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The Boys of Dunbar: A Story of Love, Hope, and Basketball
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Published:
Simon & Schuster 2016
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Description
The inspiring true story of a remarkable coach whose superb undefeated high-school basketball team in 1980s Baltimore produced four NBA players and gave hope to a desperate neighborhood and city—"a feel-good story that is timely as well as true" (Glenn C. Altschuler, Florida Courier).
As the crack epidemic swept across inner-city America in the early 1980s, the streets of Baltimore were crime ridden. For poor kids from the housing projects, the future looked bleak. But basketball could provide the quickest ticket out, an opportunity to earn a college scholarship and perhaps even play in the NBA.

Dunbar High School had one of the most successful basketball programs in the country; in the early 1980s, the Dunbar Poets were arguably the best high school team of all time. Four starting players—Muggsy Bogues, Reggie Williams, David Wingate, and Reggie Lewis—would eventually play in the NBA, an unheard-of success rate. In The Boys of Dunbar, Alejandro Danois revisits the 1981–1982 season with the Poets as the team conquered all its opponents. But more than that, he takes us into the lives of these kids, and especially of Coach Bob Wade, a former NFL player from the same neighborhood who knew that the basketball court, and the lessons his players would learn there, held the key to the future.

"[Danois'] tale of the basketball exploits of a handful of high school students in the 1980s shows young men motivated by their coach and other recreation leaders to dream beyond the hardship of their geography" (Bijan C. Bayne, The Washington Post). "Inspirational stories can be found everywhere in high-school sports, but Dunbar and its legendary coach, Bob Wade, stand out" (Booklist). The Boys of Dunbar will leave you cheering every victory.
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
09/13/2016
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781451666991
ASIN:
B0176M4028
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Alejandro Danois. (2016). The Boys of Dunbar: A Story of Love, Hope, and Basketball. Simon & Schuster.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Alejandro Danois. 2016. The Boys of Dunbar: A Story of Love, Hope, and Basketball. Simon & Schuster.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Alejandro Danois, The Boys of Dunbar: A Story of Love, Hope, and Basketball. Simon & Schuster, 2016.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Alejandro Danois. The Boys of Dunbar: A Story of Love, Hope, and Basketball. Simon & Schuster, 2016.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Date Updated:
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      • bioText: A native of Brooklyn, New York, Alejandro Danois now lives in Baltimore, Maryland. He earned a scholarship for talented minority students to attend Milton Academy in Massachusetts and later attended the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Danois is editor-in-chief of The Shadow League and a freelance sports and entertainment writer whose work has been published by The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, Associated Press, Bleacher Report, Sporting News, Los Angeles Times, and Ebony magazine, among others. The Boys of Dunbar is his first book.
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title
The Boys of Dunbar
fullDescription
The inspiring true story of a remarkable coach whose superb undefeated high-school basketball team in 1980s Baltimore produced four NBA players and gave hope to a desperate neighborhood and city—"a feel-good story that is timely as well as true" (Glenn C. Altschuler, Florida Courier).
As the crack epidemic swept across inner-city America in the early 1980s, the streets of Baltimore were crime ridden. For poor kids from the housing projects, the future looked bleak. But basketball could provide the quickest ticket out, an opportunity to earn a college scholarship and perhaps even play in the NBA.

Dunbar High School had one of the most successful basketball programs in the country; in the early 1980s, the Dunbar Poets were arguably the best high school team of all time. Four starting players—Muggsy Bogues, Reggie Williams, David Wingate, and Reggie Lewis—would eventually play in the NBA, an unheard-of success rate. In The Boys of Dunbar, Alejandro Danois revisits the 1981–1982 season with the Poets as the team conquered all its opponents. But more than that, he takes us into the lives of these kids, and especially of Coach Bob Wade, a former NFL player from the same neighborhood who knew that the basketball court, and the lessons his players would learn there, held the key to the future.

