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Was the Dunk Banned to Thwart Perry Wallace?

March 24, 2014

Pearl High School BasketballWhile most basketball historians solely “credit” the NCAA’s banning of the dunk in the late 1960s to the emergence of Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) at UCLA, an argument can be made that Perry Wallace at Vanderbilt had quite a bit to do with the suspicious rule change as well. Frank Fitzpatrick first made the case in his book on the Texas Western-Kentucky 1966 NCAA title game, and he revisited the subject in a blog post over the weekend. Wallace long remembered a visibly angry Rupp reacting to a dunk Wallace threw down in a freshman game against the Wildcats; the next year, the dunk was outlawed.

 

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  • “In a magnificently reported, nuanced
    but raw account of basketball and racism in the South during the 1960s, Andrew Maraniss tells the story of Perry Wallace’s struggle, loneliness, perseverance and eventual self-realization. A rare story about physical and intellectual courage that is both shocking and triumphant. ”

    Bob Woodward, Washington Post associate editor and author

Watch Andrew Maraniss talk about his inspiration to write Strong Inside, featuring archival footage of Perry Wallace in action.
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