reveals little-known aspects of the Island, shares the realities and triumphs of residents and vacationers alike, and demonstrates the unifying power of basketball. New Englanders, basketball fans, and those interested in race and class relations will all find this book a noteworthy account of a singular place.
Author: Clyde L. MacKenzie
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781532345654
Category : Basketball
Languages : en
Pages : 236
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Book Description
Author: Bijan C. Bayne
Publisher: Franklin Watts
ISBN: 9780531159002
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
Describes the history of African Americans in professional basketball, from the traveling teams in the first half of the twentieth century to the stars of the 1960s.
Author: Bud Withers
Publisher: Triumph Books
ISBN: 1623684579
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
The inspirational and touching story of Gonzaga's rise from college basketball obscurity to near mythic status as everyone's favorite underdog, this book was penned by acclaimed college basketball writer Bud Withers, who has covered the Zags since it all began. In dramatic fashion he reanimates the events of the last few years, adding flesh to the personalities and summoning the details, great and small, that make up this unforgettable story. Readers will meet players such as Blake Stepp, a blue chip high school recruit who selected Gonzaga because of what it wasn't; Dan Dickau, who became a first-round NBA pick in 2002 after becoming Gonzaga's first All-American player in the history of the men's basketball program; Dan Monson, the former coach who instilled a fearless attitude among the players and began Gonzaga's storied run; Mark Few, the current coach who has continued and expanded upon the program's great success; and Father Tony Lehmann, the school's longtime chaplain who died in March 2002, who was the inspirational leader of the basketball team. This book is a must read for any college basketball fan wanting to know more about Gonzaga, the team that makes deep runs into the NCAA tournament almost every year without compromising on the small-school values that still separate it from the basketball factories it terrorizes each March.
Author: James Naismith
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803283701
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 236
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Book Description
James Naismith was teaching physical education at the Young Men's Christian Association Training College in Springfield, Massachusetts, and felt discouraged because calisthenics and gymnastics didn't engage his students. What was needed was an indoor wintertime game that combined recreation and competition. One evening he worked out the fundamentals of a game that would quickly catch on. Two peach half-bushel baskets gave the name to the brand new sport in late 1891. Basketball: Its Origin and Development was written by the inventor himself, who was inspired purely by the joy of play. Naismith, born in northern Ontario in 1861, gave up the ministry to preach clean living through sport. He describes Duck on the Rock, a game from his Canadian childhood, the creative reasoning behind his basket game, the eventual refinement of rules and development of equipment, the spread of amateur and professional teams throughout the world, and the growth of women's basketball (at first banned to male spectators because the players wore bloomers). Naismith lived long enough to see basketball included in the Olympics in 1936. Three years later he died, after nearly forty years as head of the physical education department at the University of Kansas. This book, originally published in 1941, carries a new introduction by William J. Baker, a professor of history at the University of Maine, Orono. He is the author of Jesse Owens: An American Life and Sports in the Western World.
Author: Chris Herren
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1429924144
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 286
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Book Description
In his own words, former NBA and overseas pro Chris Herren tells how he nearly lost everything and everyone he loved, and how he found a way back to life. Powerful, honest, and dramatic, this remarkable memoir,Basketball Junkie, is harrowing in its descent, and heartening in its return. I was dead for thirty seconds. That's what the cop in Fall River told me. When the EMTs found me, there was a needle in my arm and a packet of heroin in the front seat. At basketball-crazy Durfee High School in Fall River, Massachusetts, junior guard Chris Herren carried his family's and the city's dreams on his skinny frame. His grandfather, father, and older brother had created their own sports legends in a declining city; he was the last, best hope for a career beyond the shuttered mills and factories. Herren was heavily recruited by major universities, chosen as a McDonald's All-American, featured in a Sports Illustrated cover story, and at just seventeen years old became the central figure in Fall River Dreams, an acclaimed book about the 1994 Durfee team's quest for the state championship. Leaving Fall River for college, Herren starred on Jerry Tarkanian's Fresno State Bulldogs team of talented misfits, which included future NBA players as well as future convicted felons. His gritty, tattooed, hip-hop persona drew the ire of rival fans and more national attention: Rolling Stone profiled him, 60 Minutes interviewed him, and the Denver Nuggets drafted him. When the Boston Celtics acquired his contract, he lived the dream of every Massachusetts kid—but off the court Herren was secretly crumbling, as his alcohol and drug use escalated and his life spiraled out of control. Twenty years later, Chris Herren was married to his high-school sweetheart, the father of three young children, and a heroin junkie. His basketball career was over, consumed by addictions; he had no job, no skills, and was a sadly familiar figure to those in Fall River who remembered him as a boy, now prowling the streets he once ruled, looking for a fix. One day, for a time he cannot remember, he would die.