"[Danois'] tale of the basketball exploits of a handful of high school students in the 1980s shows young men motivated by their coach and other recreation leaders to dream beyond the hardship of their geography" (Bijan C. Bayne, The Washington Post). "Inspirational stories can be found everywhere in high-school sports, but Dunbar and its legendary coach, Bob Wade, stand out" (Booklist). The Boys of Dunbar will leave you cheering every victory.
reviews
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        June 20, 2016
        The 1981–1982 Poets, the basketball team of Baltimore’s Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, reside in sports folklore, as Danois explains in this tedious history. Three future NBA players—Tyrone “Muggsy” Bogues, David Wingate, and Reggie Williams—started with the Poets that season, and one future NBA All-Star (the late Reggie Lewis, who was a captain on the Boston Celtics) came off the bench. Coach Bob Wade, who happened to be an ex-NFL player, refused to have his players coast on their talent. Instead, the Baltimore native conducted practices where players carried bricks and sandbags to teach their bodies to combat fatigue. Danois, editor-in-chief of the Shadow League, recounts the memorable season and its resonance in a city whose salad days had shriveled into unemployment, drugs, and violence. The anecdotes, including the 5’3” Bogues astonishing crowds with his formidable abilities and Wingate’s struggle to balance basketball with caring for his disabled mother, only go so far. Danois rarely talks to anyone outside of Dunbar’s squad, and the season-long narrative lacks a hook beyond the team’s dominance. Danois’s attempts to branch out—profiling Baltimore’s youth basketball organizers and fallen legends—do little to reduce the insular flimsiness.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        September 1, 2016

        In this chronicle of the Dunbar Poets' 1981-82 boys high school basketball season, Danois, editor of the sports website the Shadow League, debuts with mixed results. Four remarkable players from the Poet's team that season would go on to play in the NBA, an impressive feat. Readers get to know the athletes, including fan-favorite petite (5'3") Muggsy Bogues before his rise to stardom. Head coach Bob Wade is presented as tough as nails, one who believes students' education is as important as their jump shot. Danois spends a lot of time on game descriptions. Despite a few bumps in the road, the season is not surprisingly a success. It is evident that the author weighed heavily on player and coach interviews. Readers interested in high school basketball might find this all-star team entertaining, while those in the Baltimore area will have the chance to relive some glory days. VERDICT What makes a special sports book is that it can get beyond the event to tell a more human story. There isn't much more to this account than the play-by-play of a fantastic team having a great season.--Keith Klang, Port Washington P.L., NY

        Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        September 1, 2016
        The numbers say everything about the magical run by the boys' basketball team of Baltimore's Dunbar High School in the 198182 and 198283 seasons: a 60-0 record, 10 players going to major college programs, 4 reaching the NBA, and 3 of those being first-round picks. None had a greater impact on the program than their leader, the diminutive Tyrone Muggsy Bogues, who at 5'3 became the shortest player ever in the NBA, while carving out a stellar 14-year career there. Inspirational stories can be found everywhere in high-school sports, but Dunbar and its legendary coach, Bob Wade, stand out for the sheer talent to converge at Dunbar those two seasons, for Wade's success at maintaining the players' focus on academics and basketball amid the poverty and violent crime that permeated their tough East Baltimore neighborhood, and for Muggsy. As author Danois, who delivers a solid story that pretty much tells itself, writes, We'll see more Michael Jordans before we see another Muggsy Bogues. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

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The inspiring true story of a remarkable coach whose superb undefeated high-school basketball team in 1980s Baltimore produced four NBA players and gave hope to a desperate neighborhood and city—"a feel-good story that is timely as well as true" (Glenn C. Altschuler, Florida Courier).
As the crack epidemic swept across inner-city America in the early 1980s, the streets of Baltimore were crime ridden. For poor kids from the housing projects, the future looked bleak. But basketball could provide the quickest ticket out, an opportunity to earn a college scholarship and perhaps even play in the NBA.

Dunbar High School had one of the most successful basketball programs in the country; in the early 1980s, the Dunbar Poets were arguably the best high school team of all time. Four starting players—Muggsy Bogues, Reggie Williams, David Wingate, and Reggie Lewis—would eventually play in the NBA, an unheard-of success rate. In The Boys of...
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