State
Published by: Agate Publishing
Sales Date: 2020-09-08
Set against a backdrop of social change during the 1970s, State is an important, compelling, and entertaining first-person account of what it was like to live through both traditional gender discrimination in sports and the joy of the very first days of equality—or at least the closest that one high school girls’ basketball team ever came to it.
In 1975, freshman Melissa Isaacson—along with the other girls who’d spent summers with their noses pressed against the fences of Little League ball fields, unable to play—entered Niles West High School in suburban Chicago with one goal: make a team, any team. For “Missy,” that team turned out to be basketball.
Title IX had passed just three years earlier, prohibiting gender discrimination in education programs or activities, including athletics. As a result, states like Illinois began implementing varsity competition—and state tournaments—for girls’ high school sports.
At the time, Missy and her teammates didn’t really understand the legislation. All they knew was they finally had opportunities—to play, to learn, to sweat, to lose, to win—and an identity: They were athletes. They were a team.
And in 1979, they became state champions.
With the intimate insights of the girl who lived it, the pacing of a born storyteller, and the painstaking reporting of a veteran sports journalist, Isaacson chronicles one high school team’s journey to the state championship. In doing so, Isaacson shows us how a group of “tomboy” misfits found themselves and each other, and how basketball rescued them from their collective frustrations and troubled homes, and forever altered the course of their lives. Supplemental educator materials are available from the publisher.
In 1975, freshman Melissa Isaacson—along with the other girls who’d spent summers with their noses pressed against the fences of Little League ball fields, unable to play—entered Niles West High School in suburban Chicago with one goal: make a team, any team. For “Missy,” that team turned out to be basketball.
Title IX had passed just three years earlier, prohibiting gender discrimination in education programs or activities, including athletics. As a result, states like Illinois began implementing varsity competition—and state tournaments—for girls’ high school sports.
At the time, Missy and her teammates didn’t really understand the legislation. All they knew was they finally had opportunities—to play, to learn, to sweat, to lose, to win—and an identity: They were athletes. They were a team.
And in 1979, they became state champions.
With the intimate insights of the girl who lived it, the pacing of a born storyteller, and the painstaking reporting of a veteran sports journalist, Isaacson chronicles one high school team’s journey to the state championship. In doing so, Isaacson shows us how a group of “tomboy” misfits found themselves and each other, and how basketball rescued them from their collective frustrations and troubled homes, and forever altered the course of their lives. Supplemental educator materials are available from the publisher.
Prologue
Chapter 1: Our Coach
Chapter 2: “Well, I guess I’ll go try sports”
Chapter 3: Grovers and Wooders and Billy Schnurr
Chapter 4: Inappropriate Cheering and the Half-Court Shot
Chapter 5: “Son, son, get up!”
Chapter 6: New Beginnings, New Rituals
Chapter 7: Shirley’s Arm, Bridget’s Face, and Mighty Hinsdale South
Chapter 8: Dark Secrets
Chapter 9: Fun with Concussions and those Weird Lumps
Chapter 10: Addition by Subtraction
Chapter 11: Having It All
Chapter 12: The Mighty Susies and Other Technicalities
Chapter 13: The Ultimate Slap
Chapter 14: Saturday Night Fever and a Champaign Hangover
Chapter 15: Big Whip
Chapter 16: Safe Haven
Chapter 17: Earl’s Girls
Chapter 18: Dreidl, Dreidl, Dreidl
Chapter 19: Let It Snow
Chapter 20: Perfect Shmerfect
Chapter 21: Joy Is . . .
Chapter 22: Why Not Us?
Chapter 23: April Fools
Epilogue
Melissa Isaacson is an award-winning sportswriter, author, and public speaker. In more than thirty years on the job, she has covered every major US sports championship as well as the Olympics. She has written for numerous publications, including long tenures at such institutions as ESPN and the Chicago Tribune. She was the Tribune’s first woman columnist and beat writer on the Bulls and Bears, and she covered the Michael Jordan–led Bulls over their six NBA titles. She is currently on the faculty of Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and lives in the Chicago area. Teacher resources for State can be found here.
