Players and Pretenders: The Basketball Team That Couldn't Shoot Straight

Players and Pretenders tells the story of the flip side of basketball's "March Madness," where the game is played by average players for love, not for money. At the end of the 1970s at Bard College, where there was no pretense of institutional support, Charley Rosen gathered his hoops hopefuls and put together a basketball season whose impact reached far beyond the court.

Writing with a humorous touch, Rosen details the Running Red Devils' season, simultaneously examining the lives of thos...