Cunningham Scores Big with New Book

By Kim Dunbar

The NBA had Dr. Julius Erving. Olympic basketball history has Dr. Carson Cunningham.

In his recently released book, "American Hoops: U.S. Men’s Olympic Basketball from Berlin to Beijing," Cunningham documents the fascinating—and often untold—history of the United States Olympic basketball teams and their effect on the game as we know it today.

“There’s a lot of stuff written about other sports like baseball, but there isn’t really a lot written about Olympic basketball,” said Cunningham, who decided to start the project at the suggestion of a colleague.

Cunningham was a member of the 2000 Purdue University Final Four team and spent time playing in the Continental Basketball Association and in leagues overseas. His first-hand experience with and knowledge of the game gave him an edge when it came to developing the concept of the book, but it took some clever, and at times extensive, research to make the idea come alive.

“It’s an amazing time to be a writer and a researcher,” said Cunningham, who uses his Ph.D. to teach history at DePaul University.

Cunningham said that in his five years researching the book, he studied microfilm and visited several different libraries, including the AAU Headquarters in Orlando, the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., and the University of Illinois and Notre Dame libraries. He even had some teammates translate old Soviet news articles when he was playing in Estonia, Russia. He also got a little help from a few legendary friends.

“I interviewed two guys from the 1948 Olympic team, Larry Brown (who has been coaching for 35 years and counting, presently with the Charlotte Bobcats), Adrian Dantley (NBA veteran and Denver Nuggets coach) and John Wooden (who is in the Hall of Fame as both a coach and a player),” Cunningham said.

But there was one iconic figure who didn’t return his call: retired NCAA basketball coach Bobby Knight.

“I guess he’s still mad about our team beating his in the [2000 NCAA Tournament],” Cunningham joked.

In the book, Cunningham includes stories and explains the significance of certain moments not widely documented in history books. Moments like the 1952 Olympiad, when Bill Russell changed the game of Olympic basketball.

“No one had ever seen such a quick big man until Russell,” Cunningham said. “In the ’52 Games the Soviets went out and recruited giant humans in order to show their dominance as a country, but Russell and the U.S. came in and just ran them off the floor.”

Russell and his American teammates were the reason the trapezoid lane was added to the International basketball game; it created more space under the basket and required the big men to be more skillful rather than powerful. Cunningham said the International Basketball Federation plans to eliminate the trapezoid in time for the 2012 London Olympics.

“The most surprising thing I found while writing this was how many rules changed in the International game after the first few Olympiads,” Cunningham said. In addition to the aforementioned trapezoid lane, other notable rule modifications included the three-point line, the 30-second clock, and the circumference of the ball—all adaptations from the American game.

“The American style had a dramatic impact on the International game in the first few decades,” said Cunningham. “It paved the way for players like Michael Jordan. He was able to flourish because he came at the right time.”

Jordan’s success as a member of the U.S. Olympic “Dream Team” in 1992 only intensified America’s influence on the game of basketball on the International stage. Cunningham said that in 1998, Chinese 12-year-olds picked Jordan as the second-most influential figure of the 20th century.

“Globally, basketball is the second biggest sport, second only to soccer,” he said.

Although America may seem to rule the world when it comes to this sport, Cunningham said feelings toward the U.S. Olympic basketball teams vary depending on which country one is in.

“During the 2008 Olympics in China, the U.S. basketball team was treated like they were rock stars,” Cunningham said. “But in 2004, they were booed in Greece because people thought they were arrogant Americans.”

But America might not rule the game of basketball for much longer. Cunningham thinks in the very near future an International team will swoop in and sign an NBA player for big bucks, more than any NBA team salary cap would permit.

“That’s when you know things will start changing,” Cunningham said. “It will get a lot of people’s attention.”

But that’s a whole new chapter in American basketball history. Perhaps Cunningham will be game to write it.