It is no secret that, at times, athletic teams can mean far more to their supporters than their win-loss totals at the end of the season.

It is no secret that, at times, athletic teams can mean far more to their

supporters than their win-loss totals at the end of the season.

Sometimes, teams can carry with them the hopes and dreams of thousands of

people. Other times, they can help define a community, a city, a state, or even a

nation. And sometimes, individual basketball games can mean much more to a

society than what the final score was.

Your assignment is to find, and write about, a basketball team whose

importance, during one season, went beyond its coaches and players. The 1954

Milan (Indiana) Indians were one such team. Texas Western in 1966 was another.

There are many, many others.

Your job will be to find such a team, research its season and its personnel,

and then write a three-page essay—approximately 800 to 1000 words—on why you

believe that the team you selected is important beyond what it did on the court.

You may pick a team at any level of basketball, from anywhere in the world, and

from any time period.

At the end of your paper, you will need to list at least three different

sources—books, articles, websites, interviews—that you used to write your essay.

Footnotes or in-text source citations are not needed.

Note: A great place for you to begin looking for a team to write about is the

Hatcher Library. Go to the 6 th floor and find the books with call numbers that begin

with GV 884. Here you will find hundreds of books about basketball and specific

basketball teams.

One other note: you may not use the Fab Five as the team in your essay. Ditto

for the two teams featured in The Secret Game.