The Secret Game: A Wartime Story of Courage, Change, and Basketball's Lost Triumph5 stars

[Joanne]

The Secret Game: A Wartime Story of Courage, Change, and Basketball's Lost Triumph 5 stars

Please don't let the title deceive you. This book is about more than a basketball game.

Taking place in 1943, North Carolina, it begins with the story of the boys who grew into the men who played this secret game, defying the social mores of the day in the U.S South. Not giving anything away by telling you the game was between North Carolina College for Negros and an all-white Duke Medical Student team.

It weaves in and out with the history of basketball and how it became a phenomenon in the college world. The actual game takes up one chapter near the very end of the book.

The research that Ellsworth dug into for this masterpiece is apparent throughout. It is, in the end, a tribute to the men who played this forbidden game and the coming together for the love of the game.