Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation that Saved the Soul of the NBA
by Theresa Runstedtler
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Mar 2023
368 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
A vital narrative history of 1970s pro basketball, and the Black players who shaped the NBA
Against a backdrop of ongoing resistance to racial desegregation and strident calls for Black Power, the NBA in the 1970s embodied the nation's imagined descent into disorder. A new generation of Black players entered the league then, among them Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Spencer Haywood, and the press and public were quick to blame this cohort for the supposed decline of pro basketball, citing drugs, violence, and greed. Basketball became a symbol for post-civil rights America: the rules had changed, allowing more Black people onto the playing field, and now they were ruining everything.
Enter Black Ball, a gripping history and corrective in which scholar Theresa Runstedtler expertly rewrites basketball's "Dark Ages." Weaving together a deep knowledge of the game with incisive social analysis, Runstedtler argues that this much-maligned period was pivotal to the rise of the modern-day NBA. Black players introduced an improvisational style derived from the playground courts of their neighborhoods. They also challenged the team owners' autocratic power, garnering higher salaries and increased agency. Their skills, style, and savvy laid the foundation for the global popularity and profitability of the league we know today.
"Runstedtler's superior storytelling, buoyed by expert research, casts a new light on the league's complex history. This savvy reappraisal of the NBA's tumultuous evolution soars." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[Black Ball] pays respect to several key NBA players—Connie Hawkins, Spencer Haywood, Oscar Robertson, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar among them—who, in the supposedly apolitical 1970s, laid the essential economic and political groundwork upon which the modern, hugely successful NBA was built…This low-key but important title fills some glaring gaps in the history of American sports, economics, race relations, and politics." - Booklist (starred review)
"The 1970s proved to be an era of impactful professional basketball that gave rise to the modern-day NBA…Utilizing meticulous research, Runstedtler describes key events that occurred then, such as the antitrust lawsuits of Connie Hawkins, Spencer Haywood, Oscar Robertson, and the players association; the introduction of the dazzling new style of Earl "The Pearl" Monroe; and the advocacy for players by Black pioneers, such as Wayne Embry and Simon Gourdine, who challenged the NBA from within the front office…This is an intriguing and insightful look at pro basketball's critical historical moments and players during the 1970s. It is highly recommended for all collections and should be considered a top purchase." - Library Journal (starred review)
"Long before the NBA became an international brand, and before Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Michael Jordan made it a national obsession, a generation of Black ball players helped transition the sport from a cultural wasteland to must-see spectacle. In Black Ball, Theresa Runstedtler brilliantly tells the story of men famous and not so-famous, who through sheer innovation and an articulation of self-worth, transformed how the game would be played, how it would be watched, and ultimately how it would be valued." - Mark Anthony Neal, author of Black Ephemera: The Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive
"Theresa Runstedtler's Black Ball is great: deeply researched and foundational, a necessary reminder that the dunks and three-pointers, behind-the-back passes, and mid-air poetry everybody loves are the byproduct of an often-unwelcome player movement. The NBA is cool. The story of the Black players who transformed the game into what it is today is even cooler." - Howard Bryant, author of The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism
"In the 1970s Black basketball players quite literally changed the game. But as Runstedtler shows in this superb book, not in the way we think. Black players had to fight on the court and in court—before judges and in the court of public opinion—to secure rights, dignity, fair treatment, and equitable pay. In the face of racist backlash, economic crisis, and corporate owners who treated players as chattel, these men brought energy, style, a new consciousness, and an imperative for justice. Compelling and beautifully written, Black Ball is further proof why Runstedtler is one of sport's most perceptive and incisive historians." - Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original
This information about Black Ball was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Theresa Runstedtler, PhD is an award-winning scholar of African American history whose research focuses on the intersection of race, masculinity, labor, and sport. She is the author of Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner: Boxing in the Shadow of the Global Color Line (UC Press, 2012), a transnational biography that explores the first African American world heavyweight champion's legacy as a Black sporting hero and anti-colonial icon in places as far-flung as Sydney, London, Cape Town, Manila, Paris, Havana, and Mexico City. Her book won the 2013 Phillis Wheatley Book Prize from the Northeast Black Studies Association. Her second book, titled Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation that Saved the Soul of the NBA (Bold Type Books, Hachette), examines how Black players transformed the professional hoops game, both on and off the court, in the 1970s. She has written for Time.com and the LA Review of Books, and shared her expertise on the History Channel, Al Jazeera America, Vox.com, NPR, and international radio outlets including the BBC and CBC. Originally from Ontario, Canada, she is a professor at American University and lives in Baltimore with her husband and son.
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