Book Your Flight To Some Summer Reading Adventures …

Spring is in full bloom and summer is coming upon us. It’s a great time to catch up on the sports books you’ve been thinking about getting to.

Here’s what I have been reading in recent months …

 “I Came as a Shadow”

By John Thompson with Jesse Washington

Henry Holt and Company

 I have a bit of a love/hate thing about John Thompson.

Like/dislike, to be more accurate.

Dislike because I often felt that about the way Thompson, the Hall of Fame basketball coach at Georgetown, went about his business.

Like because I very much enjoyed reading his autobiography, published posthumously and given to me as a Christmas present by my son Troy.

Thompson — who died in August just before his 79th birthday — was a polarizing figure during his 27 seasons at Georgetown, where he became the first Black coach to win an NCAA championship.

Detractors saw him as a bully, a controlling coach who used intimidation and the race card and presided over “Hoya paranoia.” Proponents exhorted him as a leader in taking on racial discrimination, a coach who stressed education and mentored at least two generations of young Black men to become successes in life.

I didn’t care for Thompson in part because of the controlling aspect of his nature as coach. He was among the first to close practice sessions to media, which makes the job in my profession harder. He put no names on the office doors, not even “Georgetown basketball.” “I didn’t want anybody dropping by,” he wrote. “Those who needed to be there knew where I was.”

Thompson did what he could to prevent his players from speaking with the media. I believe it had a negative effect on the likes of those such as Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning and Allen Iverson. When they got to the NBA, they were difficult to deal with. (Dikembe Mutombo, however, was a delight.)

And I never cared much for the work he did as an analyst or interviewer on TV. I thought he was boring. As a writer, though, he is anything but.

This book is very much about race. Thompson makes no secret about that. It’s a subject he hits on time and time again through the 323 pages.

There are white people who resonated with him — Dean Smith, Red Auerbach, Phil Knight, Dave Gavitt and academic coordinator Mary Fenlon were among those he emphasized the most. But in general, he was distrustful of the white establishment and what he perceived as the inequalities in American society he believed still exist today.

Give Thompson an “A” for candor. He pulls no punches in this book. It’s a confessional.

Among Thompson’s comments:

“I didn’t want to be equal to the white man; I wanted to kick his ass.”

“Over the years, when I brought up race, a lot of people would say, “There goes John again, playing the race card.’ F—k that. Y’all stacked the deck. I played the cards you dealt me.”

“Georgetown was not accustomed to having Black people around. When I first arrived, one of the guys in the athletic promotions office asked a friend of mine, ‘How do you talk to John?’ I said he should try English.”

Thompson accused some white referees of racism.

“Was that call made because I was Black?” he wrote of one incident. “I thought it was. I thought a lot of bad calls later in my career were made because I was Black, too. I’m sure all the time that I thought it was, it wasn’t. But I’ll tell you what — most of the time it was.”

Thompson wrote that he got to the point where he hated to have Black referees officiate his games because they would bend over backward to try not to show him favoritism.

“I regretted how the white system had two Black men fighting over some type of psychological double-reverse mind trick,” he wrote.

Thompson said he never used profanity growing up but began using it in his early days as a coach as a way to connect with his Black players.

“They didn’t take it in an abusive way,” he wrote. “It was just the form of language they understood best. Now it’s habitual, part of my personality … I don’t use profanity in places where it would be inappropriate, but I enjoy using it elsewhere.”

Thompson was a paradox, a blend between old-school and new-wave.

His teams always traveled in suits and ties. He hated the shot clock. He emphasized education and graduated 97 percent of his players who stayed at Georgetown for four or more years.

“I always planned to be a teacher, not a basketball coach,” he wrote. “I used basketball as an instrument to teach. My classroom was the court.”

Thompson did not cheat to land players. If we are to believe him — and I do — he never gave a recruit money, though he wrote, “If I were coaching today, I would cheat, too. I would pay for players because if I didn’t I would lose to the cheaters and get fired.”

For a coach with seemingly high ethics, it’s surprising to have him admit he had one of his recruits play under an assumed name in a summer league.

“There was nothing illegal about it,” Thompson wrote. “It was summer league … I didn’t want somebody else to capitalize on the work I did finding him. I was just doing what Red (Auerbach) taught me: Bend the rules, don’t break them.”

Thompson also had a sports information director who ghost wrote a syndicated column for him.

“Some of the best things he wrote had my name on them, not his,” Thompson said. “People paid me for columns that (he) wrote.”

Thompson gives mixed signals on the subject of fighting. He said he scouted guard Fred Brown in high school.

“He got in a fight at the opening tip,” Thompson wrote. “That’s when I knew he was special.”

