In 1950, an underrated team won both the NCAA and NIT basketball tournaments, a feat never accomplished before or since. They played for tuition-free City College of New York, which had no scholarships or country-club campus to attract the best high-school talent.

For those city kids, basketball was like life–threading through tight spaces under pressure, seeing openings and seizing them, making moves while keeping track of where others are, using every second and every inch to score in a game where bodies and brains are always in motion.

At City College, from which I had graduated and was then working in publicity, the game was a religion. We prayed for grace over the hardwood floor of Madison Square Garden and, that year, it came. Our undersized five, sons of Jewish immigrants and black kids whose ancestors had been slaves, won it all.

They were immediately hailed as the “Cinderella Team,” but in less than a year, the fairy tale was over. Six of them were indicted for taking bribes from gamblers.

In our office, we had to deal with the uproar. Columnists and commentators who had spread the myth rushed to tear it down. Politicians viewed with alarm. Clergymen sermonized over Moral Decay.

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