Rebound!

“Bill Russell was the key player on Boston Celtics teams that won 11 championships in 13 years in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  Yet Russell never felt comfortable in Boston, a notoriously segregated and often overtly racist city.  In 1974, five years after Russell’s retirement, the city was forced to embark on a bitterly contested program of bussed integration.  It was a city divided.  And the Celtics fell on hard times.  Then Larry Bird, a white forward from southern Indiana, arrived.  Black and white Beantown citizens found common ground in their admiration for Bird’s excellence and, Connelly argues, began to heal.  There are two books here: one is a brief history of the pain caused by the desegregation ruling; the other, more interesting one is a history of the post-Russell Celtics.  Connelly, a native Bostonian, lived through the racial turmoil and was a devoted Celtics fan.  Worth reading, both as an account of urban political turmoil and as a basketball history.” – Booklist, December 1, 2008

The Bulletin (circ.: 30,000) and www.bulletinnewspapers.com, December 18, 2008

“At its heart, Connelly’s book is often a love letter to the city and praise for how it — like the Celtics team it loves — has proved resilient over the years.”

Booklist, December 1, 2008 (circ.: 24,000)

“Bill Russell was the key player on Boston Celtics teams that won 11 championships in 13 years in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  Yet Russell never felt comfortable in Boston, a notoriously segregated and often overtly racist city.  In 1974, five years after Russell’s retirement, the city was forced to embark on a bitterly contested program of bussed integration.  It was a city divided.  And the Celtics fell on hard times.  Then Larry Bird, a white forward from southern Indiana, arrived.  Black and white Beantown citizens found common ground in their admiration for Bird’s excellence and, Connelly argues, began to heal.  There are two books here: one is a brief history of the pain caused by the desegregation ruling; the other…a history of the post-Russell Celtics.  Connelly, a native Bostonian, lived through the racial turmoil and was a devoted Celtics fan.  Worth reading, both as an account of urban political turmoil and as a basketball history.”

The book seamlessly ties these two themes - busing and basketball - together, with each subject trading chapters back and forth with the other. The reader is taken on a trip through the history of the city and its basketball team from its birth right up to its “rebirth” - the Larry Bird-led 1981 championship Celtics. Well written and well researched, Rebound will be an entertaining read for anyone, whether they are a New Englander or not.
--collegehoopsnet.com, April 8, 2009

There are two books here: one is a brief history of the pain caused by the desegregation ruling; the other, more interesting one is a history of the post-Russell Celtics.  Connelly, a native Bostonian, lived through the racial turmoil and was a devoted Celtics fan.  Worth reading, both as an account of urban political turmoil and as a basketball history.
--Booklist, December 1, 2008

At its heart, Connelly’s book is often a love letter to the city and praise for how it — like the Celtics team it loves — has proved resilent over the years.
--The Bulletin, December 18, 2008