The City Game tells the thrilling and heart­break­ing sto­ry of the City Col­lege Beavers, which in 1950 became the only team ever to win the NIT and NCAA bas­ket­ball tour­na­ments in the same year. 

The dou­ble-cham­pi­onship team was, by every mea­sure, extra­or­di­nary. The City Col­lege of New York was known for intel­lec­tu­al achieve­ment, not ath­let­ic prowess. More­over, every sin­gle play­er was either Jew­ish or African-Amer­i­can; the coach was Jew­ish as well. Their great­est vic­to­ry came against the heav­i­ly favored Ken­tucky Wild­cats, a seg­re­gat­ed squad who refused to shake hands with them before the game. 

The fol­low­ing year, though, the team’s start­ing five were arrest­ed for con­spir­ing with gam­blers to ​“shave points.” They were expelled from col­lege and banned from the NBA for life; overnight they turned from heroes to pariahs.

Informed by inter­views with every sur­viv­ing mem­ber of the team, The City Game tells a dif­fer­ent and more com­pli­cat­ed sto­ry: of scape­goats, cor­rup­tion, and how at least one oth­er col­lege – pro­tect­ed by police and pow­er­ful reli­gious and polit­i­cal lead­ers — man­aged to escape the scan­dal unscathed.

 

About the Author

Matthew Good­man is a New York Times best­selling author whose books include, Jewish Food: The World at Table and Eighty Days: Nel­lie Bly and Eliz­a­beth Bisland’s His­to­ry-Mak­ing Race Around the World. His books have been Barnes & Noble Dis­cov­er Great New Writ­ers and Indie Next ​“Great Reads” selec­tions and a GoodReads Choice final­ist; they have been trans­lat­ed into eight languages.