Praise for King of the Court

Goudsouzian's work is a full, authoritative, incredibly well-researched biography of Russell's life and career, just dense with information on every page. King of the Court does an outstanding job capturing how Russell was very much a man of the '60s, seemingly showing up everywhere, whether talking to Martin Luther King in a Washington, D.C. hotel lobby the night before the 1963 March on Washington or conducting integrated basketball clinics in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964. . . . Goudsouzian demonstrates how, off the court, Russell was in many ways the evolutionary Jackie Robinson in the 1960s, a leader and an inspiration to other black athletes for his fearless resolve to speak out in the name of what he believed was right during the tumultuous civil-rights era, no matter how controversial his sometimes-liberal, sometimes-radical views were to the mainstream. -- ​ESPN.com

So good, so thorough, that I couldn’t possibly do it justice . . . Buy this piece of art, one of the greatest sports biographies ever written, or die. -- Celticstown.com

Brings back the excitement of the great days of the NBA and its legendary players, led by the king of them all, Bill Russell. Best book I've read on basketball in forty years. -- William McSweeney, co-author with Bill Russell of Go Up for Glory

Goudsouzian does a splendid job reminding us just how significant was Bill Russell’s contribution to the struggle for human rights and individual dignity during the tumultuous 1950s and 1960s. . . . It is all here for the reader to savor in this fine new addition to the history of sport. -- ​Journal of American History

Before there were crossover dribbles or slam dunk competitions, before they even kept statistics for blocked shots, Bill Russell dominated the game we call basketball. The respect he demanded as a black man during America's turbulent Civil Rights era made him the personification of a winner in life. King of the Court, like Russell's defense, locks it down, and puts it all in its proper context. Long live the King! -- Todd Boyd, Katherine and Frank Price Endowed Chair for the Study of Race and Popular Culture, University of Southern California

Goudsouzian has seemingly read every book, newspaper article, archival document and magazine piece on or by Bill Russell, as well as hundreds of other pieces surrounding the game and the era in which Russell played.  The author also interviewed dozens of relatives, former teammates, opponents, friends and acquaintances to produce a book that is almost as personal as those authored by Russell himself. At times, it is more so. There are 90 pages of footnotes and 38 pages of bibliography. . . . The research in this book is overwhelmingly impressive, as is the way the author cross-references interview statements against the printed, established facts, illustrating why oral history is so difficult to rely upon for more than anecdotal color. . . . Filled with treasures — detailed game descriptions, insightful analyses of the game of basketball and marvelous observations on the era, including discussions of sports, films, the Civil Rights movement and politics. -- Journal of Sport History 

Aram Goudsouzian, a historian at the University of Memphis, has written a comprehensive, well-researched biography. He seems to have read everything written about (and by) Russell and interviewed many of his former teammates and associates. . . . It’s very much worth reading. If you don’t know much about Russell, this is a good place to start. If you do, it will help place him in context. -- Providence Journal​

Kudos to Aram Goudsouzian for taking such a project on. . . . Probably the best one-stop account of the life on one of sport’s true individuals.  -- Budd Bailey, ​Sports Book Review Center

Goudsouzian combines the biographer’s eye for detail with the historian’s broad view of time and place. . . . King of the Court is a fascinating sports biography, but it is also a prism through which to view the dramatic changes in American society that took place during Russell’s career. . . . In choosing academe, Goudsouzian, who teaches at the University of Memphis, cost the world a topnotch sportswriter. -- Gerry Boyle, ​Colby Magazine

​King of the Court provides a highly nuanced and sophisticated analysis of the great African American basketball player from his earliest days up to the present time. With great skill and much insight, Goudsouzian makes clear that Russell was a very complicated man who was full of contradictions in his own private life and in relationship to his business associates, teammates, opponents, the media, and the larger sporting public. -- David K. Wiggins, George Mason University

Goudsouzian’s book is a careful study . . . Russell was a complex, savvy figure. . . . “King Of The Court” is a measured portrait of an athlete who was revolutionary both within, and beyond the confines of sport. -- ​Bay State Banner

Goudsouzian displays great skill in explaining how this complicated man lived through these difficult times. He takes readers through a journey which explains how basketball evolved from a ‘bush’ to a big league and how African Americans found their way into this city-dominated game. . . . Goudsouzian writes with great insight about a supreme athlete who experienced so much alienation from an activity in which he excelled. --
Braham Dabscheck, ​The Sports IQ 

