Games of Deception: The True Story of the First U.S. Olympic Basketball Team at the 1936 Olympics in Hitler's Germany
340Games of Deception: The True Story of the First U.S. Olympic Basketball Team at the 1936 Olympics in Hitler's Germany
340Paperback(Large Print)
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Overview
*"A must for all library collections." Booklist, starred review
Winner of the 2020 AJL Sydney Taylor Honor!
From the New York Times bestselling author of Strong Inside comes the remarkable true story of the birth of Olympic basketball at the 1936 Summer Games in Hitler's Germany. Perfect for fans of The Boys in the Boat and Unbroken.
On a scorching hot day in July 1936, thousands of people cheered as the U.S. Olympic teams boarded the S.S. Manhattan, bound for Berlin. Among the athletes were the 14 players representing the first-ever U.S. Olympic basketball team. As thousands of supporters waved American flags on the docks, it was easy to miss the one courageous man holding a BOYCOTT NAZI GERMANY sign. But it was too late for a boycott now; the ship had already left the harbor.
1936 was a turbulent time in world history. Adolf Hitler had gained power in Germany three years earlier. Jewish people and political opponents of the Nazis were the targets of vicious mistreatment, yet were unaware of the horrors that awaited them in the coming years. But the Olympians on board the S.S. Manhattan and other international visitors wouldn't see any signs of trouble in Berlin. Streets were swept, storefronts were painted, and every German citizen greeted them with a smile. Like a movie set, it was all just a facade, meant to distract from the terrible things happening behind the scenes.
This is the incredible true story of basketball, from its invention by James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891, to the sport's Olympic debut in Berlin and the eclectic mix of people, events and propaganda on both sides of the Atlantic that made it all possible. Includes photos throughout, a Who's-Who of the 1936 Olympics, bibliography, and index.
Praise for Games of Deception:
A 2020 ALA Notable Children's Book!
A 2020 CBC Notable Social Studies Book!
"Maraniss does a great job of blending basketball action with the horror of Hitler's Berlin to bring this fascinating, frightening, you-can't-make-this-stuff-up moment in history to life." -Steve Sheinkin, New York Times bestselling author of Bomb and Undefeated
"I was blown away by Games of Deception....It's a fascinating, fast-paced, well-reasoned, and well-written account of the hidden-in-plain-sight horrors and atrocities that underpinned sports, politics, and propaganda in the United States and Germany. This is an important read." -Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Newbery Honor winning author of Hitler Youth
"A richly reported and stylishly told reminder how, when you scratch at a sports story, the real world often lurks just beneath." Alexander Wolff, New York Times bestselling author of The Audacity of Hoop: Basketball and the Age of Obama
"An insightful, gripping account of basketball and bias." Kirkus Reviews
"An exciting and overlooked slice of history." School Library Journal
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781432882143 |
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Publisher: | Gale Cengage Learning |
Publication date: | 09/30/2020 |
Edition description: | Large Print |
Pages: | 340 |
Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d) |
Age Range: | 12 - 17 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
It was another scorching-hot day in New York, but that didn’t stop thousands of people from crowding the docks along the Hudson River.
The scene looked and sounded like the Fourth of July. Bands played patriotic tunes as men, women, and children on both sides of the Hudson cheered and waved small American flags. Even the SS Manhattan was dressed for the occasion, with its red hull, white superstructure, and red, white, and blue funnels. Planes circled overhead, and, out on the water, boats sounded their horns and shot streams of water high into the air in celebration.
As far away as Kansas and California, families gathered around their radios, listening to announcers describe the festivities. At twelve noon, more than four hundred American athletes, coaches, officials, family members, and journalists would set sail on a nine-day journey to Germany for the greatest spectacle in the world, the eleventh Olympic Games.
But first, there was much to behold at Pier 60.
An African American man gave out homemade good-luck charms to theathletes as they boarded the ship, but he didn’t even bother to hand one to thegreat black track star from Ohio State, Jesse Owens, telling onlookers that Owenswouldn’t need any luck in Berlin.
Up on deck, a group of female athletes—there were a record number of them on this U.S. Olympic team—gathered in two rows for a photo. One woman called out, “We’re going to bring home the bacon, aren’t we, girls?!” and her teammates let out a big cheer. And who was that sprinting up the gangplank onto the boat? It was Willard Schmidt, all six foot nine of him, a skinny Nebraska farm boy who was the last man added to the U.S. Olympic basketball team. He hurried on board so nobody could stop him. Just being on this ship and on this team felt like such an improbable dream he was afraid somebody would pinch him and it would all be over.
