Heaven Is a Playground (Paperback)

~ (Author)

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In 1974, Rick Telander intended to spend a few days doing a magazine piece on the court wizards of Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant area. He ended up staying the entire summer, become part of the players' lives and eventually the coach of a loose aggregation known as the Subway Stars.

Telander lets these kids speak for themselves, revealing their grand dreams and ambitions, but never flinches from showing us how far their dreams are from reality. The precursor to Ben Joravsky's Hoop Dreams.

Review

"[An] intriguing account of inner-city hoops, a trailblazer of its kind."-Sports Illustrated (Sports Illustrated )

"Funny, sad, superbly written and intensely involving."-New York Times Book Review (New York Times Book Review )

"Telander's open-ended chronicle of inner-city playground basketball life is a model of clarity and restraint. No one has written a more resonant or understanding book about kids playing basketball, and few books about sports have willingly pulled together so many truths about the disappointments and dislocating fantasies of athletic competition."-Atlantic (Atlantic )

"Rick Telander, in his low-key way, makes us care deeply about the [subject]. He also tunes our senses to the sights and sounds and talk of the ghetto playground."-Christopher Lehman-Haupt, New York Times (Christopher Lehman-Haupt New York Times )

"Even those who know little about the game should appreciate this intense and penetrating peek at growing up in the ghetto."-Chicago Daily News (Chicago Daily News )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Bison Books (October 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803294271
• ISBN-13: 978-0803294271
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #775,762 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Basketball Is Life, April 2, 2004

By	Tyler Smith (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I've read a few really good books on basketball -- David Wolf's "Foul," and John Feinstein's "A Season on the Brink" immediately come to mind -- but Rick Telander's "Heaven Is a Playground" is the best, for my money. This book captures not only the spirit of the game, but also vividly recreates a time (the mid-70s) and a place (Brooklyn).

Telander was in his 20s in 1974 when he went to Brooklyn to spend a summer, in part because he was in search of the elusive playground legend James "Fly" Williams, who figures prominently in the book. During the course of the three months he was there, however, he met, played with, interviewed and befriended a host of regulars at the courts in Foster Park in the Flatbush section of the borough. They were African-American boys and men for whom basketball was far more than recreation. For many of them, the game was a way of life and even more importantly a form of self-expression.

Besides Williams, Telander also met Albert King, then an astonishingly gifted 14-year-old, who was to go on to a successful NBA career. Telander brings to life the court skills of King and others, but he humanizes them, and this is where the great strength of the book lies. For example, King agonized over his talent, which brought him attention and adulation that embarrassed him and sometimes made him angry and withdrawn. Williams' incredible pure talent was married to an unpredictable and sometimes violent temperament that ultimately shortened his career.

Despite an obvious empathy for his subjects -- he wound up coaching a group of teenage park regulars, with mixed on-the-court success -- Telander does not romanticize them. Flatbush, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville, where the action of the book primarily takes place, were poverty-stricken, crime-ridden places. Many of the people Telander spent extensive time with were scarred by their environment, and he does not try to hide that. Though the book is refreshingly free of a sense of "white guilt," Telander does agonize at one point over a boy he left off his team who succumbed to drug use and was later killed.

At times funny, often poignant, and filled with a love for its subject, "Heaven Is a Playground" remains an engrossing, and still timely, read nearly 30 years after its publication.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Story of Spirit, Struggle, and Escape, December 28, 2006

By	David Howse "dhcc" (Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada) - See all my reviews

I read this book around '93, just after having read the "white version" in both Larry Bird's biography and autobiography. What was interesting was these two very similar yet distinct experiences and how they related to my own experience, growing up it what would seem like a very safe and socially adjusted rural town.

Heaven is a Playground was a departure for me in to a world where basketball had the utmost symbolic and cultural meaning - where legends were born and died and everybody else was willing to take the gamble. Was basketball more a sacrifice of a better future (missing school) or a one shot escape from certain poverty? Telander would probably argue the latter. What I found interesting was that only a few of the characters in the story actually had the potential for professional basketball, yet all the other young men seemed (unconsciously) willing to sacrifice their own futures for those players. Not so much blinded by their dreams they were living them.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As interesting as social commentary as it is about hoops, April 11, 2005

By	J. C. Bale "Pakk-Mann" (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Certainly some other reviewers have me beat in the department of basketball-related literature, but I count "Heaven Is A Playground" amongst the many social science books that I have read. And indeed, it matches up quite well with the best reads of the past few decades. On the surface, the book seems to be about inner-city basketball, but within the pages, it is a complete dissection of the (one segment) inner city African-American man.

The amazing book "Tally's Corner" managed the same feat in its analysis of street corner men. Both have achieved great feats with their respective works. For basketball fans like myself, "Heaven Is A Playground" not only reads as great/sad/true/mystifying social commentary, but also as plain sports entertainment. Rick Telander, as a sports writer, was really able to hit home with the writing, really giving readers a feel of the 1970s game - which has many similarities and differences to the game of today.

Another great aspect of the book is that it reads as if you there. Telander makes only the necessary analysis in the pages about what went on, and basically leaves the facts as they are. The book could have easily become a textbook lesson on sociological concepts, a lofty preaching on the ills of inner city life, or a rambling 200+ page play-by-play. Fortunately, the easy going style of writing is great journalism. Telander's style fit me well.

Thanks Rick for a great read.