Author: Bijan C. Bayne
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442245719
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 293
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Book Description
NBA Hall of Fame player Elgin Baylor was an innovator in his sport, a civil rights trailblazer, and a true superstar. He influenced future NBA All Stars such as Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, and is considered by many to be one of the most important players in NBA history. A prolific scorer who baffled opponents with his twists and turns and inventive moves, Baylor was a force both on and off the court for the Minneapolis and Los Angeles Lakers. In Elgin Baylor: The Man Who Changed Basketball, Bijan C. Bayne tells the story of how a kid from the streets of segregated Washington, DC, who didn’t attend college until he was over twenty, revolutionized basketball and stood up for his rights. In a time when few nationally prominent black athletes spoke out about racial inequality in the United States, Baylor refused to tolerate discrimination. On the court, with his balletic moves and urban style of play, Elgin Baylor lifted the game of basketball off the floor and into the air. Elgin Baylor: The Man Who Changed Basketball includes personal reflections from Baylor’s old schoolyard companions, former teammates, players he coached in the NBA, and noted sports journalists, bringing to life his childhood, college career, and professional life with intimate detail. Basketball fans, historians, and those interested in the impact of sports on the Civil Rights Movement will all find this first-ever biography of Elgin Baylor both fascinating and inspirational.
Author: Thomas Dresser
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1625849044
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176
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Book Description
Martha's Vineyard is cherished by many as a summer paradise, but few know of its rich past. Descendants of the first Native American inhabitants still reside on the Vineyard. Once a critical whaling hub, the island's success drew in newcomers from around the world. Following the Civil War, land developers set their sights on attracting tourists to the island's scenic beaches, and soon thereafter, a visit from President Grant established Martha's Vineyard as a vacation haven. From a movement to secede from Massachusetts to the making of the summer blockbuster Jaws, author Thomas Dresser weaves together the threads of the Vineyard's fascinating history. Discover how this remarkable island adapted to the times and came to be one of the most sought-out vacation destinations on the East Coast.
Author: A. Bowdoin Van Riper
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439664242
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 128
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Book Description
Founded in 1642 as Great Harbor, Edgartown is the oldest of Martha's Vineyard's six townships. It has been a shire town and a center of learning, a whaling port and a fishing village, a manufacturing center and a mecca for sportsmen. Its gleaming captain's houses and majestic public buildings are a testament to the wealth that whaling brought to the island in the mid-1800s, but the end of New England whaling was far from the end of its story. Faced with the loss of the industry that had sustained it, Edgartown reinvented itself as a summer-centered community of resort hotels, bathing beaches, and genteel vacation homes. It welcomed the world to its shores and became an unlikely cultural icon--a backdrop to a best-selling memoir, a political scandal, and a blockbuster film--famous for being its inimitable self.
Author: Skip Finley
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1467143979
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176
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Book Description
Skip Finley's Town of Oak Bluffs columns in the Vineyard Gazette were widely popular thanks to his breezy style and historical content. In this curated collection, he presents a chronological telling of how the community became the welcoming seaside resort for a uniquely diverse group of residents and visitors, including five American presidents. Discover how islanders like Ichabod Norton, Old Harry and Lucy Vincent Smith helped to define the island we know today. From the Panic of 1873 to the Inkwell and beyond, these witty and whimsical tales prove why this particular spot is featured in the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
