Customer Reviews

O God of Players: The Story of the Immaculata Mighty Macs (Religion and American Culture)

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Fans of women's basketball should add this book to their libraries. Cathy Rush of Immaculata started what was to become women's basketball. Several of her players went on to become coaches of leading college teams and a few became involved in the WNBA.

Byrne tells the story with loving detail, based mostly on interviews with players, coaches and teachers. If anything,, she can be faulted for being too much in love with her subject, so she ends up being more descriptive than analytical. I would have liked to see more interpretation of the material. O God of Players lacks the immediacy of true journalism (see In These Girls Hope is a Muscle, an account of a high school team's championship year) and also the scholarship associated with academic history.

Just as historians ask what events came together to spark World War I, we could ask what events ame together to spark a mighty basketball team in a small backwater women's college? Just a few small coincidences or a convergence of social trends?

As Byrne points out, most religions attempt to make rules to control the body, especially the female body. So why did Catholicism embrace basketball, while other religions did not? Was there a unique relationship between pre-Vatican Catholic doctrine and basketball values?

Byrne raises the issue of conflict between religion and basketball but doesn't really dig in. We get no sense of how players interacted in class, beyond fond memories of being excused for practice. We do get a sense of how the players experienced basketball uniquely because of their religious tradition, as players recall their modesty in early locker rooms. And we get a hint of the awkwardness associated with Cathy Rush's non-Catholic status. But the author stops with description, not drawing out ironies or implications.

So we learn how players were influenced by road trips and tournaments, but what was the impact of Immaculata on women's basketball? And how did players fare after graduation, compared to non-players who also attended Immaculata?

Perhaps it's unfair to expect more than we get. God of Players is interesting, well-written and exhaustive in information. I would recommend this book to any basketball fan and perhaps to students of women's history. I just wish we had a little less meat-and-potatoes and a tad more spice.