Be inspired by the story of Kevin Atlas (formerly Laue), whose faith and perseverance helped him become an NCAA Division I basketball player, despite being born with only one arm.

Even before entering the world, Kevin Atlas was a fighter. He should have died in childbirth, as the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice, but he survived because his left arm was in the middle of it, allowing blood to flow to his brain. But since circulation was cut off in that arm, he was born with his left arm ending just below his elbow.

GET IN THE GAME is Kevin's story of transformation: Moving from anger to joy. From embarrassment to confidence. From the sidelines and wishing his life was different to getting in the game and showing who he is. Kevin's arduous journey to earning a scholarship to Manhattan College in New York City and becoming the first NCAA Division I basketball player missing a limb has given him keen insights to help anyone who feels trapped and defeated by less-than-perfect circumstances, whether physical, mental, or environmental.

Kevin doesn't encourage readers to simply accept and live with their challenges, hurts, and losses. He spurs them on to believe any weakness can, in reality, become the one thing that propels them to achieve their greatest potential. As Kevin has learned throughout his life, you can't win if you don't get in the game!

Comprehensive, authoritative, controversial, hilarious, and impossible to put down, this book offers every hardwood fan a courtside seat beside the game's finest, funniest, and fiercest chronicler.

On March 6, 2001, the top two women's college basketball teams in the nation, UConn and Notre Dame, played what was arguably the greatest game in the history of the sport. When UConn's Sue Bird hit a twelve-foot pull-up jumper at the buzzer over national player of the year Ruth Riley in the Big East Tournament championship game, it marked the end of an epic contest that featured five future Olympians and eight first-round WNBA selections. Bird at the Buzzer re-creates this unique season with a detailed account of the games that led up to-and beyond-the tournament finale; profiles of the two coaches, UConn's Geno Auriemma and Notre Dame's Muffet McGraw; close-ups of the players who made the year so memorable; and, finally, an in-depth recap of the game worthy of being designated ESPN's first-ever women's basketball "Instant Classic." Author Jeff Goldberg shows us the drama on the court and behind the scenes as the big game pitted Riley and the upstarts from Notre Dame against what many believed was the most talented team in UConn history, under Hall of Fame coach Auriemma. A see-saw affair in which neither team led by more than eight points, the 2001 Big East championship game encapsulates the quintessential inside story of the individual talents and skills, team spirit and smarts, and the moment-by-moment realities of college athletics that made this season a snapshot of sports at its finest.

Akoy Agau led Omaha Central High School to four straight high school basketball state championships (2010-13) and was a three-time All-State player. One of the most successful high school athletes in Nebraska's history, he's also a South Sudanese refugee. At age four, Akoy and his family fled Sudan during the Second Sudanese Civil War, and after three years in Cairo, they came to Maryland as refugees. They arrived in Omaha in 2003 in search of a better future. In Omaha the Agaus joined the largest South Sudanese resettlement population in the United States. While federal resources and local organizations help refugees with housing, health care, and job placement, the challenge to assimilate culturally was particularly steep. For Akoy basketball provided a sense of belonging and an avenue to realize his potential. He landed a Division 1 basketball scholarship to Louisville for a year and a half, then played at Georgetown for two injury-plagued seasons before he graduated in the spring of 2017. With remaining eligibility, he played for Southern Methodist University while pursuing a graduate degree. In a fluid, intimate, and joyful narrative, Steve Marantz relates Akoy's refugee journey of basketball, family, romance, social media, and coming of age at Nebraska's oldest and most diverse high school. Set against a backdrop of the South Sudanese refugee community in Omaha, Marantz provides a compelling account of the power of sports to blend cultures in the unlikeliest of places.

Pick up the pace with Coach Bobby Cremins' secrets for playing up-tempo ball.

When Bobby Cremins became head coach of Appalachian State University, he was one of the youngest professionals to ever lead an NCAA Division I basketball team. Going to Georgia Tech at 33, he was among the youngest ever in the history of the ACC. Two decades later as Georgia Tech's all-time winningest coach, Cremins had compiled fourteen victorious seasons, six All-Americans, and two National Coach of the Year awards. How did he do it? The answers are here as Coach Cremins reveals the secrets of his powerful, high-pressure playbook for the first time ever.. .

