Book Review: Transition Game: How Hoosiers Went Hip-Hop

Book Review
Transition Game: How Hoosiers Went Hip-Hop
by L. Jon Wertheim

Sports Illustrated writer and former Bloomington North High School graduate (class of 1989) Jon Wertheim has penned a wonderful novel about the game that defines the lives of most boys and girls in Indiana: Basketball.

Due to his father’s illness, Wertheim returns to Bloomington, Ind., to follow a basketball season at his high school alma mater, Bloomington North. During his time there, he examines the interconnected evolution of basketball and the hoops-crazy state of Indiana. Wertheim makes a connection between the bigger basketball world and the Bloomington team. The story of one family that moved to Bloomington to escape civil war in Sudan and went on to send their five children to college on basketball scholarships is a nice counter to all the issues brought up in the book.

Maybe because I grew up in Indiana and graduated from Wertheim’s cross town rival, Bloomington South, in 1986 I felt a certain affinity for this book. It was a trip down memory lane, chronicling many significant basketball events that took place during my formative youth in Bloomington.

Even though the center of the book concerns the final season of North’s coach Tom McKinney and the players on the team, I couldn’t help but root for my cross-town rival as they marched through the 2004 State tournament.


A few things I could really relate to:

• Basketball Santcuary: After visiting his dad in the hospital, the author would go across the street and shoots some hoops on the beat up courts. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve traveled by those courts. I’ve shot on those particular courts only once (wasn’t in my neighborhood) but I know the sanctuary from life’s problems that a basketball and goal provide.
• The mating rituals of the pick-up game: Pretending not to notice, you pay heed to the other player’s skill level and size, making mental notes of preferred teammates. You hold the ball around your waist, sending the clear message: “Hey, I could be talked into playing a game.” Dribbling eventually slows to a trickle and everyone mills around for a few minutes, then gravitates to the center. “Wanna shoot ‘em up?” someone inevitably asks.

For all the book’s high points, Wertheim was a bit too liberal with his use of similes, literary references, and use of big ol’ words. For example, “The WNBA, however, has to grapple with an entirely different set of issues. For one, its allegiance with the NBA is a Mephistophelian bargain filled with philosophical and practical tension.”

Whew. I got tired just typing that. Wertheim needed to remember that basketball fans will be reading this book, the majority of who will not get most of these references. Put me in that group …and I consider myself decently read.

Hoosiers has definitely gone hip-hop. The game has changed from when I grew up. The values that I’ve always held dear are epitomized in the movie Hoosiers. Basketball was very cut and dry, black and white (definitely more white than black, by the way).

Now, the game is becoming unrecognizable. I see laziness. I see players lacking sound fundamentals. I see over reliance on dunks and three-point shots. And I’m still trying to see defense on a regular basis (hello, NBA?). And only Europeans and woman ball players know what a mid-range jumper is.

I’ve come to terms with the tattoos, attitude, and showboating. But I just can’t abide by the apparent lack of heart in players. But maybe, just maybe, my definition of “heart” is different. After all, it’s been shaped by decades of Hoosier tradition and values and years of playing the game I love the only way I know how—as if those values should be expected by everyone.

There is a line from the book that describes my feelings towards basketball no matter what state it is in, how it is changed, and what values are celebrated:

“As I slogged over to the drinking fountain, I felt old, I felt obsolete and I couldn’t wait for the next game to start.” Maybe that’s why basketball continues to survive in spite of continued changes and evolution.

Long live basketball. And any fan of the game should enjoy Transition Game.