Ivy League basketball has an image problem. Not only does it labor under the mistaken belief that bad basketball is played in the hallowed halls, but it also fights America's class war stereotypes. Some of the contempt the Ivies battle comes from the perception that these are elite, spoiled kids who should be rowing on rivers or winning badminton tournaments.
I fell prey to that attitude myself when I flippantly stated that Ivy schools should not be allowed to storm the floor. I have since recanted publicly, and I'm honest enough to admit that I was employing reverse snobbery when I made that flat statement.
Kathy Orton's book Outside the Limelight: Basketball in the Ivy League does not explicitly set out to dispel the ivory tower mystique, but that's the effect it had on me. Midway through the first chapter, I had an epiphany. These kids don't have to play basketball. And that's why we should respect those who do. There's no glamor in it for them. No scholarships and no increased status on campus. Bus rides to leaky gyms are their rewards for dedication to the sport. Nearly every kid on the floor at Harvard or Dartmouth over the years could more readily secure his future wealth by studying, rather than going to practice, but they just can't put down the orange roundie. That's love of the game, right there.
Orton's book focuses on the 2005-2006 Ivy campaign. It was a turbulent year for the usually predictable league, as traditional power Princeton stumbled under the leadership of Joe Scott, after having dominated the league for over a decade. The other "P" school - Penn - won the league that year and the next, but the duel for primacy between the Tigers and Quakers has recently taken a backseat to the emergent Cornell dynasty.
As such, the book is a bit of a capsule of a time gone by. But this is the Ivy League - things haven't changed that much. The gyms are still the same, and the players still face the perception that they are (relatively) dumb jocks who get preferential treatment in the admissions process.
That's why you should read it. Get to know these guys instead of stereotyping them. They're real ballers.
If you're like me, you might find the first section a bit of a chore to wade through, and I think I know why that is. The non-conference season in the Ivy is a litany of losses in far-away places, and some of the descriptions of game action suffer from the fact that Orton was likely unable to leave her full-time job with the Washington Post to follow the teams around. The games she was able to attend - especially the conference tilts - sparkle with the sort of detail that can only come from being there in person - an object lesson for any aspiring hoops writer.
This is a great book for anyone who wants to delve behind the highlight-package view of sports (or sportz, as Kyle would have it), and that's exactly the sort of people who read this site.
So go for it.