American Basketball

Marlon & Zenoviah Love, dreams, and all the drama of high school life collide in Marlon & Zenoviah, a fresh, heartfelt story about finding your person when you least expect it. Meet Marlon—a smooth-talking basketball star with big hoop dreams—and Zanoviah, the low-key poetic genius who’d rather hide in her journal than step into the spotlight. Their worlds couldn’t be more different, but when a class project throws them together, sparks fly in the most unexpected way. From sneaky glances in the hallway to deep conversations under the bleachers, Marlon and Zanoviah discover what it ...

As the star basketball player at EU, I was used to the stares that I'd get from women, however, this look from her beautiful grey eyes was different. It shocked me to my core. I'd never been denied before, but she was the first to do it. My teammates bet me that I couldn't sleep with her in four weeks. I bet them I could. In reality, all I wanted was her. I had to have her at any cost. Was it fate that brought us together or just the simple fact that we had the same first name? This other Jackie was one good looking man, but he was dangerous. I saw the way women acted around him. They ...

An Asian American basketball star walks into a gym. No one recognizes him, but everyone stares anyway. It is the start of a joke but what is the punchline? When Won Lee, the first Asian American in the NBA, stuns the world in a seven-game winning streak, the global media audience dubs it “The Wonder”—much to Won’s chagrin. Meanwhile, Won struggles to get attention from his coach, his peers, his fans, and most importantly, his hero, Powerball!, who also happens to be Won’s teammate and the captain.

A deeply revealing memoir of big wins and hard lessons from a seasoned executive caught smack in the middle of the trillion-dollar soft power struggle pitting China against Hollywood, the NBA, and American business....

Shawn Harrington returned to Marshall High School as an assistant coach years after appearing as a player in the iconic basketball documentary film Hoop Dreams. In January of 2014, Marshall's struggling team was about to improve after the addition of a charismatic but troubled player. Everything changed, however, when two young men opened fired on Harrington's car as he drove his daughter to school. Harrington was struck and paralyzed. The mistaken-identity shooting was followed by a series of events that had a devastating impact on Harrington and Marshall's basketball family.

LeBron James is the hero in two very American tales: one, a success story the nation loves; the other, the latest installment in an ongoing chronicle of American antiblackness. James has lived in the public eye ever since high school when his extraordinary athletic skills subjected his every action, every statement, every fashion choice to intense public scrutiny that tells us less about James himself and more about a nation still wrestling with many social inequities.

A tale of ambition, victory, love, and sports, 'This Game Thing' grabs your attention from the start. It's a high-quality erotic story with a solid plot. After putting in tons of effort, she reached a respected role. Ashley Davenport, a 33-year-old African American woman with light brown skin, has reached the pinnacle of her career. Back in her college days at Springfield University, she clinched her first national championship, and now she’s a legendary coach for the top NCAA women's college basketball team. No one embodies the concept of 'climbing the ladder' like Ashley. Thus, when the...

By winning the state high school basketball championship in 1955, ten teens from an Indianapolis school meant to be the centerpiece of racially segregated education in the state shattered the myth of their inferiority. Their brilliant coach had fashioned an unbeatable team from a group of boys born in the South and raised in poverty. Anchored by the astonishing Oscar Robertson, a future college and NBA star, the Crispus Attucks Tigers went down in history as the first state champions from Indianapolis and the first all-black team in U.S. history to win a racially open championship tournament.

On the street, every ballplayer has a story. Onaje X. O. Woodbine, a former streetball player who became an all-star Ivy Leaguer, brings the sights and sounds, hopes and dreams of street basketball to life. He shows that big games have a trickster figure and a master of Black talk whose commentary interprets the game for audiences. The beats of hip-hop and reggae make up the soundtrack, and the ballplayers are half men, half heroes, defying the ghetto's limitations with their flights to the basket.

Links the history of race relations to the history of basketball by reviewing the era of the first Black teams, the first integration of teams, and the innovations that Black players have brought to the game.

Available once again for a new generation, the first volume in Arthur Ashe’s epic trilogy that chronicles the remarkable legacy of Black athletes in the United States—a major addition to our understanding of American history and the fulfillment of this legendary sports star and global activist’s lifelong dream.

In 1903, over 300 Indian children from across America lived at the Fort Shaw Indian Boarding School in a remote, isolated valley in Montana. Among the children were a handful of teenage girls, many who had only lived in tepees. They quickly learned to play basketball and resoundingly crushed all opponents, including men's and women's university teams. After the games, the girls recited Shelley and Longfellow, played mandolins and violins, sang, danced, and pantomimed.

On the night of March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, right up the street from the chocolate factory, Wilt Chamberlain, a young and striking athlete celebrated as the Big Dipper, scored 100 points in a game against the New York Knickerbockers. As historic and revolutionary as the achievement was, it remains shrouded in myth. The game was not televised; no New York sportswriters showed up; and a 14-year-old local boy ran onto the court when Chamberlain scored his hundredth point, shook his hand, and then ran off with the basketball.

Over the years I have compiled several guides and tips for players on how to get their careers started, what to expect on the way and once they are in the door, and how to handle themselves with the on- and off-court situations that come with it. Every guide comes from questions that players frequently ask me. This guidebook is a compilation of all of those guides and tips in one place for your quick and easy reference.

Eagle Blue follows the Fort Yukon Eagles, winners of six regional championships in a row, through the course of an entire 28-game season, from their first day of practice in late November to the Alaska State Championship Tournament in March. With insight, frankness, and compassion, Michael D’Orso climbs into the lives of these 14 boys, their families, and their coach, shadowing them through an Arctic winter of 50-below-zero temperatures and near-round-the-clock darkness as the Eagles crisscross Alaska in pursuit of their - and their village’s - dream.

This entry in a brand new line of sports biographies from Matt Christopher takes listeners onto the court with an all-star who reaches for new heights. Blake Griffin is known for being a number one draft pick, Rookie of the Year, Slam Dunk Contest winner, and one of the best power forwards playing today. But he had to fight to make it onto the NBA court at all after sitting out his first pro season with a devastating knee injury. Learn more about the perennial all-star in this comprehensive biography, complete with photos and fun infographics.

Available once again for a new generation of audiences, the second volume in Arthur Ashe’s epic trilogy that chronicles the remarkable legacy of Black athletes in the United States—a major addition to our understanding of American history and the fulfillment of this legendary sports star and global activist’s lifelong dream.

Growing up, Wat Misaka wasn’t the tallest kid on the basketball court, but he was fast and he loved the game! In his Japanese American basketball league, Wat dribbled with speed and shared the ball as much as he scored. Encouraged by his father to always do his best, Wat applied this mindset to every challenge in his life. As Wat spent more time on the court, his passion for the game grew. He played in college at the University of Utah during WWII, a time when many Japanese Americans were stripped of their freedoms and incarcerated by the US government.

Available once again for a new generation of listeners, the third and final volume in Arthur Ashe’s epic trilogy that chronicles the remarkable legacy of Black athletes in the United States—a major addition to our understanding of American history and the fulfillment of this legendary sports star and global activist’s lifelong dream.

During the 1980s, Black athletes and other athletes of color broadened the popularity and profitability of major college televised sports by infusing games with a "Black style" of play. At a moment ripe for a revolution in men's college basketball and football, clashes between "good guy" white protagonists and bombastic "bad boy" Black antagonists attracted new fans and spectators. And no two teams in the 1980s welcomed the enemy's role more than Georgetown Hoya basketball and Miami Hurricane football. The Hoyas and the 'Canes made the bad-boy image look good. Pop culture took notice.