In this action-packed guide for coaches and players, Cremins shares more than 150 super-charged plays and strategies guaranteed to make you rethink your offensive system, along with how he recruited many of the top point guards who played for him, and what he learned from each. You'll learn how to: . Implement a fast break that's right for you and your personnel, from missed shots to made baskets.. Attack full- and half-court pressure and get high percentage shots. . Go to your bread and butter plays for your half-court attack. . Develop an aggressive zone offense.. Beat the clock with great last-second shots and all kinds of special situations, including three-point shots, out-of-bounds plays, and much more..

J-Rod moves like a small tank on the court, his face mean, staring down his opponents. "I play just like my father," he says. "Before my father died, he was a problem on the court. I'm a problem." Playing basketball for him fuses past and present, conjuring his father's memory into a force that opponents can feel in each bone-snapping drive to the basket. 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. Basketball is popular among young black American men but not because, as many claim, they are "pushed by poverty" or "pulled" by white institutions to play it. Black men choose to participate in basketball because of the transcendent experience of the game. Through interviews with and observations of urban basketball players, Onaje X. O. Woodbine composes a rare portrait of a passionate, committed, and resilient group of athletes who use the court to mine what urban life cannot corrupt. If people turn to religion to reimagine their place in the world, then black streetball players are indeed the hierophants of the asphalt.

The 1980s were arguably the NBA's best decade, giving rise to Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan. They were among the game's greatest players who brought pro basketball out of its 1970s funk and made it faster, more fluid, and more exciting. Off the court the game was changing rapidly too, with the draft lottery, shoe commercials, and a style driven largely by excess. One player who personified the eighties excess is Micheal Ray Richardson. During his eight-year career in the NBA (1978-86), he was a four-time All-Star, twice named to the All-Defense team, and the first player to lead the league in both assists and steals. He was also a heavy cocaine user who went on days-long binges but continued to be signed by teams that hoped he'd get straight. Eventually he was the first and only player to be permanently disqualified from the NBA for repeat drug use. Tracking the rise, fall, and eventual redemption of Richardson throughout his playing days and subsequent coaching career, Charley Rosen describes the life-defining pitfalls Richardson and other players faced and considers key themes such as off-court and on-court racism, anti-Semitism, womanizing, allegations of point-shaving within the league, and drug and alcohol abuse by star players. By constructing his various lines of narration around the polarizing figure of Richardson-equal parts basketball savant, drug addict, and pariah-Rosen illuminates some of the more unseemly aspects of the NBA during this period, going behind the scenes to provide an account of what the league's darker side was like during its celebrated golden age.

Basketball fans at the University of New Mexico have always been loyal, loud, and numerous, and the devotees have grown in number over the fifty years since the opening of the University Arena, a.k.a. the Pit, in 1966. Herron recounts many of the best players and games in this celebration of one of the best-known facilities in the United States. With almost two hundred color photographs, this illustrative explosion shows you the players, the plays, the coaches, and the sold-out crowds dressed in red. You can recall the colorful nicknames: Petie Gibson, Marvin "Automatic" Johnson, and, of course, "Stormin' Norman" Ellenberger. This stunning work also contains extensive statistics that will not disappoint-like who took the Lobos to the most postseason contests. Herron does not overlook women's basketball, a standout sport at UNM, nor does he omit the great non-UNM entertainment that has happened at the Pit: the NMAA state high school basketball tournament, the Gathering of Nations, boxing matches, bull riding, concerts, and more.

ABCs and ESPNs Mr. Stats ranks the NBAs greatest players of all time in this provocative and comprehensive book

Elliot Kalbs work is beyond excellent. He thinks in story lines and uses numbers and history to make compelling and often original points. --Bob Costas

When the NBA released its supposedly authoritative list of the top 50 players, basketball fans everywhere begged to differ. In Whos Better, Whos Best? Elliot Kalb, known to TV viewers as ABCs Mr. Stats, enters the fray.

The ultimate NBA historian and authority in armchair athletes disputes, Kalb interweaves numbers, facts, and anecdotes to flesh out the central question in every basketball fans mind: Whos the best? His choices are provocative (Michael Jordan isnt #1; hes not even #2), framed by discussions with unorthodox sources and respected NBA experts, players, and coaches.

