Charley Rosen

A coming-of-age novel that takes us from a very tall boy's discovery of his love of basketball to a young man who engages in point-shaving while a college player on his way to NBA brilliance with a shadow hanging over him--a book that sheds light on both the sheer beauty and some of the ugliness in the game. A bildungsroman and the most autobiographical yet of Charley Rosen's many works of fiction, nonfiction and reportage on the subject of basketball, Dribbling a Basketball on the Road to Damascus tells the story of the life of Chazz Klein, a power forward and elite scorer who starts at Metropolitan College and ends up on the Knicks by way of the Detroit Pistons. Klein loves the game that helped him survive his childhood and find meaning. But his awkwardness early in life also stays with him, as both love and long-lasting meaning elude him except in small doses. And yet he does achieve, across the journey represented in these pages, that rarest of gifts, a kind of humility, an acceptance of himself, and the peace that goes with that.

Elliot Hersch is given a basketball on his tenth birthday and cuts a deal with his disapproving father: if he makes straight As, he is allowed to play. Modeling his game on the basketball heroes of his time--Clyde Frazier, Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, and especially Larry Bird--Elliot becomes one of the finest high school basketball players in New York. Trying to steer clear of the corruption and sleaze in the big college programs, Elliott signs with the seemingly clean-cut University of Southern Arizona (USA), partly to fulfill his promise to his father, whose one piece of advice about life is: Tell the truth, always. A quote from Chaucer, his father's favorite writer, guides both father and son "Trouthe is the hyest thing that man may kepe." What he finds at the USA and then the NBA is a far cry from untarnished "trouthe." Elliott is challenged at every turn, tangling at the end of the day with what is most true: the game. Can Elliott truly play basketball? And if not, what is left of his life? Trouthe, Lies, and Basketball is an epic comic tale--structured somewhat like a gripping basketball game, completely with literary "time-outs"--of a basketball player coming to terms with the world as it is, his talents as they are. Rosen's characters, even the mostly unseemly, are all heart, and by the end they leave those hearts on the hardwood.

The 1980s were arguably the NBA’s best decade, giving rise to Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan. They were among the game’s greatest players who brought pro basketball out of its 1970s funk and made it faster, more fluid, and more exciting. Off the court the game was changing rapidly too, with the draft lottery, shoe commercials, and a style driven largely by excess. One player who personified the eighties excess is Micheal Ray Richardson. During his eight-year career in the NBA (1978–86), he was a four-time All-Star, twice named to the All-Defense team, and the first player to lead the league in both assists and steals. He was also a heavy cocaine user who went on days-long binges but continued to be signed by teams that hoped he’d get straight. Eventually he was the first and only player to be permanently disqualified from the NBA for repeat drug use. Tracking the rise, fall, and eventual redemption of Richardson throughout his playing days and subsequent coaching career, Charley Rosen describes the life-defining pitfalls Richardson and other players faced and considers key themes such as off-court and on-court racism, anti-Semitism, womanizing, allegations of point-shaving within the league, and drug and alcohol abuse by star players. By constructing his various lines of narration around the polarizing figure of Richardson-equal parts basketball savant, drug addict, and pariah-Rosen illuminates some of the more unseemly aspects of the NBA during this period, going behind the scenes to provide an account of what the league’s darker side was like during its celebrated golden age.

A few years after its invention by James Naismith, basketball became the primary sport in the crowded streets of the Jewish neighborhood on New York’s Lower East Side. Participating in the new game was a quick and enjoyable way to become Americanized. Jews not only dominated the sport for the next fifty-plus years but were also instrumental in modernizing the game. Barney Sedran was considered the best player in the country at the City College of New York from 1909 to 1911. In 1927 Abe Saperstein took over management of the Harlem Globetrotters, playing a key role in popularizing and integrating the game. Later he helped found the American Basketball Association and introduced the three-point shot. More recently, Nancy Lieberman played in a men’s pro summer league and became the first woman to coach a men’s pro team, and Larry Brown became the only coach to win both NCAA and the NBA championships. While the influence of Jewish players, referees, coaches, and administrators has gradually diminished since the mid-1950s, the current basketball scene features numerous Jews in important positions. Through interviews and lively anecdotes from franchise owners, coaches, players, and referees, The Chosen Game explores the contribution of Jews to the evolution of present-day pro basketball.

During the 1972–1973 basketball season, the Philadelphia 76ers were not just a bad team; they were fantastically awful. Doomed from the start after losing their leading scorer and rebounder, Billy Cunningham, as well as head coach Jack Ramsay, they lost twenty-one of their first twenty-three games. A Philadelphia newspaper began calling them the Seventy Sickers, and they duly lost their last thirteen games on their way to a not-yet-broken record of nine wins and seventy-three losses. Charley Rosen recaptures the futility of that season through the firsthand accounts of players, participants, and observers. Although the team was uniformly bad, there were still many memorable moments, and the lore surrounding the team is legendary. Once, when head coach Roy Rubin tried to substitute John Q. Trapp out of a game, Trapp refused and told Rubin to look behind the team's bench, whereby one of Trapp's friends supposedly opened his jacket to show his handgun. With only four wins at the All-Star break, Rubin was fired and replaced by player-coach Kevin Loughery. In addition to chronicling the 76ers' woes, Perfectly Awful also captures the drama, culture, and attitude of the NBA in an era when many white fans believed that the league had too many black players.

