Daniel's Directory

https://sportsstories.substack.com/p/how-the-harlem-globetrotters-integrated

The characters of this story include the all-white Minneapolis Lakers and the all-black Harlem Globetrotters of 1948. The narrative structure of the story gives a good history of the segregation of the sport of basketball to lead itself up to a story about a tipping point in the integration of basketball. This story is about a small, but impactful moment in the sport of basketball and its fight to integrate the highest league of basketball.

The event in this story is true, but considering Hersey it has some issues that make it somewhat exaggerated. The problem with this event is that it was not as defining of a moment as Jackie Robinson stepping onto a major league diamond. The writer can look at the history after this game and say that the game led to the integration of the newly formed NBA, but there is no way to know for sure whether this exhibition directly caused the new association to integrate. This exaggeration allows the story to lose some of its validity, and makes it less of a historical account and more of an anecdote.

I am basing my 5 other stories off of this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/sports/olympics/stanford-cuts-olympics.html

1. Talk to an athlete affected by the cut of their program on what the future looks like for them.
2. Talk to a parent of a student-athlete in one of the programs about how their kid grew up playing the sport.
3. Talk to an AD at a lower level in college to see how these decisions may trickle down.
4. How does this impact the rest of the campus?
5. Talk to another Division-1 athletic director about how this decision could move laterally to other schools.

I would most like to talk to an AD at a lower level to see how this decision could trickle down to their programs. I think this would be a good story because it is something that hits closer to home as I have grown up around small college athletics.

A story is an event that can be told to others to inform them of an event or sequence of events, or to entertain them with.
I think stories are needed in society and in our interactions to help relate to other people’s experiences or learn from them. When people hear stories they are then able to empathize or relate with the person because they, for a moment, lived the event through the eyes of the person who lived it or a person that is well-versed on an event.

#1 – Why is the world the way that it is?
#2 – How do I be good at life?
#3 – What is the most important thing a person can do?
#4 – When is the end?
#5 – Can I graduate yet?