ESPN: BLACK MAGIC

I have to admit, ESPN knocked one out of the park with the two-part, four hour series, "Black Magic". http://espnblackmagic.secondthought.com/?ex_cid=2008_BNNR_BMGC_XXXX_AWRS_XXXX

This is an absolutely riveting documentary about the rise and fall of the historically black colleges and their impact on the direction and influence of basketball as we know it today. The interesting part is the story is told against the backdrop of the civil rights movement developing across the nation and some of the stories developed are truly shocking.

The scrimmage between the Winston Salem Teachers College team versus a Duke University team that was played under a cloak of secrecy in 1944.

The "Orangeburg Massacre" described in the story below compared and contrasted against the Kent State massacre.

The reaction of local southern residents, as described by Fisk University student Ben Jobe, upon learning that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. He describes some as waving the "Rebel Flag" and shouting "the South shall rise again" in celebration upon hearing the news. When compared against how we react to hearing about anyone who allegedly celebrated the attacks on 9-11, in my mind, this forever changes how I will look at that flag. Anyone who flies it, even in the name of heritage, with that kind of backdrop and history of hatred attached to it, should be ashamed of themselves as a human being.

The tragically poignant story of the rise and subsequent demise of young Bobby Phils.

It is a bittersweet walk down memory lane. The sweetness is seeing the great players of the past and learning more about the stories behind their struggles and triumphs along the path to basketball greatness. The bitterness is the backdrop of the discrimination these players and coaches faced back in the fifties and sixties that initially marginalized and compartmentalized the players and coaches in the HBCU system. The subsequent progress of the civil rights movement and the selective cherry-picking of players from the rich vines of the HBCU's by the larger universities resulted in the demise of the system. By historical comparison, the breaking of the color barrier by Jackie Robinson in major league baseball caused a similar type of slow, asphyxiation of the Negro Leagues as soon all teams clamored for their own version of Jackie. The pioneer coaches who developed the players and the , free-wheeling, fast-paced, high octane offenses we see many college and NBA teams run today were often either left on the outside looking in or forced to accept assistant coaching positions at the larger, predominantly white universities.

Earl "The Pearl" Monroe, Dick Barnett, Willis Reed, Bob "Butterbean" Love, "Pee Wee" Kirkland, Temple coach John Chaney, Sonny Hill, Bob Dandridge and so many others. They collectively changed basketball in much the same way that Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Satchel Paige and others changed baseball forever by integrating the sport.

The documentary weaves it's way through the history of the HBCU with the same style and flourish that Earl Monroe exhibited on the basketball court. At times fast paced, the directors show an ability to slow the tempo down and give the events of historical significance their just due. This certainly must have been a labor of love for "The Pearl", who was involved as a director along with Dan Klores.

Some of the stories are sad, some a combination of triumph and tragedy. The documentary is 2 segments, four hours long in total, but both segments will leave you wanting to hear and see more.
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FROM THE MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER:

http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080316/SPORTS/803160347/1002

March 16, 2008
COMMENTARY: 'Black Magic' project invigorates Ben Jobe

By Josh Moon

Ask Ben Jobe a question and he'll give you an answer. It might not be the pretty, politically correct response you were looking for. It might not make you happy. It might not be what you want to hear.

But you can be assured of one thing -- it will be what Jobe believes. And he doesn't care if he's alone in those views, or just ahead of the curve.

It's all part of a conversation with Jobe on a Saturday afternoon. The topic -- the original topic, anyway -- was Jobe's participation in a documentary entitled "Black Magic" that will air uninterrupted in two two-hour parts on ESPN tonight and Monday. The film covers the lives of basketball players and coaches at historically black colleges and universities during the civil rights movement.

That personality makes him perfect for a documentary like this one. Because to tell the untold stories of decades-old injustices, you need someone willing to speak up. That has never been a problem for Jobe.

"I didn't want to do this (documentary)," Jobe said. "I was very, very ill when this was first brought up. But here came this man, Dan Klores, a great, gifted man with a vision for this film. And he said we can tell the real story. And I said, 'What about the South Carolina State story?' And he said, 'I want to tell what really happened.' After that, I was on board."

