Vanderbilt basketball has come a long way since the beginnings of organized team play in 1893. Vanderbilt athletic historian Bill Traughber leads the charge through Commodore history, from the Old Gym to the 2012 NCAA Tournament, complete with memories from players and coaches.Experience the program's turning point from the court of the 1947 98-29 loss to Kentucky that sent a clear message: time to play ball or drop it. The first full-time head coach, Bob Polk, soon arrived and built Vanderbilt basketball into the national contender it is today. Feel the magic of Memorial Gymnasium and get on your feet to cheer for impossible buzzer-beaters and thrilling victories.
New York Times Best Seller 2015 RFK Book Awards Special Recognition 2015 Lillian Smith Book Award 2015 AAUP Books Committee "Outstanding" Title Based on more than eighty interviews, this fast-paced, richly detailed biography of Perry Wallace, the first African American basketball player in the SEC, digs deep beneath the surface to reveal a more complicated and profound story of sports pioneering than we've come to expect from the genre. Perry Wallace's unusually insightful and honest introspection reveals his inner thoughts throughout his journey. Wallace entered kindergarten the year that Brown v. Board of Education upended "separate but equal." As a 12-year-old, he sneaked downtown to watch the sit-ins at Nashville's lunch counters. A week after Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, Wallace entered high school, and later saw the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. On March 16, 1966, his Pearl High School basketball team won Tennessee's first integrated state tournament--the same day Adolph Rupp's all-white Kentucky Wildcats lost to the all-black Texas Western Miners in an iconic NCAA title game. The world seemed to be opening up at just the right time, and when Vanderbilt recruited him, Wallace courageously accepted the assignment to desegregate the SEC. His experiences on campus and in the hostile gymnasiums of the Deep South turned out to be nothing like he ever imagined. On campus, he encountered the leading civil rights figures of the day, including Stokely Carmichael, Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, and Robert Kennedy--and he led Vanderbilt's small group of black students to a meeting with the university chancellor to push for better treatment. On the basketball court, he experienced an Ole Miss boycott and the rabid hate of the Mississippi State fans in Starkville. Following his freshman year, the NCAA instituted "the Lew Alcindor rule," which deprived Wallace of his signature move, the slam dunk. Despite this attempt to limit the influence of a rising tide of black stars, the final basket of Wallace's college career was a cathartic and defiant dunk, and the story Wallace told to the Vanderbilt Human Relations Committee and later The Tennessean was not the simple story of a triumphant trailblazer that many people wanted to hear. Yes, he had gone from hearing racial epithets when he appeared in his dormitory to being voted as the university's most popular student, but, at the risk of being labeled "ungrateful," he spoke truth to power in describing the daily slights and abuses he had overcome and what Martin Luther King had called "the agonizing loneliness of a pioneer."
The late 1980s were a boom time for college basketball, and the Vanderbilt Commodores were right in the middle of it. Led by Hall of Fame Coach C.M. Newton, All-America center Will Perdue, and a group of three-point shooters known as The Bomb Squad, the Commodores made their mark in the Southeastern Conference and challenged for the conference title in 1988 and 1989. Along the way, they played--and, often, beat--many of the game's national powers, including Kentucky, North Carolina, Louisville, Duke, Notre Dame, Indiana, Michigan, and Kansas. Here is the inside story of those Commodore teams as told by Barry Goheen, the Vanderbilt guard and Bomb Squad member who became known for his numerous clutch shots and buzzer beaters that lifted the 'Dores to victory. Goheen encountered many of the greatest players and coaches of the era--Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Danny Manning, Chris Jackson, Digger Phelps, Denny Crum, Steve Alford, Rex Chapman, and Glen Rice.
Though boasting a smaller student body than most other Southeastern Conference schools, Vanderbilt University’s spirit and passion is without bounds—and with good reason. This book highlights several Vandy sports programs whose teams have shined over the course of the school’s athletic history and the players and coaches who have been a part of them. Much of Vandy’s recent athletic success has come from the football team. Under coach James Franklin, the Commodores had their first sold-out season opener since 1999. In 2012, the squad tied the school record for most wins and finished in the top 25 poll, en route to a bowl game for the second straight year, and followed that with another bowl game in 2013. The men’s basketball team has also offered a lot of excitement of late. In 2011–2012, the squad boasted the top two scorers in the conference in John Jenkins and Jeffrey Taylor, both of whom were drafted to the NBA. The team won the SEC Tournament title that season, beating conference rival Kentucky. On the women’s side, the team made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2013, marking the 11th time in as many seasons that coach Melanie Balcomb has led the team to at least 20 wins and an NCAA berth. The Commodores have also had something to cheer about on the baseball field, winning or sharing three SEC titles since 2007. In 2012, alumnus David Price received the American League Cy Young Award. Pedro Álvarez, also an alumnus and an infielder on the Pittsburgh Pirates, was a member of the 2013 National League All-Star team. In this latest addition to the Tales From series, Chris Lee highlights these athletes and coaches and so many others who have become part of Commodore lore. It’s perfect for the fan of the black and gold! Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
A comprehensive reference provides historical overviews of all 335 Division 1 teams, season-by-season summaries, ESPN/Sagarin rankings of top-selected college basketball programs, and more.
