Jacobs, Barry 1950-

PERSONAL:

Born 1950.

ADDRESSES:

Home—NC. Office—WRAL, P.O. Box 12000, Raleigh, NC 27605.

CAREER:

Journalist for national and regional publications and Web sites. Regular contributor to WRAL-Radio, Raleigh, NC, and WRAL SportsFan.com.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

Barry Jacobs' Fan's Guide to ACC Basketball, Host Communications (Lexington, KY), 1987, 14th edition, 1998.

Three Paths to Glory: A Season on the Hardwood with Duke, N.C. State, and North Carolina, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1993.

The World according to Dean: Four Decades of Basketball as Seen by Dean Smith, Total Sports (New York, NY), 1998.

Coach K's Little Blue Book: Lessons from College Basketball's Best Coach: The Message of Mike Krzyzewski, Total Sports Illustrated (Kingston, NY), 2000, revised edition, Sport Classic Books (Wilmington, DE), 2004.

Golden Glory: The First 50 Years of the ACC, Mann Media (Greensboro, NC), 2002.

Across the Line: Profiles in Basketball Courage: Tales of the First Black Players in the ACC and SEC, Lyons Press (Guilford, CT), 2008.

Also author of the blog Barry Jacobs' Fan's Guide to the ACC.

SIDELIGHTS:

Barry Jacobs has been a journalist since 1976, covering a variety of topics, and he has extensive experience in writing about college sports in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). He portrays the drama surrounding three of this conference's top basketball teams in the 1992-93 season Three Paths to Glory: A Season on the Hardwood with Duke, N.C. State, and North Carolina. Duke University, North Carolina State, and the University of North Carolina, located within a forty-square-mile area, have a tradition of excelling in basketball, and they are intense rivals. Over the season, Jacobs was able to get an intimate look at each of the teams and their respective coaches—Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, North Carolina State's Les Robinson, and North Carolina's Dean Smith. It turned out to be "an emotional season for all three," as Sporting News reviewer Steve Gietschier put it. One member of Robinson's team committed suicide, and other players were plagued by injuries or academic struggles. Duke had won two consecutive national championships and seemed likely to win a third. The championship, however, went to Smith's North Carolina team.

Some reviewers saw much reason to recommend the book to basketball aficionados. A Publishers Weekly critic deemed it "a treat for all roundball fans and obviously a must for citizens of the Tar Heel State." Gietschier, however, found fans missing from Jacobs's coverage, with the focus almost exclusively on the players and coaches. "The religious fanaticism these teams inspire in their followers largely escaped Jacobs' notice," he observed. Nonetheless, he praised Jacobs for managing to draw "three highly individual and insightful portraits."

In Across the Line: Profiles in Basketball Courage: Tales of the First Black Players in the ACC and SEC, Jacobs chronicles the integration of teams in the Southern schools that make up the ACC and the Southeastern Conference. This process took place from the middle of the 1960s through the early 1970s. He devotes a chapter to each player, and he also describes the environment at each school and in the surrounding area. Jeff Fox, reviewing for the Web site CollegeHoopsnet, noted that these players, most of them unknown to twenty-first-century sports fans, demonstrated strength and bravery in confronting entrenched racism, not only from fans but also from university administrators and government officials. These pioneers, Fox remarked, made the path smoother for those who followed. He called the book "a fitting tribute" to their courage, adding that it is "educational, yet very entertaining," and he concluded that it "should be a required read" for current players.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 1, 1993, Wes Lukowsky, review of Three Paths to Glory: A Season on the Hardwood with Duke, N.C. State, and North Carolina, p. 670.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, April 1, 1994, H.F. Kenny, Jr., review of Three Paths to Glory, p. 1331; April 1, 1994, review of Three Paths to Glory, p. 1331.

Library Journal, December 1, 1993, review of Three Paths to Glory, p. 132.

Publishers Weekly, November 8, 1993, review of Three Paths to Glory, p. 65.

Sporting News, January 31, 1994, Steve Gietschier, review of Three Paths to Glory, p. 7.

Tribune Books (Chicago), December 12, 1993, review of Three Paths to Glory, p. 3.

ONLINE

CollegeHoopsnet,http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/ (February 29, 2008), Jeff Fox, review of Across the Line: Profiles in Basketball Courage: Tales of the First Black Players in the ACC and SEC.

WRAL Radio Web site,http://www.wral.com/ (August 22, 2008), brief biography.