The hustle One team and ten lives in Black and White

In 1986, a couple of Seattle fathers decided to mix some privileged white kids with five relatively poor black kids on an AAU basketball team. One of the kids was author Merlino, who reprises his experience here. The book is at its best when focused on team dynamics. Any team hierarchy is a product of playing ability, social skills, race, and social standing outside the team, and anyone who has ever participated in team sports will find Merlino's account spot on. He gets bogged down, though, in a detailed history of Seattle's race relations before moving on to a recap of the players' lives as they grew up. One was murdered, another runs a hedge fund, another is looking at prison time for a drug deal, another is a prosecutor. Merlino challenges racial stereotypes, examines the reason why some stereotypes seem applicable on occasion, and looks at whether sports really are a valuable building block in young people's lives. A very thoughtful, perceptive, and moving chronicle of the journey from adolescence to manhood.--Lukowsky, Wes Copyright 2010 Booklist

Expecting a conventional basketball book? Look elsewhere. Although the central focus is ten members of a biracial boys basketball team, freelance journalist Merlino, in his first book, is writing about race relations and the changing socioeconomic experiences and expectations of five black and five white kids who came together in 1986 to form an Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) basketball team in Seattle. The book provides remarkable insight into the fortunes and misfortunes of the ten kids who shared a court but never a dream. For Merlino, who was on the team, the titular hustle is the drive to achieve in today's competitive economy. Readers will witness the omnipresent racial divide in Seattle and the nation, in the workplace, and in a secondary school setting. The chapter on Seattle's Lakeside School, a private K-12 institution, is compelling reading for today's parents and educators. The former teammates whom Merlino traced up to the present include a prosecutor, a financial manager, a preacher/teacher, a writer, a street hustler-and a murder victim. VERDICT This book, both memoir and social analysis, is an essential read as a recent social history and personal story of America.-Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Libs., AL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In his debut, journalist Merlino traces the lives of his integrated junior-high basketball team and what happened to the players when the games stopped.In 1986, Coach Willie McClain brought his basketball players, all black, from Seattle's inner city to the affluent suburbs to form a team with a group of white players. For a single season, these young boyswho couldn't have been more differentshared an initially wary then ebullient camaraderie that transcended race and class. But what happened after the season, asks the author, as these players made the transition from boys to men? Merlino returned to Seattle to find his old teammates and tell their stories. In one way or another, the white players all made their way; for the black players, however, the story was mixed. Through connections developed as a result of the team, all had the chance to attend quality private schools. Some adjusted, some didn't. At 19, Tyrell was murdered; 20 years on, JT still hustled on the street; Myran was in prison. All were lured by the seemingly easy money of drug dealing as crack devastated their Seattle neighborhood in the late '80s. Yet there were successes. Damian became a teacher and a preacher, Eric an auditor for the city with a solid middle-class life. None of the black players, however, lived without struggles in a class and racially divided Seattle. Merlino skillfully weaves the personal biographies with the biography of a city that relegated blacks to neighborhoods that were segregated and poor, to the margins of economic life, to public schools that were overcrowded and underfunded. He tells the story of the dispersal of Central Seattle's black population, as Microsoft and Starbucks made it ripe for gentrification. But the heart of Merlino's story is his teammates, black and white. He misses their youth and promise and loves and respects them all.The book's precise focus enables troubling considerations of the role of race and class in America.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.