*"Rivaling the nonfiction works of Steve Sheinkin and Daniel James Brown's The Boys in the Boat....Even readers who don't appreciate sports will find this story a page-turner." --School Library Connection, starred review *"A must for all library collections." --Booklist, starred review Winner of the 2020 AJL Sydney Taylor Honor! From the New York Times bestselling author of Strong Inside comes the remarkable true story of the birth of Olympic basketball at the 1936 Summer Games in Hitler's Germany. Perfect for fans of The Boys in the Boat and Unbroken. On a scorching hot day in July 1936, thousands of people cheered as the U.S. Olympic teams boarded the S.S. Manhattan, bound for Berlin. Among the athletes were the 14 players representing the first-ever U.S. Olympic basketball team. As thousands of supporters waved American flags on the docks, it was easy to miss the one courageous man holding a BOYCOTT NAZI GERMANY sign. But it was too late for a boycott now; the ship had already left the harbor. 1936 was a turbulent time in world history. Adolf Hitler had gained power in Germany three years earlier. Jewish people and political opponents of the Nazis were the targets of vicious mistreatment, yet were unaware of the horrors that awaited them in the coming years. But the Olympians on board the S.S. Manhattan and other international visitors wouldn't see any signs of trouble in Berlin. Streets were swept, storefronts were painted, and every German citizen greeted them with a smile. Like a movie set, it was all just a facade, meant to distract from the terrible things happening behind the scenes. This is the incredible true story of basketball, from its invention by James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891, to the sport's Olympic debut in Berlin and the eclectic mix of people, events and propaganda on both sides of the Atlantic that made it all possible. Includes photos throughout, a Who's-Who of the 1936 Olympics, bibliography, and index. Praise for Games of Deception: A 2020 ALA Notable Children's Book! A 2020 CBC Notable Social Studies Book! "Maraniss does a great job of blending basketball action with the horror of Hitler's Berlin to bring this fascinating, frightening, you-can't-make-this-stuff-up moment in history to life." -Steve Sheinkin, New York Times bestselling author of Bomb and Undefeated "I was blown away by Games of Deception....It's a fascinating, fast-paced, well-reasoned, and well-written account of the hidden-in-plain-sight horrors and atrocities that underpinned sports, politics, and propaganda in the United States and Germany. This is an important read." -Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Newbery Honor winning author of Hitler Youth "A richly reported and stylishly told reminder how, when you scratch at a sports story, the real world often lurks just beneath." --Alexander Wolff, New York Times bestselling author of The Audacity of Hoop: Basketball and the Age of Obama "An insightful, gripping account of basketball and bias." --Kirkus Reviews "An exciting and overlooked slice of history." --School Library Journal
In the Southeastern Conference arguably the most historic and competitive conference in all of college football the more blue-collar programs often get overshadowed by the dynasties (read: Alabama). So it has been with Vanderbilt's football history. Yet Vandy is one of the South's, and the country's, most historic universities. Not surprisingly, there are many fun, fascinating, and peculiar history. There are triumphs, like Vandy's upset of Alabama in 1969; tragedies, like the riot that ended a game in 1896; historic events, like the founding of Dudley field in 1922, still the Commodore's home. Then there are the legendary coaches and players. Players from across Vandy's history like Irby "Rabbit" Curry, Dixie Roberts, Carl Hinkle, Greet Ricketson, and Josh Cody, who excelled on both sides of the ball. Coaches like Dan MuGugin who established Vandy as a power house from the early 1900s to the 1930s, and remains the only NCAA football coach in history to win his first three games by 60 points or more. Plus, pioneers like Ray Morrison who helped establish Vandy football, serving as player and coach.
New York Times Best Seller 2015 RFK Book Awards Special Recognition 2015 Lillian Smith Book Award 2015 AAUP Books Committee "Outstanding" Title When Strong Inside was first published ten years ago, no one could have predicted the impact the book would have on Vanderbilt University, Nashville, and communities across the nation. What began as a biography of Perry Wallace—the first African American basketball player in the Southeastern Conference (SEC)—became a catalyst for meaningful change and reconciliation between Wallace and the city that had rejected him. In this tenth-anniversary edition, scholars of race and sports Louis Moore and Derrick E. White provide a new foreword that places the story in the context of the study of sports and society, and author Andrew Maraniss adds a concluding chapter filling readers in on how events unfolded between Strong Inside’s publication in 2014 and Perry Wallace’s death in 2017 and exploring Wallace’s continuing legacy. Wallace entered kindergarten the year that Brown v. Board of Education upended “separate but equal.” As a twelve-year-old, he sneaked downtown to watch the sit-ins at Nashville’s lunch counters. A week after Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Wallace entered high school, and later saw the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. On March 19, 1966, his Pearl High School basketball team won Tennessee’s first integrated state tournament—the same day Adolph Rupp’s all-white Kentucky Wildcats lost to the all-Black Texas Western Miners in an iconic NCAA title game. The world seemed to be opening up at just the right time, and when Vanderbilt recruited him, Wallace courageously accepted the assignment to desegregate the SEC. His experiences on campus and in the hostile gymnasiums of the Deep South turned out to be nothing like he ever imagined.
"Historians, sports scholars, and students will refer to Benching Jim Crow for many years to come as the standard source on the integration of intercollegiate sport."ùMark S. Dyreson, author of Making the American Team: Sport, Culture, and the Olympic Experience --
