Attucks! Oscar Robertson and the Basketball Team That Awakened a City

In this rousing history of Indiana high school state basketball championships in the 1950s, Hoose (The Boys Who Challenged Hitler) explores the racism prevalent in the state and the black players who triumphed over it. Hoose chronicles the 25 years between the opening of all-black Crispus Attucks High School in 1927 and its first opportunity to play in the finals of the state tournament, laying bare the ugly forces the players had to overcome: the Ku Klux Klan, the poverty that made owning a basketball a pipe dream for most black kids, inadequate school facilities, biased referees, condescending civic authorities who cheated the state champions out of the parade a white team would have enjoyed, and more. Hoose balances this exposé of basketball’s racist history with thrilling game accounts, character insight, and great sympathy. Oscar Robertson may be the best-known player from this era, but Crispus Attucks’s basketball coach, Ray Crowe, who molded the teams, becomes the real hero in this masterfully told story. Archival material and sources are included. Ages 12–18. (Oct.)