We Will Rise. Steve Beaven.

 

 

We Will RISE.   Steve Beaven

 

A true story of tragedy and resurrection in the American heartland.

Author and writer Steve Beaven takes on a powerful and sensitive story that happened more than four decades ago in his book We Will Rise.    The book covers the unfortunate tragedy that took place in Evansville, Indiana in 1977 impacting the members of the basketball team, their families, and the community at-large.

A surprisingly obscure story that is reminiscent of what happened earlier in the decade with the Marshall University football squad.   One major difference is that story developed into a major movie "We are Marshall " featuring Matthew McConaughey as a newly hired coach trying to literally rebuild a football team.    In this case the tragedy enveloped the basketball program in the mid-December flight headed to Middle Tennessee State University for their next game.

The first 90 pages or so cover the history, economics and development of this small southern Indiana town.  Evansville was once known as the refrigerator capital of the world.   From there, the composition discusses the tragedy respectfully and scrupulously.    The author was careful not to judge or blame how the unfortunate plane crash and loss of life occurred.   Beaven, an Evansville native, drew upon his memory, two hundred and fifty interviews,  and myriad archives from the regions media outlets to capture the narrative.    Inside are the shared feelings, the sorrow and sadness, the heartbreak, but also the will of the university and town to eventually move on but not without some bitterness of the surviving members families.

While the University tried to properly memorialize the fallen (players, coaches, and administrators) Beaven asserts that several parents of the players had a suspicion that the school did not make full or proper use of the donated money involved or enough effort to honor the team.   The author seems to hint that there could have been truth to that notion.    He writes about the leadership qualities and credentials of the University president and athletic director, who were not on that flight to Nashville.        In his own way the author suggests that they were not as personable or perhaps personally equipped to better handle the deep responsibilities that occur post-tragedy.    

Lost in this manuscript are the personal thoughts and feelings of the author.   This may have added more to the emotions and provided an edge that the book seemingly lacks.   After all, the author used to attend purple ace games with his father and lived in the area throughout his adolescence.  

The resurrection begins not long after the devastation and the book highlights how the successor coach was hired.   Beaven skillfully pinpointed the many challenges that faced the program and the newly hired basketball coach.   Dick Walters came from a Chicago area junior college and was charged with putting a together a team literally from scratch that was expected to be competitive in their relatively new division one setting.    Further augmenting the challenges was the comparison to the beloved departed coach (although only on the job for less than a year) and the previous coach who happened to acquire legendary status within the community and among many of his college coaching peers. 

Shifting gears of the story, Walters hard work recruiting and coaching gets the team in his fourth year a bid to the NCAA tournament upon winning the conference title.     The book chronicles how the students at the school, the towns people, and community embraced the success of the purple ace hardwood travails and rallied together to watch the coveted tournament game.    Unfortunately for Walters and the purple aces, the basketball program reached its apex in that season.   Walters was ultimately dismissed three years later partly due to fewer winning seasons and possibly, according to Beavan, due to the coach’s often craggy way of carrying himself throughout the community.  

Beaven wisely uses his background and adroit writing talents to explain the tale of this not very well-known swath of history.    While the intention seemingly was to tell the epic as objectively as possible, the book probably could have afforded additional opinions and thoughts from the author since he is a native of the region and lived the story as a young person.   Still, the two hundred- and thirty-five-page manuscript is well written and thoroughly explains a recondite town and catastrophe while connecting how sports helped to pick up the torn and frayed spirits of a basketball loving community.   

 

You might like to read this book if you are an Evansville Purple Ace sports fan.

You might like to read this book if you enjoy reading about college basketball stories.

You might like to read this book if you like learning more about college towns in the Midwest.

You might like to read this book if you covet history and stories about middle America.