The Secret Game

A Wartime Story of Courage, Change, and Basketball's Lost Triumph

By: Scott Ellsworth

Narrated by: Scott Ellsworth

Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's Summary

The true story of the game that never should have happened.

Something was happening to basketball.

In the wartime fall of 1943, at the little-known North Carolina College for Negroes, Coach John McLendon was on the verge of changing the game forever. Within six months his Eagles would become the highest-scoring college basketball team in America, a fast-breaking, hard-pressing juggernaut that would shatter its opponents by as many as 60 points per game. The last student of James Naismith, basketball's inventor, McLendon had opened the door to its future.

Across town, at Duke University, the best basketball squad on campus wasn't the Blue Devils but an all-white military team from the Duke medical school. Comprised of former college stars from across the country, they dismantled every team they faced, including the Duke varsity. They were prepared to play anyone - that was until an audacious invitation arrived, one that was years ahead of anything the South had ever seen before.

Based on years of research, The Secret Game is a story of courage and determination and of an incredible, long-buried moment in the nation's sporting past. The riveting true account of a remarkable season, it is the story of how a handful of forgotten college basketball players not only changed the game forever but also helped to usher in a new America.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2015 Scott Ellsworth (P)2015 Hachette Audio

Great book!

Loved learning more about the history of basketball, race relations in our country at that time and the secret game. Highly recommend this book.

Scattered and trying too hard

I very much enjoyed the history relayed in this book, but it tries too hard to explain too much. At the end, the discussion of the murder seemed completely out of context with the rest of the story. While I understood the point of the murder intertwined with the book's focus on Jim Crow, it simply didn't fit the focus of those issues as they pertained to NCCU and Duke. Additionally, the chapters on Phog Allen and even to a certain extent, Naismith, just seemed to draw attention away from the importance of the "Secret game." Again, it just seemed to being trying too hard to incorporate too much.

Enjoyed--very good story built on one college basketball game

A step back in history to when blacks and whites in the south were not permitted to be seen working together let alone equals. One chapter, the game, appeared to help take one small step forward in ending segregation.