The "South Carolina State story" is often referred to by another name -- "The Orangeburg Massacre." It happened Feb. 8, 1968 on the campus of what was then South Carolina State College. State patrol officers opened fire on a group of student protestors, killing three and wounding 27.

"Most of the kids shot were shot in the back," said Jobe, who coached at SCSU shortly after the incident. "To this day, no one really talks about it. Everyone knows about Kent State and what happened there. I was at the Anne Frank Museum in Holland and the curator, as we were talking, asked me about the Kent State shootings. I asked if he had ever heard of the South Carolina State shootings. He didn't know anything about them. Kent State was a white school. South Carolina State was a black school."

With the freedom to cover any topic no matter how controversial, Jobe was sold on the "Black Magic" project. For two days, Jobe talked about basketball, life, civil rights, injustices, good times and unbearable times. He filled four hours' worth of tapes and sat for another seven hours in front of a video camera.

"We have to embrace our past if we're to have any hope for the future," he said. "I truly believe that the solutions for the future lie in the past. Often times, those solutions are in the things we've been hiding and not wanting to talk about for too long. And this film uncovers a lot of things people would just as soon we not ever mention again. It will make a lot of folks uncomfortable."

Josh Moon, a sports writer for the Advertiser, can be reached by e-mail at jmoon@gannett
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FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/arts/television/15sand.html?em&ex=1205726400&en=3a0e3d48e9392ebb&ei=5087%0A

Civil Rights on the Basketball Court
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Published: March 15, 2008

“Black Magic” opens with the details of a secret basketball game played in Durham, N. C., in a locked gym with no fans to witness it. On a Sunday morning in 1944 the innovative African-American coach John McLendon led his fast-breaking team from the North Carolina College for Negroes in a home game against an intramural squad from Duke University’s medical school.

Earl Monroe as a member of the Winston-Salem State College basketball team.

It was illegal. It was dangerous.

And the black team won 88-44. “They never saw anyone run up and down the court like we did,” a McLendon player says.

If you’re unfamiliar with the game, you’re not alone. The players and coaches from historically black colleges and universities were more obscure than baseball’s Negro Leagues, but were victimized by the same exclusions from the white mainstream. As racial barriers eroded, and white colleges recognized how much black talent they had ignored, they cherry-picked until it became nearly all theirs. The black colleges didn’t go out of business, as the Negro Leagues did, but they lost their leverage with recruits to the universities that act as the farm system to the National Basketball Association.

This remarkable four-hour documentary by Dan Klores, to be shown in two installments without commercial interruption on ESPN on Sunday and Monday nights, is as heartbreaking as any about civil rights. He sets it against the indignities of segregation but depicts the black colleges as educational safe houses where children of cotton pickers and sharecroppers felt nurtured and motivated. Like the grainy film of Mr. McLendon’s teams, archival footage from places like the Tuskegee Institute offers a vision of separateness.

Mr. Monroe’s spinning and feinting at Winston-Salem State College (later university), where Mr. Gaines coached for 47 years, earned him the nickname Black Jesus and led to a brilliant N.B.A. career. But a previous Winston-Salem graduate with similarly spectacular skills, Cleo Hill, was spurned by his racist teammates on the St. Louis Hawks and blackballed by the league. Mr. Hill, who became a college coach, still seems baffled.

Mr. Jobe, another McLendon disciple, is the documentary’s moral center. Like Mr. McLendon, he moved across the coaching landscape, from black colleges to mainstream universities and back again. His dignity is flecked equally with wit and anger. Reflecting on the praise accorded Duke in the late 1970s for a fast-break attack that he, like others, adapted from Mr. McLendon, he said: “Duke did it, it was genius. We did it, it’s jungle ball.”

BLACK MAGIC

ESPN, Sunday and Monday nights at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time.

Directed by Dan Klores; Mr. Klores, Earl Monroe, Libby Geist and David Zieff, producers. An ESPN Original Entertainment, in collaboration with Shoot the Moon Productions.