He also wrote, “I never instructed my team to fight anyone, or to instigate anything physical. I didn’t have to tell them anything. They knew how to handle themselves. … When we were kicking ass and taking names, we didn’t apologize for anything. The players started to embrace their image, like the Oakland Raiders.”

When Temple coach John Chaney bull-rushed the podium to attempt to attack Massachusetts coach John Calipari after an Atlantic 10 Conference game, “as serious as the situation was, I found it hilarious,” Thompson wrote. “I loved the fact that Chaney had the gumption to be on national television chasing a white man like that, threatening to kill him.”

Thompson could be tough on his players.

“My goal was not to get approval from my players at the risk of changing what I thought was right, which sometimes was not right,” he wrote. “There’s a group of guys out there who sincerely don’t like me and hope they never see me again. I feel the same way about some of them, too.”

Thompson couldn’t understand why the NCAA had a problem when he applied to become the first Black to obtain a gaming license in Las Vegas (he liked slot machines).

 “I didn’t think I was being rebellious,” he wrote. “I was being free. I could break down another door for Black people.”

Thompson was put off by the fact that he didn’t make the Hall of Fame until his third year of eligibility. He believed it was punishment from white voters for his “uppity” attitude.

“I was so furious that tears stung my eyes,” he wrote. “Coaches I had regularly beaten got inducted on their first try.”

Thompson didn’t name those coaches. He talked about the cheaters in college basketball but didn’t identify them, either. I’d have liked to have read who they were. Also, there was very little information on his family life, other than complaints that Georgetown eventually fired his son, John Thompson III, as its coach.

He tells some great stories, though, like the one of a meeting in his office with a gangster who had been hanging out with Mourning. He asked the guy to back off from his star center. He did.

“I never had the luxury of just being a basketball coach,” Thompson wrote. “I felt I had a deep responsibility to use the coaching occupation to open up broader opportunities for Black people.”

Unlike another book I managed to get through recently — a biography of Spencer Haywood that was woeful, to be charitable — I would recommend Thompson’s work as a very good read. It’s well-written and packs a powerful punch. Whether the punch connects is up to the reader.

“42 Today: Jackie Robinson and his Legacy”

Edited by Michael Long

New York, University Press

This book is comprised of a collection of essays by 13 authors about the man who broke major league baseball’s color barrier. Though its subject is an important figure in the world of athletics, this is not a sports book. Much of the book focuses on Robinson’s legacy in terms of civil rights, social activism and politics.

I was familiar with the names of only two of the writers — Howard Bryant and George Vecsey. I found much of the material interesting, but some of it redundant and other parts a bit convoluted.

One of the best chapters was written by Randal Jenks, who provides a historical look at the Methodist Church in which Robinson was raised.

 “This history is important for understanding Jackie Robinson,” Jenks writes. “Whether he knew it or not, his faith was shaped by debates about socially embedded ideas and beliefs in Methodism.”

Robinson’s wife and life partner, Rachel, was also raised Methodist. Coincidentally, so too was Branch Rickey, the Dodgers’ president/general manager who used his network within the church to find Robinson as the man to be the test pilot for the Great Experiment.

The original idea of another contributor, Jonathan Eig, was to write a book about the relationship between Jackie and teammate Pee Wee Reese — that is, until Rachel Robinson debunked the fabled story of Pee Wee putting his arm around Jackie to silence hecklers during a game that first season. Never happened, she said.

Eig became more interested in writing about the relationship between Jackie and Rachel.  She grudgingly consented to a series of interviews, in which she “helped me to understand, as only she could, how easily the experiment could have failed and how 42 might have remained one of the least desirable numbers in baseball,” Eig writes.

Eig writes that Jackie brought the Negro League style of baseball — more daring baserunning, primarily — to the major leagues. And that he would “play with his back straight, his head held high and a cloud of dust behind him. He was sending a message. Rachel loved him for that.”

David Naze argues that pulling Robinson’s No. 42 out of retirement would “create new and fresh ways to honor his legacy.” He quotes another writer, Jeff Snider, as saying, “the best way to honor a number is by letting another great player (wear it and) follow in his footsteps.” An interesting idea, but one I’m not sure works. Seems like it would be hard to get more focus on anything than is given to Robinson’s legacy every April 15.

One of the best pieces was by Gerald Early, who sheds light on how Robinson came to be a Republican who once backed Richard Nixon for president. Through his 53 years, Jackie changed his mind on a number issues, including this one. He soured quickly on Tricky Dick and supported Hubert Humphrey against Nixon in 1968.

Yohura Williams’ provocative prose explores Robinson’s history of political activism along with Robinson’s one-time feud with Malcolm X, who called him an “Uncle Tom.” Jackie changed his mind on the X-Man, too, later coming around on some Black Power principles.

