Michael LenehanRamblers: Loyola Chicago 1963 - the Team That Changed the Color of College Basketball

This book, by an author I have never heard of, is one of the best I have ever read in the sports genre. It tells the story of the 1963 NCAA Champs as a cog in the complex society that had been created in the U.S. after WWII. There is a lot of basketball history and the book is very well written and almost as important to me, well edited. I grew up in the era so I may have a greater interest in the subject matter but if you love basketball and are interested in the beginnings of the current college game you should snap this up. I can't praise it too highly.Just a note to add how great it is to see Jerry Harkness watching his alma mater trying to repeat at the 2018 NCAA Championship.

When I saw this book I had to read it. Growing up in the Chicago area, Loyola was my favorite team. My dad used to take me to double headers at the Chicago Stadium, and, at age 67, I can still name the starting five for the championship team, and go one or two into the bench. I even played pickup basketball with several of the Ramblers of that era.This book didn't let me down. It described the excitement of the ''62-'63 season in deep context, going into the background of the team members, the ins and outs of New York City playground basketball, recruiting and the stories of several of the great teams of the era.Perhaps the most important context, and the heart of the book, is the emergence of African American players, and the resistance among coaches, school administrators and politicians, to integrating college teams. How quickly we forget.This is a great book, whether yoiu're an armchair sociologist or a basketball fan.

Author Michael Lenehan brings to life a much under reported story about a team of courageous young athletes and a never say die coach. I do not want to in anyway give away the story for those who will read this book and find out how powerful the story is. However, it is often said that the game in 1966 when Texas Western upset highly favored Kentucky in the finals of the NCAA tournament is the game that made the NCAA tournament the exciting sports event it is today. Readers of this book might want to change their minds when they find out what happened three years earlier when Loyola University of Chicago played Mississippi State in the NCAA tourney at Lansing, MI and then defeated the University of Cincinnati in the NCAA finals. The book is not only about basketball but about our culture and how certain events changed the direction of how people of different color began to get along better. Growing up in Indiana, basketball country, I was well aware of the story told in this book and urge anyone who likes sports and wants to learn more about how our country developed to read it. You will be glad you did.Norman Jones, Ed. D. author of Growing Up in Indiana: the Culture & Hoosier Hysteria Revisited.

I read the book in less than two daysa and couldn't put it downLenehans book is great on several dimensions . first having been lived through the period and being a great loyola fan in that era he has you remmebering every moment as if it was live . I was almost as excited at the end as I was in 1963 . His research was incredible and every detail was just as I rememebred. For example he captures the excitemnt of Red Rush and the atmosphere of that crazy gymHe also provides enhanced insights that you felt but didn't understand .For example one of the best lines in the book was you could play 3 blacks at home , 2 on the road and 4 when you were behind . During that period you always wondered why the blacks didn't play more and no one talked about it.The most improtant aspect which is probably the least remembered is his great story about college basketball during the era and the role that team played in exploding the numebr of blacks in college basketball . His descriptions of other teams like Miss State ,Cincinatti , and Ohio State provided the backdrop for Loyola's success . The difficulties the players had in adapting to a totally new culture provided a whole new reality . Finally, Loyola made the run and gun style acceptable and forced colleges to integrate if they wanted to compete .Most of these books are just time lines of the teams and victories . Lenehan captures the excitemnt by showing the cotext of the whole period .

Chicago has been the focus of some of the most salient intersections of basketball and social commentary, from the best documentary (in my opinion) ever filmed, "Hoop Dreams," to Michael Jordan's influence on American culture and business, to the founding of the Harlem Globetrotters, to the first interracial basketball tournament ever held (see Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's documentary "On The Shoulders of Giants"), to former Hawaii state high school champion Barack Obama's rise from Chicago community organizer to President of the United States. The largely unknown story of Loyola's 1963 national championship fits comfortably into that pantheon, and the skillful literary treatment by Chicagoan Mike Lenehan, "Ramblers: Loyola Chicago 1963, The Team that Changed the Color of College Basketball" makes this an eminently readable and personal story.As a Loyola graduate and avid basketball fan, I thought I knew just about everything about the 1963 championship, but Lenehan's meticulously-researched book gave me new insights and memorable images on almost every page. Writing a definitive historical archive of a seminal event is difficult enough, but Lenehan's effective infusion of highly personal stories from witnesses and participants is thoroughly compelling.There are anecdotes told in this book that literally had me laughing and crying within two paragraphs. Reading Ron Miller's 50-year old recollection of meeting Vic Rouse for the first time is probably something I'll remember for 50 years (if I'm lucky to live that much longer). The images of Coach George Ireland pitching the parents of recruits at the kitchen table is told in a way that gives an indelible picture and insights into an enigmatic man. The artfully-described tensions between team members in the crucible of a pervasive climate of racism, and their reactions, is a timeless and human story that really has less to do with basketball than the human condition.Although I'm somewhat invested after having attended Loyola and meeting many of the individuals in this book, I still can't recommend this book more highly. It renews my pride in my alma mater, my pride in my city, my pride in my country, and my pride in my fellow man for our ability to take steps to move beyond the simple classifications that limit us. It's a great book for hoop fans and for fans of the human race.