Bill Russell's life story is only incidentally about basketball. For him the sport was not a life; it was his vehicle for social change, a platform that showcased his vision for America as much as his athletic talent. In his magnificent biography, Aram Goudsouzian captures the nuance and meaning of Russell's career. After reading the book, one will never look at Russell or sports in quite the same way. -- Randy Roberts, Distinguished Professor of History, Purdue University

Without question, Goudsouzian’s eighteen-chapter work is one of the most thorough sports biographies of the past decade. . . . Undoubtedly, bookstores and libraries will place this volume in the sports and biography sections, but it could just as easily be placed with the civil rights books. -- ​Journal of African American History

​Goudsouzian manages to combine a highly readable style with complex, interlocking portraits of an individual, a profession and its surrounding culture, and a society.  Like all the best sportswriting, King of the Court is unafraid of the contradiction, complexity, and ambiguity that must inevitably arise when one looks at professional athletes in this country. . . . This is the sort of thoughtful, compassionate, and honest treatment that all remarkable figures, really, that all of us, deserve.  Anyone with an interest in the NBA, the Celtics or Russell in particular, or post-World War II US history, especially as regards race, will profit from and enjoy this work.  (5 of 5 stars). -- Yago Colas, University of Michigan

Goudsouzian has done a great service . . . Russell was a conflicted soul . . . He was a sort of athletic Socrates, always questioning and never fully accepting the way things were. And, like Socrates, Russell was willing to suffer for his beliefs. As Aram points out, he did in many ways. But in the process he gained the respect of almost everyone he encountered. He was a hard man to like, but he was an easy man to admire. . . . I should add that if you like white-hot game narratives, this book is full of them. -- Marshall Poe, New Books in History​

A provocative, informative, detailed, critical, and balanced work. . . . Throughout the volume, Goudsouzian constructs a complex psychological portrait of Bill Russell. . . . The author and his subject both know that there is no difference between a black man and a human being, yet the contest to marry the two is on-going in American society and Bill Russell represents the best and perhaps, sometimes, the worst of the confrontation. -- The Sixties

Goudsouzian (history, Univ. of Memphis) does an admirable job of telling Russell's story as the first African American basketball superstar during the 1950s and 1960s in the midst of the civil rights movement. He describes a Russell who, subjected to racism throughout his career, was intolerant of injustices and bigotry and who came to view fan adoration as insincere. The author also explores Russell's love/hate relationship with Boston. In sum, Goudsouzian captures the complexities of the man behind the fame, both his strengths and his foibles. Including more than 125 pages of notes and bibliography, this is a valuable resource for American history as well as sports. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. -- ​Choice

Not only is King of the Court one of the most impressive and important sports biographies to come along in many a season, easily in the same class as David Maraniss's When Pride Still Mattered (on Vince Lombardi) and Wil Haygood's Sweet Thunder (on Sugar Ray Robinson), it is also one of the truly incisive books on the intersection of race, civil rights, and popular culture that have appeared in some time. Having grown up in Philadelphia, I was always a Wilt Chamberlain man and always will be, but King of the Court convinced me that Bill Russell defined his age in ways that Chamberlain never did. Russell was a man for all seasons. This is a biography befitting Russell's stature. -- Gerald Early, Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters, Washington University in St. Louis 

It is fitting that this biography of Bill Russell, the complex, cerebral basketball Hall of Famer, should be written by a history professor and conclude with almost 130 pages of notes and bibliography. Clearly this is not a stereotypically hagiographic or tell-all sports biography, yet it is eminently readable. Goudsouzian paints a clear portrait of Russell the athlete, the civil rights advocate, and the man. Russell was outrebounded and outscored by some of his peers, notably the gargantuan Wilt Chamberlain, but he was the ultimate winner: in college, the Olympics, and the NBA, his teams played in 14 winner-take-all championship games, and 14 times they walked away victorious. . . . All students of the game and those old enough to recall television scenes of Boston Garden going mad during a Celtics rally, Russell swatting away shots like flies or Bob Cousy firing no-look passes, and coach Red Auerbach lighting his traditional victory cigar will feast on King of the Court. Highly recommended. -- Library Journal ​(starred review)