duncan228
04-13-2010, 04:16 PM
‘No Crossover’ Shows That Iverson is Much More Than a Basketball Figure (http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=tsn-nocrossovershowsthat)
SportingNews
The most immediately notable thing about Steve James’ No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson, which premieres on ESPN at 8 ET tonight, is that it features very few clips of its subject doing the thing he’s most famous for: playing basketball. Outside of a few shots at the start of Iverson (then "Bubba Chuck," not "The Answer") starring for Bethel High in Hampton, Va., and some bits near the close showing A.I. in the NBA, Iverson is as much a football star as a basketball player in No Crossover, an ungodly prep talent who divided his hometown across racial and social lines.
That’s because the documentary focuses on Hampton far more than on the path Iverson took from Hampton to NBA stardom. This is a piece about a town’s reaction as a microcosm for the divided public reaction to Iverson that’s followed him throughout his career. He’s the figure around which every aspect of No Crossover swirls, not its primary subject.
The background on the trial, if you’re unfamiliar: On Valentine’s Day in 1993, Iverson (the top-ranked high-school basketball star in his class) and several teammates, all African-American, got involved in a serious fight with a group of white teenagers at a bowling alley in Hampton. Punches and chairs were thrown, with four Bethel players being charged, including Iverson, who was hit with a rarely used felony charge of "maiming by mob"—a charge designed to combat lynching—for allegedly hitting a white woman in the head with a chair. A video exists, but it’s very shaky and grainy.
The 17-year-old Iverson and two of his friends were convicted and initially received sentences ranging from three to five years in prison, only for Gov. Douglas Wilder—the first African-American governor in state history—to grant them clemency after public outcry. Iverson served only four months in prison.
James, who directed Hoop Dreams (along with The Wire, still one of the two best works of art about the American inner city), tracks the trial in great detail, covering both the legal twists and turns and the public response to the trial. Sides were drawn in similar fashion to the O.J. Simpson trial that would soon follow: blacks typically sided with Iverson; whites thought he was a hoodlum who deserved to go to jail (with many members of each race on the other side, too, of course). Inflammatory newspaper columns were written, outcry was voiced in the black social locus of the church, and conspiracy theories were created on both sides to explain the courts’ treatment of Iverson. Clear-headed responses were at a premium—this was an event that elicited strong emotional responses in Hampton. There was no middle ground.
As James explains, the reasons for that lack of agreement are complicated. Like much of Virginia, Hampton has a difficult racial history: It’s the location at which slaves first came to our shores (or, in the language of the city’s euphemistic tourism information, where Africans first came to America), and the divisions between blacks and whites in the town were stark. James, who grew up in Hampton and played basketball for Bethel’s rival Hampton High, recalls how he would only interact with his teammates on buses to games and on the court, but never in social situations. Pep rallies saw black students sit on one side of the court and whites on the other, with each side challenging the other to see who could cheer loudest. At the time, it was just a friendly competition, but James now sees it for what the barely veiled racial animosity that it was.
For James, this is the key role of the Iverson trial: It exposed the racial strife that had gone undiscussed in Hampton for too long. There’s a cliche that sports bring different kinds of people together and help us understand each other, but No Crossover shows that this communion is often only short-lived, or at worst a delusion. Before the trial, Iverson brought sports fans together under the banner of Bethel and appreciation of a singular talent. But the trial and its aftermath changed his public image forever. He was suddenly not only an athlete, but a social lightning rod that divided fans into one of two camps: He’s a thug ballhog, or he’s a unique talent who should be showered with praise.
The greatness of No Crossover is that, in James’ typical style, there are no good guys or bad guys—just guys. The depiction is even-handed, with the event shown in all its nuance and confusion. James doesn’t reach for easy rationalizations; he simply tells the viewer what happened. It’s a film that wants you to ruminate and consider all sides, not draw conclusions.
Still, the issue of how this even changed Iverson remains. James depicts The Answer truthfully, complete with the frustrations, magnetism, and, yes, selfishness that have made him such a difficult figure throughout the ’90s and ’00s. In the film’s coda, Iverson appears at his basketball camp in Hampton, with only black kids in attendance. It’s mentioned that he hasn’t held the camp in his hometown for several years, a source of some disagreement between the star and leaders in the community. What becomes clear is that Iverson has his own tortured relationship to his hometown in the same way that Hampton is torn over its most famous son. He emerges as a complicated figure who defies the simple opinions that typify discussion of his career and legacy.
This film will not change your broader opinion about Iverson. What it will do, though, is convince you that he’s the key cultural figure of his basketball era, someone who deserves special attention and study well beyond his retirement.