Williams addresses the subject of Robinson’s reputation late in life as a bitter man. His widow disagrees, telling Williams, “He had a healthy aggressiveness that he found outlets for. He was outspoken and ready to go to battle. But that’s different from being bitter or sitting on a lot of unexpressed anger that incapacitates a lot of people.”

The latter part of the book — only 203 pages in total — is fleshed out with a history of other social activists from the sports world. Most of those names we’ve heard plenty about through the years. And then, in a reach, a comparison is drawn between Robinson and pioneers in the LGBTQ movement in sports. With due respect, the sacrifices don’t seem on the same level.

The first 150 pages, though, provided an enjoyable read. No question that Jackie much more than just a great ballplayer. As the book underscores, he was a complicated individual who devoted his life to public service and wasn’t afraid to stand up for his beliefs. Those are traits to be admired.

“The Point After”

By Sean Conley

Lyons Press

Sean Conley is the ultimate underdog. A small-town kid out of Erie, Pa., his Catholic high school didn’t have a football team. He played basketball and soccer but kept a dream that seemed more impossible than far-fetched — a career as an NFL placekicker.

Conley enrolled at Gannon University, a Division III school that had announced plans to start a football program that fall, and turned out as a walk-on. He started as the fourth-string kicker but won the job in training camp. On an 0-7 team — he missed a PAT in a 7-6 loss in the season finale — he made 1 of 8 on field-goal attempts. His second year, as a junior in eligibility, he was 4 for 8 on 3-point tries.

Undeterred, he decided to walk on at Pittsburgh — not just a step up from Gannon, but a mountain of a leap. Hard work had given him a strong leg, though, and after starting out as a fifth-team kicker — three of those ahead of him were on scholarship — he won the job and was also voted a team co-captain. Playing on a team that featured running back Curtis Martin, Conley was successful on a Big East Conference-best 16 of 19 field-goal attempts in 1992, his one season with the Panthers.

Conley went undrafted but signed a free-agent contract with the Detroit Lions. He stuck with the team through the preseason and, in the next-to-last exhibition (he never tells us who the opponent was), kicked an extra point. Conley later had cups of coffee with the Indianapolis Colts and New York Jets, and spent a season with the Scottish Claymores in the World League before degeneration in a hip flexor muscle from overuse forced him to finally call it quits.

The irony is striking: in a trade (placekicking) that sometimes allows for a career into a player’s 40s, Conley was done at 24. But at least he got to see Europe on someone else’s dime.

“The Point After” is a story of resilience, perseverance and determination. Inspired by his wife, Karen, Conley turned to yoga; together, they run a yoga business today. It would have been a stretch for him to cover 248 pages with his football exploits, but he fills it with personal details of family, fatherhood and friendship. It’s a well-written biography and a rather easy read.

Conley never played in a regular-season NFL game, but he came closer than anyone could have expected. For young dreamers out there, it’s an inspirational tale. As Jim Valvano would say, don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.

“The Cap” 

By Joshua Mendelsohn

University of Nebraska Press

This book is about the negotiation over the creation of the NBA salary cap, which came to fruition in 1983. It covers the era beginning in 1967, when NBA Players Association president Oscar Robertson and general counsel Larry Fleisher put forward a six-point plan for the future of the union.

It was the beginning of the removal of the reserve clause and the move toward free agency in the NBA, which opened the doors to the players receiving mega-contracts; the average salary for the 2018-19 season was $6.4 million.

Fleisher is the protagonist, an attorney who served the NBA players for 26 years before his retirement in 1987, less than two years before his death from a heart attack at age 58.

“The most successful labor leader of the 20th century,” former NBA player and U.S. Senator Bill Bradley said of Fleisher, who serve as Bradley’s agent as a player.

Central figures on the negotiating committee for the collective bargaining agreement in 1983 included then Trail Blazers general manager Harry Glickman and owner Larry Weinberg.

Mendelsohn, a first-time author, did an exhaustive study of the factors that led to the salary cap, in which the owners gained salary moderation and the players gained a pension and the opportunity for free agency.

He didn’t interview many subjects, if any, for the book. I’d liked to have seen more of the current opinions of some of the players of the day, as well as executives such as Russ Granik and Gary Bettman, on how the cap has affected the growth of the league. The author could have also used a good copy editor, though the reader couldn’t have asked for more facts and figures.

“Now in 2020, there is no need for a salary cap,” Mendelsohn writes. “There is value in forcing teams to spend, but there is no need for a limit.”

I disagree. The cap is necessary to protect owners from themselves. If there were no cap, the rich clubs and owners, along with those in the most desirable markets, would have a big advantage over the mid-market clubs. It’s a moot point, though; the salary cap isn’t going away.

Readers: what are your thoughts? I would love to hear them in the comments below.

Be sure to sign up for my emails.