Next came Schmidt’s USA Basketball teammates, including five more players from the Globe Refiners, his amateur team in McPherson, Kansas; seven from the Universals of Los Angeles; and one college player from the University of Washington. The Olympic team had been assembled by merging the two best amateur teams in the country (along with the one college player) after a qualifying tournament in New York where the Universals came in first and the Refiners second. The men who followed Schmidt onto the ship included Frank “Frankenstein”Lubin, a hulking six-foot-seven center; assistant coach Gene Johnson, stylishly dressed and talkative as usual; and his soft-spoken brother, Francis, a star of the team. Along, too, came Sam Balter from LA, and his buddies, Art Mollner, Carl Shy, and Carl Knowles. Lumbering aboard came big “College Joe” Fortenberry, the gentle giant from Happy, Texas. Tex Gibbons boarded the ship with one arm in a sling, while center Ralph Bishop from Washington, the only college player on the team, chatted with nine fellow UW Huskies, young men who would compete in a highly anticipated rowing event in Berlin. Rounding out the group were headcoach Jimmy Needles, in desperate need of coffee (he drank twenty-five cups a day), along with Jack Ragland, Duane Swanson, Donald Piper, and Bill Wheatley.
The names of these men have been forgotten, but they were an important and historic group: 1936 marked basketball’s debut as an official Olympic sport, andthis was the first-ever United States Olympic basketball team. Decades later, theU.S. Olympic basketball team would be dubbed the Dream Team, and a new collectionof superstars would command the world’s attention at the Summer Olympics every four years. But for Oscar Robertson and Jerry West to win Olympic gold in1960, for Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird to win in 1992, or forKobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Kevin Durant to taste gold more recently, there had to be this bunch of no-names walking up the plank at Pier 60 in 1936.
As the SS Manhattan pushed back just past noon, fans tossed their caps into the air; some even threw them in the river. Bill Wheatley looked out at thousands of cheering New Yorkers and considered how far he’d come as a basketball player. He’d been cut from his college team. The coach told him he was no good. Now he was sailing to Europe to play the game he loved on the world’s largest stage.
The ship pushed farther away, and the scene at the pier began to thin out, people clutching their flags and heading back home and to work.
But pacing along the shore was a man who seemed out of place, different fromthe thousands who surrounded him. He walked silently, carrying a sign. It wasan odd sign; the letters weren’t all that neatly written. And its message was startling. BOYCOTT NAZI GERMANY, LAND OF DARKNESS. BOYCOTT HITLER. KEEP AMERICA FREE. FIGHT FOR RACE TOLERANCE, DEMOCRACY AND PEACE. I SPENT 10 MONTHS IN A NAZI JAIL FOR DEFENDING THESE PRINCIPLES.
Boycott? It was too late now. The SS Manhattan had left Pier 60 and was onits way toward the Statue of Liberty and the Atlantic Ocean.
The people listening at home had turned off their radios. In seventeen days, the Olympics would begin with elaborate opening ceremonies broadcast from Berlin. The solitary protest of the courageous man with the sign, Richard Roiderer, would be long forgotten by then.
But maybe people should have paid closer attention. The man who stood alone understood there was more to this Olympics than met the eye. In Adolf Hitler’s Berlin, all was not as it seemed.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 One Man Stood Alone 1
Chapter 2 A Sinister Façade 6
Chapter 3 Inventing a Game 16
Chapter 4 Do Good and Be Pure 20
Chapter 5 Man on a Mission 27
Chapter 6 The Boycott Question 36
Chapter 7 Meddling in the Olympics 47
Chapter 8 Mirror, Mirror 53
Chapter 9 Hollywood Stars 60
Chapter 10 Unrefined 72
Chapter 11 Big Time 78
Chapter 12 Choices 83
Chapter 13 On Their Own 94
Chapter 14 You Can't Beat Fun 102
Chapter 15 Welcome to Germany 109
Chapter 16 The Anvil and the Hammer 117
Chapter 17 The Grandest Show 127
Chapter 18 Village People 134
Chapter 19 Witnesses to History 145
Chapter 20 Neutral Zone 153
Chapter 21 110,000 Bored Germans 161
Chapter 22 Tournament Time 165
Chapter 23 Strangest Game Ever 177
Chapter 24 Center of the Universe 186
Chapter 25 Full Circle 199
Afterword: Putting the Pieces Together 202
All-Time Olympic Basketball Results 215
1936 Team USA Roster 216
1936 Berlin Olympics: Day-by-Day 217
Acknowledgments 218
Bibliography 222
Index 227