<div dir="ltr"><div>All,</div><div>Please find below and attached Myles Schrag's review of Roy Bradburd, <i>All the Dreams We've Dreamed: A stroy of hoops and handguns on Chicago's West Side.</i></div><div>Thanks</div><div>Duncan</div><div><br></div><div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:106%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif" align="center"><i>All the Dreams
We’ve Dreamed: A Story of Hoops and Handguns on Chicago’s West Side</i>, <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:106%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif" align="center">by Rus Bradburd<span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:106%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Review by Myles Schrag, Soulstice Publishing <span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:106%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">How fitting last week for me to sit down and write my review
of Rus Bradburd’s <i>All The Dreams We’ve Dreamed: A Story of Hoops and
Handguns on Chicago’s West Side</i>, and perk up when a woman on my local NPR
station recited Langston Hughes’ heart-wrenching poem, “Let America Be America
Again,”<span> </span>from whose words Bradburd based
his title.<span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:106%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">I was already pondering the takeaways of Bradburd’s 2018
book, which was released in paperback earlier this year, in the context of the
tragic death of George Floyd by Minneapolis police that has led to a swell of
protests around the United States and renewed conversations about race in our
society. Bradburd’s book is not about police violence, though there is some of
that, along with a better understanding of police relations with citizens and
school officials in Chicago’s dangerous West Side neighborhoods. Reading <i>All
the Dreams We’ve Dreamed</i> in these turbulent times is to be reminded that
American racism and riots don’t appear out of a vacuum. Inertia and
indifference are powerful factors that kill dreams. <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:106%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">At the macro level, the book is about the violence in
inner-city Chicago. That story has been told many times, and quite well. Add in
the basketball overlay and again, been there, done that … successfully
(including in the ground-breaking documentary <i>Hoop Dreams</i>, whose
influence oozes all over Bradburd’s story in setting, themes, and even some
casting crossovers). <i>All the Dreams We’ve Dreamed</i> is a masterful and
heartfelt story of a neighborhood, a school, and a basketball team caught in a
web of violence. But the through-line of the author, a former coach of the
book’s protagonist, Shawn Harrington, trying to help that player, creates a
rich opportunity to dive deeper into the societal frustrations that keep
conditions in a place like Chicago’s West Side mired in hopelessness. <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:106%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Bradburd injects himself into the story with a display of
self-awareness that is refreshing and rare for college sports. He provides
thoughtful details about a host of dysfunctions—fickle healthcare insurers and
feckless administrators, the contemporary gang landscape, high school sports
transfer rules, to name a few—but he doesn’t spare the ethical morass that is
college athletic recruiting and his past role in perpetuating a transactional
system that treats athletes as disposable. His doggedness on behalf of
Harrington feels like penance and is essential to understanding the heart of
this book. Bradburd’s honesty is admirable; he never fully lets himself off the
hook.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:106%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">This review is purposely vague in plot details. The map in
the front matter of Harrington’s neighborhood where he grew up and played ball
at Marshall High School will tell you plenty about killings and shootings (my
recommendation is that you flip past it until you’ve finished reading the book).
But even if you know the broad strokes of what is going to happen, Bradburd
deftly leaves multiple storylines hanging to create narrative tension. He
travels back two decades to provide vital background to his connection with
Harrington and Chicago hoops before culminating in his investigation into why
one player was killed; a desperate PR campaign for his friend that includes the
likes of former LSU coach Dale Brown and his star Shaquille O’Neal, journalist
Bryant Gumbel, former US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and many others;
and finally a climactic trial. <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:106%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">The randomness of the tragedies is distressing, even if you
believe you understand the extent of Chicago’s violent reputation. However,
strangely, you will find something to smile about in this book, primarily
thanks to Harrington and his family and the two Marshall coaching legends to
whom the book is dedicated. Their moral compass is what we have to cling to as
we follow Harrington and Bradburd’s journey.<span>
</span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:106%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">Bradburd ends with strands of hope, much like Hughes’ poem,
whose penultimate stanza proclaims that in spite of centuries of broken
promises:<span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><i><span style="color:black">O, yes,<span></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><i><span style="color:black">I say it plain,<span></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><i><span style="color:black">America never was America to me,<span></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><i><span style="color:black">And yet I swear this oath—<span></span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><i><span style="color:black">America will be!<span></span></span></i></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:106%;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">We need authors of Bradburd’s caliber to tell more stories
like this—no matter how often or how well similar stories already have been
told—in hopes we will pay attention and someday not have such a distressing
volume of them to tell. Bradburd’s contribution deserves to be part of that
collection, with distinction. <span></span></p>
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</div><div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">Remember to smell the roses as you recumber past<br><br>Duncan R. Jamieson, Ph. D.<br>Professor of History<br>Book Review Editor<br><i>AETHLON: The Journal of Sport Literature</i><br>Ashland University<br>Ashland, OH 44805<br>USA<br></div></div></div></div>