Jeremy Lin’s sudden stardom has also put the spotlight on how Asian Americans are viewed in the U.S.: “Not since Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has there been so much national discussion about the appropriateness of discussing race. The 2008 election set the groundwork for an aggressive sort of colorblindness — as long as you voted […]
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The Legacy Of Wes Leonard
A Michigan high school basketball player hits the game-winning shot. Moments later he collapses from cardiac arrest and dies: “After the autopsy, when the doctor found white blossoms of scar tissue on Wes Leonard’s heart, he guessed they had been secretly building there for several months. That would mean Wes’s heart was slowly breaking throughout […]
Blindsided: The Jerry Joseph High School Basketball Scandal
He said he didn’t really know what day he was born. His parents were both dead before he turned 5, he said, and he’d never celebrated a birthday in his life. But Jerry Joseph’s birth certificate read January 1, so on New Year’s Day 2010, his family gathered around him. It would be a new […]
We Are All Teenage Werewolves
MTV’s “Teen Wolf” was conceived as a darker, sexier reimagining of the “Teen Wolf” story, and also a gorier one. Within the first few minutes of the pilot episode, for example, Posey’s character, Scott McCall, discovers the naked, dismembered body of a young woman in the woods. So it’s clear right away that this will […]
Accidental Hero: Beryl Shipley, 1926-2011
The onetime coach at Southwestern Louisiana was vilified for violating NCAA rules, but the author, who grew up in Cajun country, remembers Beryl Shipley for doing something courageous: helping to integrate college basketball in the Deep South
The Truth About Race, Religion, And The Honor Code At BYU
Over the past month, BYU has been held up as a symbol of all that is decent in college sports for its unsparing treatment of Brandon Davies, the African-American basketball player who violated the school’s honor code by reportedly having sex with his girlfriend. Davies was suspended shortly before the NCAA tournament, and a braying […]
Welcome to the Far Eastern Conference
Exiled from the NBA, vilified by the press, and ridiculed for a serious of questionable YouTube videos (eating Vaseline? c’mon!), Stephon Marbury is seeking redemption—and vast riches—in basketball-mad China. Now, if he can just win over his Communist bosses, he’ll be the biggest thing since Yao Ming
Princeton vs. UCLA: Reflections on a Historic Upset
I had a courtside seat for that game in Indianapolis, on the Princeton bench. I was a sophomore, small — too small, and slow — forward on that 1996 team. The only action I saw was the pregame layup lines. But countless times over the past 15 years, my former teammates and I have all […]
On Homophobia and Recruiting in Women’s College Basketball
Emily Nkosi, who as Emily Niemann hit five three-pointers for Baylor in its 2005 title win against Michigan State, remembers that when recruiters came to her Houston home, as they did by the dozens in 2002, they had to pass a test. “On home visits,” Nkosi says, “my dad was assigned the question: ‘Do you […]
A Basketball Carol
The Washington Generals always lose: to begin with. There is no doubt whatsoever about that. They lose on indoor basketball courts and outdoor courts. They lose on ships, they lose on aircraft carriers, they lose in prisons and they lose on the back of trucks. … This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can […]
