first things first: mary garber is fascinating! she's one of the first female sportswriters, and for a long time was the only one to cover acc sports. she also began reporting on winston-salem state and black high schools in the forsyth county area--pretty unheard of in the jim crow south, especially for a woman. there's a series of oral history interviews with her, which are just great--and a very welcome distraction from grad apps.
also: i've been reading from set shot to slam dunk, a collection of oral histories from basketball players in the early years of the nba, which was formed in 1949 with the merger of the basketball association of america (baa) & the national basketball league (nbl). so good! lots of great moments, but none as jaw-dropping (and unrelated) as the following quote from slater martin, who played with george mikan for the lakers in the 5os:
"When I first came into the league I was wearing contact lenses....I've been wearing them for thirty-seven years. In those days you wore big ones. Put water in them. Got a bubble in them, you couldn't see. You'd tell the referee, "Hey, let me change them," and he said, "Get the hell out of here and play." They didn't know what they were. You couldn't take a time-out. So when they had the time-out, I'd change them. I never lost them. They were so big they covered the whole eyeball. Took a mold of your eye; put clay in your eye, then molded it. Not like the little ones."
No comments:
Post a Comment