A veritable cottage industry of films and books on Allen Iverson is likely to pop up within the next 20 years. Thankfully, No Crossover is a heck of a way to start things off.
SportingNews
The most immediately notable thing about Steve James’ No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson, which premieres on ESPN at 8 ET tonight, is that it features very few clips of its subject doing the thing he’s most famous for: playing basketball. Outside of a few shots at the start of Iverson (then "Bubba Chuck," not "The Answer") starring for Bethel High in Hampton, Va., and some bits near the close showing A.I. in the NBA, Iverson is as much a football star as a basketball player in No Crossover, an ungodly prep talent who divided his hometown across racial and social lines.
That’s because the documentary focuses on Hampton far more than on the path Iverson took from Hampton to NBA stardom. This is a piece about a town’s reaction as a microcosm for the divided public reaction to Iverson that’s followed him throughout his career. He’s the figure around which every aspect of No Crossover swirls, not its primary subject.
The background on the trial, if you’re unfamiliar: On Valentine’s Day in 1993, Iverson (the top-ranked high-school basketball star in his class) and several teammates, all African-American, got involved in a serious fight with a group of white teenagers at a bowling alley in Hampton. Punches and chairs were thrown, with four Bethel players being charged, including Iverson, who was hit with a rarely used felony charge of "maiming by mob"—a charge designed to combat lynching—for allegedly hitting a white woman in the head with a chair. A video exists, but it’s very shaky and grainy.
The 17-year-old Iverson and two of his friends were convicted and initially received sentences ranging from three to five years in prison, only for Gov. Douglas Wilder—the first African-American governor in state history—to grant them clemency after public outcry. Iverson served only four months in prison.
James, who directed Hoop Dreams (along with The Wire, still one of the two best works of art about the American inner city), tracks the trial in great detail, covering both the legal twists and turns and the public response to the trial. Sides were drawn in similar fashion to the O.J. Simpson trial that would soon follow: blacks typically sided with Iverson; whites thought he was a hoodlum who deserved to go to jail (with many members of each race on the other side, too, of course). Inflammatory newspaper columns were written, outcry was voiced in the black social locus of the church, and conspiracy theories were created on both sides to explain the courts’ treatment of Iverson. Clear-headed responses were at a premium—this was an event that elicited strong emotional responses in Hampton. There was no middle ground.
As James explains, the reasons for that lack of agreement are complicated. Like much of Virginia, Hampton has a difficult racial history: It’s the location at which slaves first came to our shores (or, in the language of the city’s euphemistic tourism information, where Africans first came to America), and the divisions between blacks and whites in the town were stark. James, who grew up in Hampton and played basketball for Bethel’s rival Hampton High, recalls how he would only interact with his teammates on buses to games and on the court, but never in social situations. Pep rallies saw black students sit on one side of the court and whites on the other, with each side challenging the other to see who could cheer loudest. At the time, it was just a friendly competition, but James now sees it for what the barely veiled racial animosity that it was.
For James, this is the key role of the Iverson trial: It exposed the racial strife that had gone undiscussed in Hampton for too long. There’s a cliche that sports bring different kinds of people together and help us understand each other, but No Crossover shows that this communion is often only short-lived, or at worst a delusion. Before the trial, Iverson brought sports fans together under the banner of Bethel and appreciation of a singular talent. But the trial and its aftermath changed his public image forever. He was suddenly not only an athlete, but a social lightning rod that divided fans into one of two camps: He’s a thug ballhog, or he’s a unique talent who should be showered with praise.
The greatness of No Crossover is that, in James’ typical style, there are no good guys or bad guys—just guys. The depiction is even-handed, with the event shown in all its nuance and confusion. James doesn’t reach for easy rationalizations; he simply tells the viewer what happened. It’s a film that wants you to ruminate and consider all sides, not draw conclusions.
Still, the issue of how this even changed Iverson remains. James depicts The Answer truthfully, complete with the frustrations, magnetism, and, yes, selfishness that have made him such a difficult figure throughout the ’90s and ’00s. In the film’s coda, Iverson appears at his basketball camp in Hampton, with only black kids in attendance. It’s mentioned that he hasn’t held the camp in his hometown for several years, a source of some disagreement between the star and leaders in the community. What becomes clear is that Iverson has his own tortured relationship to his hometown in the same way that Hampton is torn over its most famous son. He emerges as a complicated figure who defies the simple opinions that typify discussion of his career and legacy.
This film will not change your broader opinion about Iverson. What it will do, though, is convince you that he’s the key cultural figure of his basketball era, someone who deserves special attention and study well beyond his retirement.
A veritable cottage industry of films and books on Allen Iverson is likely to pop up within the next 20 years. Thankfully, No Crossover is a heck of a way to start things off.