According to the caption under the teaser for HBO’s upcoming Real Sports program, “Host Bryant Gumbel returns to his hometown of Chicago to report from Marshall High School, site of the iconic sports film, Hoop Dreams.” Mr. Gumbel reveals that Chicago gang bangers gave b-ballers a “hooper’s pass” back in the day, “excluding them from the violence.”
Gumbel says Chicago’s 2016 murder total of 762 is “still fewer than the numbers recorded in the heyday of Hoop Dreams.” True dat. Hoop Dreams began production in 1989, when the Windy City’s murder toll was 849 souls.
Gumbel’s “scoop”: Chicago gangs are less discriminating about who they shoot now than before, implying that the percentage of basketball players killed by gangs has gone up even while the murder rate has gone down.
I’m not buying it. Maybe the gang whose turf included Marshall High School left b-ballers alone, for a while. But generally speaking Chicago’s gangland violence is the same as it ever was: indiscriminately ruthless.
The more salient fact: basketball offers a statistically insignificant number of inner city youth a way out of the thug lifestyle, Hooper’s Pass or not. That’s not a topic Mr. Gumbel seems interested in addressing.