Players and Pretenders tells the story of the flip side of basketball s March Madness, where the game is played by average players for love, not for money. At the end of the 1970s at Bard College, where there was no pretense of institutional support, Charley Rosen gathered his hoops hopefuls and put together a basketball season whose impact reached far beyond the court.Writing with a humorous touch, Rosen details the Running Red Devils season, simultaneously examining the lives of those who made it so memorable and providing a glimpse of how the team members existed off the courts as...

Commentator, analyst, author, and all-around pro basketball presence, Charley Rosen may seem like a natural, sprung upon the sports scene with the NBA in his blood. Phil Jackson, Rosen s longtime collaborator, might agree; after all, he attributes the statement on a plaque on his desk to Charley: Basketball isn t just a metaphor for life it s more important than that And yet how Rosen arrived at his present position comfortably overseeing basketball at its finest is a story as unexpected as it is delightful, documenting basketball travels as unlikely as they are nomadic and...

A few years ago, I suddenly realized that the men in my life had each written his memoirs. My father, my brother, and my husband were each very different, with completely distinct backgrounds. Their memoirs were a unique gift to me, and now, dear reader, a gift to you. My father, Charles Rosen, was born and raised in Harlem in New York City and, after his father was killed leaving his mother with 6 sons, had to start work to survive. He finally became a printer but, then in World War I, he fought at the front in France. His memoirs are very vivid memories of that war. After being wounded in...