"Sammy Wong, All-American" tells the tale of a very talented Asian basketball player's rise and stumble in the all-American sport of basketball--among the most international of team sports, yet one where until very recently Asians were completely unrepresented. The novel unwinds in spectacular fashion. On his high school, college, and professional teams, Sammy isn't given much of a chance. Then when he does get into games, he turns out to be the kind of player who can turn a losing team into a winning one. Wong's career turns on chance opportunities and unexpected twists as much as on talent, persistence and hard work. There are great scenes describing pivotal plays on the hardwood floor as only Charley Rosen can. Like all Rosen's novels, this is about more than basketball. "Sammy Wong, All-American" is a book about identity in multi-ethnic American culture and the cost of innocence in the modern world. "Sammy Wong, All-American" will delight basketball fans and fiction readers alike, a sports novel that delivers on multiple levels.

Here is the story of an all-Jewish basketball team traveling in a hearse through Depression-era America in search of redemption and big money. A hilarious road novel, The House of Moses All-Stars is a passionate portrayal of a young Jewish man, Aaron Steiner, struggling to realize his dreams in a country struggling to recover its ideals. The former college basketball star has watched his dreams of becoming a successful player fall apart, his marriage disintegrate, and his baby die. In desperation he accepts his friend's offer to join a Jewish professional basketball team -- The House of Moses All-Stars -- which is travelling in a cross-country tour in a renovated hearse. Aaron's teammates -- a Communist, a Zionist, a former bank robber, and a red-headed Irishman who passes for a Jew -- are, like Aaron, trying to escape their own troubled pasts. As the members of this motley crew travel West to California through an anti-Semitic land that disdains and rebuffs them, they discover that their nation is as confused as they are -- torn between its fears of foreigners and poverty, and its belief in democratic ideals of tolerance and opportunity. Told with a rueful eye, The House of Moses All-Stars looks critically and lovingly at what it means to be an outsider in America.

Commentator, analyst, author, and all-around pro basketball presence, Charley Rosen may seem like a natural, sprung upon the sports scene with the NBA in his blood. Phil Jackson, Rosen's longtime collaborator, might agree; after all, he attributes the statement on a plaque on his desk to Charley: "Basketball isn't just a metaphor for life—it's more important than that!" And yet how Rosen arrived at his present position comfortably overseeing basketball at its finest is a story as unexpected as it is delightful, documenting basketball travels as unlikely as they are nomadic and eclectic. Rosen's story begins during his undergraduate days at Hunter College, where his basketball exploits were equally triumphant and embarrassing, including a pickup game against Wilt Chamberlain. Things really got interesting when he made his way into the Continental Basketball Association (CBA), the breeding ground for nothing less than the second-best gathering of basketball players in the world. In the circus that was the CBA, Rosen found his place alongside Phil Jackson, then the newly hired coach of the Albany Patroons. Life in the CBA, as Rosen tells it, was never dull, with players doing illegal substances on van rides through snowstorms and teams financed by porn producers. His journey from the CBA to a desk at Fox Sports is a one-of-a-kind basketball story—only to be believed in the words of the guy who actually lived it.

"Charley Rosen has undertaken the challenge of documenting the latest and greatest history of the game professionally--and has done so to great success. . . . . When I finished the book it seemed as if I had gone through another season, injuries and all. . . . Rosen skillfully leads readers through the NBA's first steps along its journey toward what it has become today.”--Phil Jackson, from the Foreword"Rosen, a wonderful sportswriter . . . had forgotten more basketball history than the best fans will ever know."Booklist, on No Blood, No FoulGo back to a time when basketball players wore knee pads and itchy cotton jerseys. When even the team's leaders were grateful for dry towels, hot showers, and $60 paychecks. When winning was all that mattered.In this vividly rendered and meticulously researched book, endorsed with a Foreword by Los Angeles Lakers head coach Phil Jackson, sportswriter Charley Rosen takes you on a rollicking tour of the NBA's first season. Filled with rare archival photographs and exclusive interviews, The First Tip-Off brings to life a cast of unforgettable characters--including Chuck Connors, clown prince of the BAA, and Jumping Joe Fulks, ex-Marine turned basketball's first superstar--as Rosen deftly unfolds the dramatic events of that formative season.It's enough to make you believe once again in the spirit of the sport.

Players and Pretenders tells the story of the flip side of basketball's "March Madness," where the game is played by average players for love, not for money. At the end of the 1970s at Bard College, where there was no pretense of institutional support, Charley Rosen gathered his hoops hopefuls and put together a basketball season whose impact reached far beyond the court. Writing with a humorous touch, Rosen details the Running Red Devils' season, simultaneously examining the lives of those who made it so memorable and providing a glimpse of how the team members existed off the courts as both players and pretenders. His book playfully depicts the 1979–80 basketball season at Bard College and the "sports for fun" side of the game.

Jack Molinas had it all — good looks, charm, an Ivy League education, a genius-level I.Q. of 175, and a huge talent for the game of basketball. He was also a gambling addict with a flair for larceny. The Wizard of Odds chronicles the rise and fall of this outstanding NBA All-Star who fixed games, cavorted with the Mafia, produced pornographic films, and was eventually murdered. Author Charley Rosen chillingly probes the life of a man who understood better than anyone around him the weaknesses of the system in which he lived — so much so that he convinced himself he could manipulate that system to his own ends with impunity. By the time he was arrested on January 9, 1954, for conspiring to fix NBA games, he was already deeply involved with the Mafia. After his release from prison, he would descend ever deeper into crime, a preoccupation that would end with a bullet in the head.

Throughout the 1999–2000 season, Phil Jackson and Charley Rosen got together frequently to tape conversations about Jackson’s latest challenge: teaching the rigorous “power triangle” to an undisciplined Lakers team. Jackson documented the team’s game-by-game progress and his impressions of the state of the league. Rosen added novelistic impressions of the L.A. scene. The result of their collaboration is More Than a Game, an insider’s account of the bumpy ride of the Lakers’ most recent championship season. Along the way, the reader accompanies Jackson and Rosen on their separate journeys that have resulted in a friendship forged in the sacred brotherhood of the hoop.