A tremendously satisfying book for anyone hungry for statistics and debate, this is the ultimate behind-the-numbers story of the best of the NBA.

Loyola University Chicago was ahead of its time when racial matters were forefront in a long overdue revolution in civil rights. The Ramblers of the 1962-1963 NCAA college basketball season were pioneers in race relations in sport, though most of the time they were simply playing the sport they loved. When the NCAA tournament began in March, the Ramblers engaged in a series for the ages, daring to be the first NCAA Division I school to play five black athletes on the court at once and capturing the most prestigious title in college basketball at a time when states below the Mason-Dixon line still had laws on the books preventing black and white athletes from mixing even in pick-up games. Records were set, rivals faced and one of the most famous and significant contests in college basketball playoff history played out in what incidentally became a model showcase for race relations. Nearly every time the Ramblers took the court, the game was unique in its magnitude. Relying significantly on exclusive interviews with surviving players, now in their seventies, Lew Freedman chronicles the entire journey, the adventure of the season that bound tight for a lifetime the group of men who lived through it.

Was there really professional basketball before the NBA? Indeed there was. It was a rugged game but one that continued to evolve swiftly from its invention in 1891. The original Celtics were at the vanguard of this creation and development. The team began as a local group of young Irishmen from the Hell's Kitchen area of New York City in 1914. Through shrewd acquisitions of top players, they were transformed into the most powerful basketball team of their time. In the period from 1919 to 1928 the Celtics won over seven hundred games with fewer than sixty losses. This book chronicles the team, the players, the league seasons and the early era of professional basketball.

Examine the social and cultural impact of basketball on America at the amateur and professional levels! Basketball in America: From the Playgrounds to Jordan's Game and Beyond is a pioneering analysis of the history of basketball and its effect on popular culture from the 1970s to today. The popularity of basketball is undeniable, and the subject allows for such a broad range of interpretations in popular culture. It cuts across economic, racial, and social boundaries, and its major stars cross over into other forms of popular entertainment more than any other professional sport. This book examines the entire scope of modern basketball history, from the playgrounds, where people first learn the fundamentals, to the college and professional levels. Basketball in America is a collection of essays that explores the intersection of basketball and popular culture in America. The contributors are an eclectic mix of writers, scholars, journalists, former players, coaches, and sports enthusiasts who all share an undying love for the game of basketball. The authors analyze the sport from a cross-cultural and historical perspective digging deep into the profound popular cultural influences of basketball and exploring the scope and depth of its influence. This is the first book that examines the social and cultural impact of basketball on American society to reveal how tightly it is woven into America's cultural fabric. Also included are photographs and tables to enhance your understanding of the material. Topics covered in Basketball in America include: Elgin Baylor the first "modern" basketball player Chocolate Thunder and Short Shorts: The NBA in the 1970s Dr. J, Bird, Magic, Jordan, and the Bad Boys: The NBA in the 1980s The Jordan Era: The NBA in the 1990s LeBron James and the future of the NBA the Nike brand and popular culture lessons learned from legendary UNC coach Dean Smith professional women's basketball and much more! Basketball in America is a comprehensive analysis that will appeal to anyone interested in understanding how the sport has become an integral part of our national culture. It is an insightful read for sports fans as well as for sports historians. In addition, this book can be used as a textbook in sports history or sociology of sports classes. It will entertain and inform those who treasure basketball and the role it plays in the American consciousness. Make it part of your collection today!

