TAKING REAL ACTION
Andrew Maraniss on his new series of biographies for young readers
“BEYOND THE GAME: LEBRON JAMES” AND “BEYOND THE GAME: MAYA MOORE” by Andrew Maraniss (Viking Books for Young Readers, each 96 pages, each $17).
Beginning with “Strong Inside” (2014), which told the story of Perry Wallace, the first Black player in SEC basketball, Andrew Maraniss’ work has placed sports in a larger social context. His subsequent books, including “Games of Deception” (2019), “Singled Out” (2021) and “Inaugural Ballers” (2022), have explored the many ways sports can serve as a mirror reflecting the best and worst aspects of our culture. In a new series of biographies for young readers, “Beyond the Game: Athletes Change the World,” Maraniss features the positive social contributions of notable athletes, highlighting their influence and achievements outside the world of athletics.
The first two volumes of the series, focused on basketball stars LeBron James and Maya Moore, were released this month, coinciding with the paperback release of “Inaugural Ballers” and a 10th anniversary edition of “Strong Inside.” Maraniss answered questions from Chapter 16 by email.
Q: The intersection of sports, identity and social justice has been at the core of your books for adults and teens. What were the challenges of bringing those themes to books for children?
A: Most sports biographies for children tend to focus on an athlete’s achievements in their chosen sport: obstacles overcome, turning points, big games, influential coaches or mentors, that sort of thing. There is a place for those kinds of books, but with this series I want to explore the ways that some athletes are using their platforms to help other people.
Despite efforts by some conservative activists and politicians to restrict the topics kids can read about, stories that deal honestly with real issues are exactly the kinds of books that many parents want their kids to read. Kids and families are living these issues every day, so how can reading about them be too heavy? It’s just a matter of how to tell the stories and introduce the topics in a way that young kids find entertaining and meaningful.
Q: Why begin the series with LeBron James and Maya Moore? What’s especially compelling about their stories?
A: Maya Moore gave up her professional basketball career, while she was at the very pinnacle, to help free an innocent man from prison. LeBron James has one of the biggest platforms in the history of sports and has used it to speak out on important social issues despite calls for him to “shut up and dribble.” And he’s never forgotten where he came from, helping people in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, by starting a school for struggling students and safety-net programs for low-income families.
I’m not interested in writing about athletes who are merely writing checks for a cause, recording public-service announcements or performing community service for the cameras. In both cases, I felt like Maya Moore and LeBron James were doing real, substantial work to help other people. That’s what the series is all about. This is not to say that athletes are role models in every aspect of their lives or that the people I write about in this series haven’t made — or won’t make — mistakes. But hopefully their willingness to take real action on behalf of others will be inspiring to the kids who read these books.
Q: Your body of work makes it clear that the world of sports has never been immune to political and social controversy, yet there’s still a common complaint that athletics should somehow be above all that. Why do you think so many people want sports to exist in a realm free of real-world conflict?
A: Sports is an escape from the real world for a lot of fans — me included. I love to watch a game, cheer for my team and forget about everything else in my life for a couple of hours. But we have to acknowledge that often what is considered “normal” or apolitical is actually just a reflection of prevailing politics. Was a routine SEC basketball game before Perry Wallace desegregated the league in 1967 a political statement in and of itself? Yes. Was a typical high school in the 1950s that offered a basketball team for boys but not for girls reinforcing political norms? Yes.
At its best, sports is supposed to be a meritocracy, where anyone can compete and succeed based on talent alone. When it doesn’t actually work out that way, it’s plain for all to see. In that way, sports is the perfect vehicle to expose hypocrisy and systemic inequities. That makes some people uncomfortable. To read an uncut version of this interview — and more local book coverage — visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee.