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  • Attucks!: Oscar Robertson and the Basketball Team That Awakened a City by Phillip Hoose
  • Elizabeth Bush
Hoose, Phillip Attucks!: Oscar Robertson and the Basketball Team That Awakened a City. Farrar,
2018 [224p] illus. with photographs
ISBN 978-0-374-30612-0 $19.99
Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 6-10

It's the 1955 and '56 seasons that basketball diehards remember, when the Tigers of Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis, led by scoring phenom Oscar Robertson, gave their city's roundball-crazed fans exactly what they always wanted—a state championship—and exactly what many of them feared—an all-Black team of champions. To understand the dilemma, Hoose delves into the history of the all-Black Attucks High School which, ironically, was established under Ku Klux Klan influence in the 1920s to assure segregated public education in Indianapolis. Staffed by highly educated Black teachers—many scholars who couldn't find work elsewhere—the school had high academic expectations and standards. Drawing players from neighborhoods where there was little entertainment for Black youth apart from pick-up games, the Tigers could recruit kids who played hard and played obsessively. Factor in Coach Ray Crowe, who favored an innovative, aggressive play-book, and the Robertson family of talented brothers, and it was close to inevitable that the school, initially created by white bigotry, would produce a powerhouse of Black talent. The evolving fast-break style of play, the local rivalries, and the sheer prowess of individual players guarantee a compelling read, but the story of how a mini dynasty of high school players turned the tables on segregationists extends interest beyond sports fans. Plentiful photographs and newspaper articles, as well as an index, source notes, and addenda on the Attucks team, are included. When kids think they've reached the end of their civil rights era education, hand them this. EB

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