Praise for Melissa Isaacson's State:
"For a reminder of how far girls and women have come in sports, turn to State: A Team, a Triumph, a Transformation... Isaacson is at her best when recounting personal stories of herself and her teammates, and also when she lays down historical markers to put the championship into context. . . . Those parts of the book will keep readers rapt."—The New York Times Book Review
“In State, Melissa Isaacson perfectly captures the birth of Title IX and a time when high school girls were starting to gain equality in sports and in the classroom, showing us how opportunities on the court can light a path for girls to become their authentic selves in all aspects of their lives.” —Billie Jean King, founder of the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative
“I have known and admired Melissa Isaacson for three decades but never understood where her unending passion for sports was born until I had the opportunity to read State. In this interesting and insightful journey to a different time, Missy provides a wonderful reminder about the lessons these games provide and the unbreakable bonds they create.” —Mike Greenberg, ESPN host and New York Times bestselling author
“Here’s the thing about a story whose ending is known: it needs to be told by a graceful writer, who can use humor in one sentence and tug heartstrings in the next. Melissa Isaacson’s tale of her Niles West girls basketball team capturing a state championship after years of hard work and heartbreak is a wonderful read about determination and dreams realized. But it’s bigger than that. It unflinchingly analyzes behaviors from a tricky time for anyone—high school—that is made trickier by the responsibilities of playing girls sports in a new world, the first few years after Title IX legislation. It captures the powerful bond of enduring relationships that stand the test of time, regardless of how much contact there has been in the years since. Perhaps most important, it reminds us all what can happen when individual desires are set aside for the greater good of a team. The power to create lasting memories is possible. What’s best: Isaacson’s words are merely the vehicle to speak for a transformative team.” —K.C. Johnson, Bulls beat writer, Chicago Tribune
“State is storytelling at its finest. Melissa Isaacson will captivate readers with this long overdue memoir of heartache and triumph. Many will relate to the experiences Isaacson recaptures, and those who don't will gain a greater respect for trailblazers in women's sports. This book covers the scope and span of life as it can only be told by a daughter, a teammate, an athlete, and a friend. It is full of heart and history—a wonderful combination!” —Marjorie Herrera Lewis, author of When the Men Were Gone
“You’ve probably never heard of the 1975 Niles West High School girls’ basketball team. But theirs is a terrific story, and as fate would have it, their player Missy Isaacson went on to become a superb writer. If you love sports, you’ll love her fascinating, moving, funny, and richly reported account of how her team finally won state.” —Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist and author
“The best sports stories aren’t actually sports stories—they’re stories about life, highs, lows, bonds, exceptionalism, tragedy. That’s what makes Melissa Isaacson’s State such a tremendous piece of work. You think you’re reading about a girls’ basketball team, only to discover you’ve been lifted to new emotional heights. What a terrific read.” —Jeff Pearlman, author of Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton and Football for a Buck
“State is so much more than just another high school championship story. Melissa Isaacson brilliantly chronicles the individual and team backstory that created this special championship team. State also vividly captures the essence of why a young girl’s equal opportunity to be educated through sport is a civil right and NOT merely a matter of quotas.” —Doug Bruno, head coach of the DePaul University women’s basketball team
“Melissa Isaacson has written a beautiful book about a time and place that is almost unfathomable to us now: when girls’ and women’s sports were not yet popular, widespread, or vital to our culture. And yet the pages of State come alive with the riveting story of a team of high school basketball players whose dreams took them to the place all athletes hope to go: a championship that lives with them to this day. This is their inspiring story. This is Title IX come to life.” —Christine Brennan, USA Today columnist, CNN and ABC commentator, and author of Best Seat in the House and the bestselling Inside Edge