Playgrounds to the Pros

"Author Jeff Karzen has captured the spirit — the drama and the fun — of the River City during one of its great roundball runs. Now the legacies come to life through this incredibly well-sourced book that leaps past the scores and stats. It plunges into the inside tracks of some of the back stories intertwined in the high school roots that led to some historic hoops from the late 1980s to well into the 21st century." --Community Word

“You can’t tell the story of basketball in Illinois without telling the story of Peoria basketball. Jeff Karzen’s history is full of colorful characters, with deep backstories of their own, and the book does a terrific job of both uncovering these stories and telling them in an entertaining fashion. Heading into this book, I knew a little about Peoria basketball. Now I feel connected to it.”--Will Leitch, author of How Lucky: A Novel

“It's hard to explain how dominant Peoria basketball came to be during that period in the 1990s and 2000s. With a population around 200,000, Peoria produced one of the most overpowering high school basketball teams in U.S. history--and Manual High was not the city's only elite team. Once you read about the manic competition that surrounded former star player Tom Wilson's transfer from one school to another, you'll be hooked through to the final chapter about the often heartbreaking but ultimately triumphant story of NBA champion Shaun Livingston. The idea for this book was wonderful, but the execution beats it by double-digits.”--Mike DeCourcy, senior writer, The Sporting News