How I got started writing my first book
It is still hard for me to believe that I have written a book that has actually been published. I know that anyone who knew me "back in the day" is suprised as I was that a publisher would be interested in my work. I spent my entire professional career working in college athletics as a basketball coach and athletic director, never dreaming that I would some day be a published author.
While serving as the Athletic Director at Lindsey Wilson College (Kentucky), I was encouraged by a friend (an English professor at the college) to write about the experiences I had while recruiting the first black basketball players to play at a nearly all white junior college during the early 1970s. The school is located on Sand Mountain , one of the most racist areas in Alabama during that time. Taking into consideration that fact that I had no formal writing experience, I didn't really take my friend's encouragement too seriously. Sometime later, however, I decided to start spending an hour or two each night putting my thoughts on paper.
I quickly found out that writing a book is like running a marathon. I started out feeling positive about my initial progress, but before too long I felt as if I had run into brick wall. After many stops and starts, I completed a three-hundred plus page, single-spaced first draft that I was honestly ashamed for anyone to review. Secretly, I feared that anyone who read my work would either die laughing or think that I had finally lost my mind, thinking that a pubisher would be interested in my work.
After working up enough courage to present my manuscript to several publishers, I was pleasantly suprised that NewSouth Books thought that my work had enough merit to be published, if I made the changes that they recommended.
posted by Bill Elder @ 3:30 PM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
Bill - I've read your book and really enjoyed it. It would make a great movie.
I have a question, I'd actually like to hear more about the isolation and hatred you faced from the white supremisists during these times and how you dealt with it?
Bill,
I enjoyed reading your book. I would appreciate it if you would tell me more about how much living under the constant threat of violence affected your marriage.
Have your talked to anyone about making a movie based on your book?
The sense of isolation that I felt while being involved witht the integration the Northeast State Junior College basketball program was overwhelming at times. It was hard to accept the fact that I being shunned by some people that I thought were my friends. It was also difficult to accept the fact that some of the leaders at the school distanced themselves from me when things were at their toughest. I think that fear of possible physical or political consequences for supporting the integration of the team caused a significant number of people to distance themselves from me. It was a hard time but I experienced great personal satisfaction from what we were doing because it was the right thing to do.
Bill
There has been some mild interest so far related to the possiblity of making a movie based on my book ("All Guts and No Glory"). I have been pleasantly suprise in the interest that have received becasue we have not as yet done much marketing in this area.
Bill
The constant threat of violence during those turbulent years did have an affect on our marriage. I chose not to tell my wife, Vivian, about the threats and other problems related to the integration of the Northeast State Junior College basketball team. One of the reason that I did this was that we had been married for less than a year and I did not want her to have to live in fear each day. I probably would do things differently if I had a chance to do it over.
Vivian thought I was a little over the top with my nightly safety precautions at our house. She also questioned me on occassion about the late night calls that I was receiving.
Hi Bill,
I was wondering what you did to attract the black players to come to Northeast State? That must have been tough!
It was very difficult to recruit black players to come to Northeast State Junior College to play basketball. Many of the players that we were trying to recruit were familiar with the infamous "Scottsboro Boys" case. With this in mind, most of the black players that we were recruiting did not want to go to school in an area where one of the greatest miscarriage of justice in the history of the United State happened. Sand Mountain's unwritten policy that did not permit blacks to be in the area after sundown was also a huge deterent to recruiting black players. Two of the reasons that we were able to recruit some black players were that we had a winning tradition and a very nice gymnasium.
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