Writing this review is going to hurt a little bit. Because, while I read this a few weeks ago, I'm finally getting around to writing this review one day after the NCAA cancelled March Madness. I'm a massive college basketball fan and the NCAA tournament is my favorite sporting event of the year. Of all the chaos of the coronavirus impacts, this cancellation is when I knew this shit was really real.
So, I mourn college basketball.
This book reminds us that it's deeper than that.
I had never heard the story before about the plane crash in 1997 that killed the entire University of Evansville basketball team. This book recounts not only that crash, but the decades before that helped link this town to this team - and, the years after, when they had to rebuild the program entirely.
Evansville is like so many midwestern towns, built on industry and full dependent on it. For Evansville, it was Whirlpool and military manufacturing. That's what built the bones; this basketball team gave it its heart. The author grew up there and you can feel that connection deeply in his writing.
All along as the book is building, you meet the coaches and players that you know as a reader will die in this awful crash, shortly after takeoff. You hold your breath as their plane takes off. Your heart breaks as you hear how their families and colleagues got the terrible news.
The crash comes about mid-way, then you follow along as the program defines itself. Then, it all culminates in a pivotal game in which they just happen to face off against my alma mater, Marquette University! I won't share how that game turned out and what happened next, but I will say that I'm enough of a college basketball freak I was actually nervous about a game that took place when I was not quite four years old!
This book tells a powerful story about the link between our communities and college basketball. I can't imagine it resonating any better than it does right now.
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