Telander, Rick

"Rick Telander, a photojournalist and former high school basketball player, spent part of the summer of 1973 and all of the summer of 1974 in Brooklyn living the playground life with his subjects at Foster Park in Flatbush. He slept on the floor of a park regular's apartment, observing, questioning, traveling, playing with, and eventually coaching a ragtag group of local teenagers whose hopes of better lives were often fanatically attached to the transcendent game itself. Telander introduces us to Fly Williams, a playground legend with incredible leaping ability and self-destructive tendencies that threatened to keep him earthbound. Another standout was Albert King, a fifteen-year-old phenom whose shy, quiet demeanor masked an otherworldly talent that eventually took him to the NBA. This edition also includes a new introduction, along with Telander's updated commentary, footnotes, and perspectives on the arrival of an NBA team in Brooklyn"--Publisher.

". . . reveals that . . . the dominance of multimillionaire coaches whose only goal is winning regardless of cost to athletes; the presence of wealthy boosters, board members, and athletic department bigshots who have little regard for the academic side of universities; and, of course, the exploited players themselves--many of whom are impoverished minorities--who too often leave school without degrees or real world working skills but with physical injuries and mental betrayals that often will haunt them for the rest of their lives. Many of these concerns have come to a head in California, where in the Fall of 2019 the governor passed the Fair Pay to Play Act, whereby college athletes can hire agents to help them with business deals"--Inside front jacket flap.

An unlikely friendship develops between a lonely eleven-year-old boy and the professional basketball star whom he idolizes.