In 1974, Rick Telander intended to spend a few days doing a magazine piece on the court wizards of Brooklyns Bedford-Stuyvesant. He ended up staying the entire summer, becoming part of the players lives and eventually the coach of a loose aggregation known as the Subway Stars.
Telander tells of everything he saw: the on-court flash, the off-court jargon, the late-night graffiti raids, the tireless efforts of one promoter-hustler-benefactor to get these kids a chance at a college education. He lets the kids speak for themselves, revealing their grand dreams and ambitions. But he never flinches from showing us how far their dreams are from reality. The roots of todays inner-city basketball can be traced to the world Telander presents in Heaven Is a Playground, the first book of its kind.
