The Origins of the Jump Shot: Eight Men Who Shook the World of Basketball
Ever wondered about the person who invented the basketball jump shot? Christgau, author of Enemies: World War II Alien Internment (LJ 11/15/85) and a former San Francisco State University basketball player, was curious. After combing through the documented history of the game, he came to the conclusion that it was a group effortAthat eight pioneering basketball players from the 1930s and 1940s could legitimately claim to have had a hand in inventing the jump shot. Christgau paints eight colorful portraits of the men, their era, and the circumstances that led to the creative leap. The pioneers were a ski-jumping Norwegian American, one of the first black players signed to the NBA, a Californian so small that his classmates nicknamed him "Mouse," the son of an early silent film star, an alcoholic murder victim, the son of Depression-era sharecroppers, and two farm kids. Recommended for most sports history collections.ATerry Jo Madden, Boise State Univ. Lib., IDCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.