Widow able to turn his book dream into reality
‘The Capital of Basketball’ chronicles McNamara’s love of high school hoops in D.C.
Chamblee quickly spotted the boxes filled with material for the book and realized immediately her mission.
“I decided I would do whatever it took to get this book finished,” she said. “I couldn’t afford to fail. This book was very important to John, and that made it very important to me.
“This is the last promise I can keep for John. By editing and publishing his book, I can make sure he will be remembered not just for how he died but for how he lived.”
Consider the promise fulfilled. On Sunday, at Politics and Prose on Connecticut Avenue in D.C., Chamblee hosted the book launch for “The Capital of Basketball,” officially bringing to fruition her husband’s dream.
“This book is a love letter from John to basketball, a sport that always held a special place in his heart,” Chamblee said. “I believe his deep-rooted passion and vast knowledge of basketball has been captured in his book.”
McNamara was well underway writing the book and had asked his wife to back up finished files on a thumb drive. Upon reviewing the completed chapters, Chamblee realized the task might not be as challenging as initially anticipated.
“It was obvious to me that John was on the brink of finishing the book,” Chamblee said. “I just needed to check off the remaining items on his to-do list.”
By far the biggest problem involved 178 vintage photos McNamara collected to break up text and put faces to the memorialized players and coaches.
There were no captions, names or dates because the author had all that information inside his head. That sent Chamblee on an odyssey to identify the subjects and include dates and context. Wootten, with his encyclopedic knowledge of local basketball, provided enormous help.
“The Capital of Basketball” is broken into six chapters and begins with The Pioneers: 1900-1950. That foundational portion required the most tedious research and was no doubt the hardest to write.
McNamara nailed it, detailing how, at the turn of the 20th century, a traveling circus founder and physical education teacher named Maurice Joyce brought the young game invented by Dr. James Naismith to D.C. Joyce taught basketball to infantrymen in the local militia but changed the structure from nine-man teams to five, a rule later implemented nationwide.
Simultaneously, Edwin Bancroft (E.B.) Henderson, a Howard-educated writer and activist, introduced the budding sport to Washington’s black students, who innovated a quicker version of the game “with a distinctive style featuring speed, crisp passes, and relentless defense,” McNamara wrote.
Basketball may have been born in Springfield, Massachusetts, McNamara opined, “but it was adopted and raised in Washington.”
Chamblee found her husband had effectively finished his chapters about D.C. area basketball in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. She merely had to edit and finalize a few things.
McNamara had told his wife the book would end with the 1999-2000 basketball season. Wootten was inducted into the Naismith Foundation Basketball Hall of Fame in October 2000.
Chamblee needed help writing the final chapter covering the 1990s and turned to David Elfin, a longtime D.C.-based journalist who once worked with McNamara when they were both part-time high school reporters for The Washington Post.
“It was an honor and the right thing to do,” Elfin said. “Andrea deserved to have the rest of the book done by somebody who knew John and could write the way John wanted it written.”
Gary Williams, the Hall of Fame head coach who led Maryland to the 2002 national championship, wrote the foreword. Williams related how he first got to know McNamara on the professional level then later as a friend.
“‘The Capital of Basketball’ is a fitting and lasting memento for John’s love of D.C. area high school basketball,” Williams wrote.
Wootten, legendary Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski and renowned author John Feinstein were among those who contributed a paragraph of praise and thoughts about McNamara.
Said Al Bertrand, director of Georgetown University Press: “I felt this would be a fitting tribute to John’s memory.”