Jack McCallum

My twelfth book, THE REAL HOOSIERS, is available and I’m proud of it. It's a deep-dive into the extraordinary story of Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis, which produced Tuskegee Airmen, generals, opera singers, blues musicians, distinguished statesmen and stateswomen, and, oh, yes, a basketball immortal named Oscar Robertson.

But so much more is in the book--the roots of basketball itself; its origin story along parallel lines (the Black Game and the White Game); the seminal importance of the Hoosier state, and especially Oscar, to the growth of the game; the connections, some real, some imagined, between the Attucks teams and the movie Hoosiers that still lives in the hearts and minds of so many.

It's inspired a lot of dialogue, and I’d like you to share your thoughts with me if you’d care to. To that end, I’ve established an email. Here it is:

jackshoosiersbook@gmail

It has been optioned for a documentary. I hope you enjoy it.

A few other things.

--I'm probably best known (if I'm known at all) for my 2012 book DREAM TEAM. Much to my amazement, it keeps on selling. I do not object. Keep on buying.

--A podcast drawn from the book, THE DREAM TEAM TAPES, got 2.5 million downloads. You can Google it and listen. Regretfully, there's a part when I sing.

With the fabulous J.A. Adande, I also did a podcast about THE REDEEM TEAM, also Googleable. I do not sing on that and neither does J.A.

-One of my sons (Chris) is a Spanish translator and the other (Jamie) is a professor of sociology at Middlebury College. Please check out his books.

--I played a lot of pickup basketball until I tore my Achilles. Had a knee replacement, too, and some other stuff. But I'm still chuffing along as they say ... somewhere? England maybe?

--Though it is more in the romantic tradition of journalism to have an eclectic two-fingered typing style, I type well, owing to a background in piano and a typing class in high school. I now suck at the piano. And I would probably suck at high school if I went back.

--I have five grandkids--Oliver, Eudora, Zev Asa and Tessa. They love me, but--truth be told--they love their grandmother (my wife Donna) a little more.

--My golf game is just good enough to be ultimately disappointing.

--I count myself lucky to have been covering the NBA in the 1980s and early 2000s. And I count myself luckier to have worked at Sports Illustrated for 30 years. Yes, the mag is not what it used to be, but, what it once was? It was magnificent.