Visit the author's YouTube channel! When high school basketball player LeBron James was selected as the top pick in the National Basketball Association draft of 2003, the hopes of a half-million high school basketball players soared. If LeBron could go straight from high school to the NBA, why couldn't they? Such is the allure of basketball for so many young African American men. Unfortunately, the reality is that their chances of ever playing basketball at the professional, or even college, level are infinitesimal. In Living Through the Hoop, Reuben A. Buford May tells the absorbing story of the hopes and struggles of one high school basketball team. With a clear passion for the game, May grabs readers with both hands and pulls them onto the hardwood, going under the hoop and inside the locker room. May spent seven seasons as an assistant coach of the Northeast High School Knights in Northeast, Georgia. We meet players like Larique and Pooty Cat, hard-working and energetic young men, willing to play and practice basketball seven days a week and banking on the unlimited promise of the game. And we meet Coach Benson, their unorthodox, out-spoken, and fierce leader, who regularly coached them to winning seasons, twice going to the state tournaments Elite Eight championships. Beyond the wins and losses, May provides a portrait of the players' hopes and aspirations, their home lives, and the difficulties they face in living in a poor and urban area - namely, the temptations of drugs and alcohol, violence in their communities, run-ins with the police, and unstable family lives. We learn what it means to become a man when you live in places that define manhood by how tough you can be, how many women you can have, and how much money you can hustle. May shows the powerful role that the basketball team can play in keeping these kids straight, away from street-life, focused on completing high school, and possibly even attending college. Their stories, and the double-edged sword of hoop dreams, is at the heart of this compelling story about young African American men's struggle to find their way in an often grim world. Visit the author's YouTube channel! When high school basketball player LeBron James was selected as the top pick in the National Basketball Association draft of 2003, the hopes of a half-million high school basketball players soared. If LeBron could go straight from high school to the NBA, why couldn't they? Such is the allure of basketball for so many young African American men. Unfortunately, the reality is that their chances of ever playing basketball at the professional, or even college, level are infinitesimal. In Living Through the Hoop, Reuben A. Buford May tells the absorbing story of the hopes and struggles of one high school basketball team. With a clear passion for the game, May grabs readers with both hands and pulls them onto the hardwood, going under the hoop and inside the locker room. May spent seven seasons as an assistant coach of the Northeast High School Knights in Northeast, Georgia. We meet players like Larique and Pooty Cat, hard-working and energetic young men, willing to play and practice basketball seven days a week and banking on the unlimited promise of the game. And we meet Coach Benson, their unorthodox, out-spoken, and fierce leader, who regularly coached them to winning seasons, twice going to the state tournaments Elite Eight championships. Beyond the wins and losses, May provides a portrait of the players' hopes and aspirations, their home lives, and the difficulties they face in living in a poor and urban area - namely, the temptations of drugs and alcohol, violence in their communities, run-ins with the police, and unstable family lives. We learn what it means to become a man when you live in places that define manhood by how tough you can be, how many women you can have, and how much money you can hustle. May shows the powerful role that the basketball team can play in keeping these kids straight, away from street-life, focused on completing high school, and possibly even attending college. Their stories, and the double-edged sword of hoop dreams, is at the heart of this compelling story about young African American men's struggle to find their way in an often grim world.

When fall rolls into winter, most sports fans in Nebraska long for spring football. But Coach Tim Miles has given hibernating fans a reason to cheer through winter for the first time in twenty years. Since taking over the men's basketball program in 2012, Miles has gone from being relatively unknown outside college coaching circles to a big name on the national stage as an up-and-coming, funny, and fan-friendly college coach. Miles scores big with Nebraska's fans with his social media acumen-he tweets during halftime-and his fan interaction-he applied (and failed) to become the leader of the student section at Pinnacle Bank Arena. But on the court and in practice, Miles is all about winning. His combination of toughness, togetherness, and humor has rejuvenated Nebraska basketball. Nebrasketball provides a full-access account of Tim Miles's path to Nebraska and his team's inaugural season in the $186 million Pinnacle Bank Arena. With full access to Miles and the team, Scott Winter provides basketball fans with an intimate look at a rising star in college basketball, detailing what it's like to coach an NCAA men's program today with all of its triumphs and struggles, along with Miles's larger story as a transformational coach who has made Nebraska basketball, and other college programs, relevant. The book also shows the small-town legacy and tenacity that created Miles, including his mother's prodding, his benching as a college player, and his significant history of losing, which he claims was his most important mentor.

When most people think of Michael Jordan, they think of the beautiful shots, his body totally in sync with the ball, hitting nothing but net. He is responsible for incredible moments so ingrained in basketball history that they have their own names: The Shrug, The Shot, The Flu Game. But for all his greatness, there's also a dark side to Jordan: a ruthless competitor, a gambler. There's never been a biography that balanced these personas-until now. Drawing on personal relationships with Jordan's coaches; countless interviews with friends, teammates, family members, and Jordan himself; and a career in the trenches covering Jordan in college and the pros, Roland Lazenby provides the first truly definitive study of Jordan: the player, the icon, and the man.