HARDWICK – Wow! Congratulations to both the Hazen Union boys’ and girls’ basketball teams on their Vermont State Championships. For the past thirty years Hazen has been recognized as a powerhouse in boys basketball, and now the girls have won two titles in the last three years.
The success of our school’s teams has inspired me to write this month about some excellent books from the world of basketball. I could name many, but every columnist has a word limit so I have narrowed my list to five.
I will start with John Wooden, who coached at UCLA in the 1960s and 1970s. From 1964 through 1975 his men’s teams won an unimaginable ten national championships in twelve years. He coached many young men who went on to play professionally, including both Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton. Each went on to Hall of Fame careers. Wooden was a soft-spoken man who famously patrolled the sidelines with papers rolled up in his hand. He wrote several books about coaching, the best known of which is “Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success – Building Blocks for a Better Life.” He believed that the qualities he wrote of formed the foundation for athletic success. Both Abdul-Jabbar and Walton remained close to him throughout his long life. He died at age 99.
One of my favorite writers, David Halberstam, authored “The Breaks of the Game.”It is an in-depth look at the 1979-1980 season of the NBA’s Portland Trailblazers. The team had won the NBA championship in 1977 with Bill Walton as their finest player, but were in decline as Halberstam followed them. He beautifully combines his reporting on the game with wonderful profiles of the players.
Wooden’s home state of Indiana has a long love affair with basketball. Even James Naismith, who invented the game in Massachusetts, remarked after a visit to witness the state high school championship, “basketball really had its origins in Indiana, which remains the center of the sport.”
The film “Hoosiers” centers around the 1954 state tournament in which a school of 160 students won the championship. Indiana University has won five NCAA men’s titles, three of them under the leadership of Bobby Knight, a fiery-tempered coach who sadly may be remembered more for overstepping his bounds as a coach in physical altercations with his players.
John Feinstein of Sports Illustratedspent a year shadowing Knight and his team. His book, “A Season on the Brink,” is a remarkable look into that season. In retrospect, given that Knight is not cast in the most flattering light, it is surprising that he allowed Feinstein such open access.
Bill Bradley, who went on to a career as a U.S. Senator from Missouri, and even ran for president, first emerged into the public eye as a high scoring basketball phenom who led underdog Princeton to the Final Four in 1964. Following his collegiate career, he spent a year in England as a Rhodes Scholar, and then played ten seasons with the New York Knicks, helping them win their only two NBA championships in 1969 and 1973. His first book, “Life on the Run,”explores his life as a professional athlete: the fame, the pressure, the loneliness.
Perhaps the most poignant story I can suggest you read is “Foul,” by David Wolf. It explores the life of Connie Hawkins, a legend from the New York City playgrounds whose collegiate and professional careers were derailed by a false allegation of point-shaving while he was a freshman at the University of Iowa in 1960. He denied having been involved in the scandal and was never indicted or arrested. Still, he was expelled from Iowa and banned from the NBA. For the next nine years he played on minor league teams and the Harlem Globetrotters. In 1966 he sued the NBA for having effectively blacklisted him. He ultimately won his suit and received over one million dollars. Most remarkably, at age 27, he was signed by the Phoenix Suns of the NBA, and was named to the First Team All-NBA that season. He went on to play through 1975 and was ultimately elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
In 1972, Congress passed Title IX, mandating that colleges and universities spend equal money on women’s athletic programs. It led to an explosion of girls’ and women’s participation in sports, and can be credited with launching the world championship teams the United States has fielded in basketball, softball, soccer and ice hockey.
One of the first high profile athletes to emerge was Ann Meyers. In 1974 she was the first woman to be granted a four-year athletic scholarship to UCLA, at a time when UCLA ruled the collegiate hoops world. She was actually drafted by the Indiana Pacers of the NBA, although she did not make the roster. She tells her story in “You Let Some Girl Beat You?: The Story of Ann Meyers Drysdale.”
If you cannot find any of these books on the shelves of the Jeudevine, Diane or Kevin there will obtain them through inter-library loan.
And, speaking of books (this is a library column, after all), I recently learned of a plan hatched by some local booklovers to support both the Jeudevine Library and the Galaxy Bookshop. Each month they purchase a gift certificate from the Galaxy for the library. In turn, the library will use the gift certificates to purchase books for its collection without denting its budget. Our home’s bookcases are overflowing with books we have collected through the decades, so our
book-buying has dropped sharply in recent years. This seems the perfect way for us to patronize the Galaxy and to allow Diane, Rachel and Kevin greater flexibility in enhancing the Jeudevine collection. To take advantage of this opportunity, either stop by the Galaxy to purchase a gift card or go to the Galaxy Bookshop website, click on the “Shop” link and then the “Buy a Giftcard” option. Galaxy co-owner Andrea Jones expressed her gratitude for those who have initiated this program, remarking on how generous and supportive Hardwick’s citizens have been, particularly as major construction in the village might dampen people’s enthusiasm for shopping along South Main Street.
