Book Review Slam Dunked The NCAAs Shameful Reac Essays

Book Review: Slam Dunked: The NCAA's Shameful Reaction to Athletic Integration in the Deep South Throughout the years ULL has had many great moments in sports and Louisiana history for this reason t T he book I will be reviewing is a Slam Dunked : the NCAA's S s hameful R r eaction to A a thletic I i ntegration in the Deep South by Ron Gomez , and f F ormer UL Basketball coach Beryl Shipley. The book begins in 1954, shortly before Shipley's time at UL . in 1954. At th at is time the south was still segregated by race, meaning and S s outhern university's universities w h ere were still segregated by race. During that time ULL was also known as Southwestern Louisiana Institute (SLI) d uring that time and was the first all-white s S chool in the south to accept African-American Undergraduate students. Although T hough this transition was not made did not happen over night overnight or without incident, it was do ne nonviolently without any help from law enforcement. In 1957, The University brought in thirty-one 31 - year - old B eryl Shipley as the new h H ead b B asketball coach. It didn't take long for coach Shipley to make a difference in Southwestern Basketball . , W w ithin his first year of coaching , game attendance almost nearly doubled often times bringing a thousand to two thousand people. Which might This may not seem like all that much, but Ek Long gym (the primary venue at the time) only holds a little just over 1100 people. Attendance was not Shipley's only area of achievement . During his time as head coach, the team w on inning many Gulf States Conference Championships . In 1965 the USL Basketball team qualified for the N ational Association Intercollegiate Athletics AIA National Collegiate Championships tournament , although it was against the rules set by the Louisiana State board of education for t he all-white USL team to play integrated teams to play in the all-white tournament. Shipley received approval to play from by both the A a thletic director and President of the University . , However, the president and athletic director eventually revoked their approval that was later taken away after receiving pressure from the state board. After a student protest on the front l awn of the presidents president's house the , president was he was forced to allow the team to play. The play. The next year , the new University President , insert name here} , brought ushered in an era of change by by giving allowing Shipley the okay to recruit black players, making Shipley the first coach in the south to have black P p layers on his team . , b B ut this decision did not go without opposition . , Shipley received tons of backlash and ridicule for signing black players . Later , the state board ruled that scholarships would not be given to the black players. Shipley responded to this by getting local black leaders and others from the community to put their money together to build a scholarship fund for the black players. However, T t he state board fired back retaliated by reporting Shipley's actions to the NCAA and as a result the basketball program was put under a two year suspension and banned from all post season play. Two years after Once their suspension was lifted in 1972 , the USL t e am jumped was promoted to NCAA division 1 , finishing ranked in one of the top 10 teams in the nation and also ma de k ing it to the NCAA national tournament. Making USL was the first team to ever make it to the national tournament during their first year of eligibility . The team repeated this same success in 1973, but this success was short lived because shortly after the T t ournament Coach Shipley Resigned . , and And shortly after his resignation , the NCAA found USL G g uilty of violating over 100 NCAA rules. Doing everything from changing high school transcripts for players, giving players small cash payments, and