Across the Line. Barry Jacobs.

 

 

Across the Line.   Barry Jacobs.

Profiles in Basketball Courage.   Tales of the Frist Black Players in the ACC and SEC. 

This is a book that discusses and informs who the first black basketball players were in both the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Southeastern conference.     Of course, this also means that this manuscript is going to contain plenty of history and experiences of the players from that era.    The reader will also be exposed, if not engulfed, in the stories of how many of these well-known institutions came about recruiting and admitting black athletes to cross the color line.   Barry Jacobs, the esteemed sports writer, compiles a lengthy and detailed account of how lines were crossed through sports at the collegiate level in this large swath of the country.  

Not surprisingly the stories for just about every athlete highlighted and showcased in the book are not always pleasant or positive.    In fact, some players, although not all, recall difficult times at their selected universities.   This includes their time as a student on campus as well as on the court.   Some of the players report about the way they were treated by coaches, teammates and especially in some of the arenas away from school.   What is more is the way the pioneers were treated on campus, too.    Potential or actual brushes with the Ku Klux Klan are reported by Jacobs as occurrences at many of the schools covered in this book.   In some cases, even the families of the players were hesitant, if not reluctant, to let their star athlete/pupil attend schools that were not overly welcoming or even notably hostile to minority students.  

Jacobs reports how some of the schools were reluctant in pursuing black players in the 1960’s for a variety of reasons.   For some it was indifference, for others, the coaches knew that the school and culture were not ready for it despite civil rights laws requiring desegregation in schools having been in effect for a decade or so.   There were some notable differences in philosophy and approach to integration of the basketball programs among the ACC and SEC schools.    ACC programs and their coaches were more willing and ready to recruit the best players possible because basketball was a much more valued sport in the mid-Atlantic region.    This led many of the coaches in that era to recruit some of the best prospects around the east coast.   Many of them came from New York City as did several of the prominent coaches of that era.   On the other hand, southeastern conference schools were less eager to integrate because they did not value the sport of basketball the way the schools in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast did.    This is also not to mention the prevailing anti-sentiment from the student body and surrounding campus communities in the deep south in particular.  

As a result of this somewhat forced attempt to break the color line some schools signed recruits that may not have been as high of caliber player as expected.    Jacobs uncovers thoughts from several sources within both conferences revealing that some of the black players were not quite up to par athletically or fundamentally as a division one basketball player.    However, most pioneers featured, although not all, were good students, of high character and mostly good citizens.   Some of the pioneers had tough choices to make during their enrollment in the latter part of the 1960’s.    Jacobs frequently reported through player interviews that uprisings would occasionally breakout on campus.   This may have caused a personal cognitive dissonance among the players whether to support their fellow black students with their cause or heed the directions of the coach, team, and school philosophy of how to toe the team and university line.

While the book featured interesting and courageous characters that crossed the line, often with little support from the school or community, the essay inevitably drifted well off campus and frequently deeper in the early parts of the 20^th century.    This was important history and relevant to the topic, but likely took away from the stories of the players, coaches, programs, and the sport.    It also made the book harder to follow, process and read.    At times throughout the reading process, it felt like a book that was going to be hard to finish due to the length, volume and extra details included. 

Nevertheless, for readers interested in exploring and learning more about how and when the color lines were crossed in Atlantic Coast and Southeastern basketball programs, Jacobs delivers a strong and thorough account.   The engaged reader will need to navigate through 330 pages to let the story unfold to the end.    While this book is not likely for everybody it is one that would make a good coffee table reference for ardent college basketball fans.        

·         You might like to read this book if you are fan of ACC and/or SEC basketball teams and players.

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

·         You might like to read this book if you relish civil rights topics from the 1960’s and the southern part of the country.

·         You might like to read this book you seek stories connecting sports with civil rights movements in this country.