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    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    “Scott was an average high school basketball player, but Black Men Can’t Shoot is an all-star book. I couldn’t put it down. It cracked me up, put me on edge, and reminded me why I love this game.”
    Jason Kidd, nine-time NBA All-Star

    “This is a smart and authentic book. It not only captures the feel of Philadelphia high school basketball; it provides acute and accurate insight into the minds of players. Although I’m on the other side, I learned something. Most importantly, it’s a moving story that stays with you.”
    Fran Dunphy, Head Coach, Temple University

    “Black Men Can’t Shoot is carefully observed, rich, and sophisticated—an original work of importance that provides a powerful eye on the world of black ghetto youth today. A must read for anyone wishing to understand.”
    Elijah Anderson, author of Streetwise

     

    Black Men Can’t Shoot
    by Scott N. Brooks

    Publication Date: 22 June 2009 Cloth • $22.00 • £15.00
    UK Publication Date: 13 July 2009 ISBN: 978-0-226-07603-4


    The lure of a career playing professional basketball—those infamous “hoop dreams”—is often blamed for distracting young African Americans from their studies and pushing them to spend more time on the playground than in school. But this jaundiced view ignores how much these young men can learn on the court—an education that Scott N. Brooks vividly brings to life in Black Men Can’t Shoot.

    Brooks coached summer league ball in Philadelphia for four years, becoming intimately involved in the lives of the young black men on his team. Since no one is a born athlete, Brooks shows us that becoming a good player is a learning process—one that transcends the game of basketball and helps mold these kids into responsible adults. He illuminates this process through the stories of two young men, Jermaine and Ray, following them through their high school years, their breakthroughs and frustrations on the court, and their troubles at home. Black Men Can’t Shoot is at once a moving coming-of-age story, a thrilling sports tale, and a clear-eyed look at surviving the ghetto.

    Scott N. Brooks is assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Riverside.

     

    Scott N. Brooks is available for interviews. For more information, please contact Rob Hunt at (773) 702-0279 or rhunt@press.uchicago.edu

     

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