The transcendent experience of street basketball is the topic of two conversations with Onaje X. O. Woodbine, author of “Black Gods of the Asphalt: Religion, Hip-Hop, and Street Basketball.” Woodbine grew up in the inner-city of Roxbury, Massachusetts, became a skilled street basketball player and attended Yale University on a basketball scholarship. After two years as a star player on the Yale team, he chose a different life path and quit.
After graduating from Yale, Woodbine earned his Ph.D. in religious studies from Boston University. His book, “Black Gods of the Asphalt” presents a social-anthropological view of this inner-city sport where coaches often assume the role of father, mentor and friend. He contrasts the lessons learned on the street basketball courts, with those learned at the predominantly white basketball courts and locker rooms of Yale University.
Onaje Woodbine visited with Radio Curious by phone on August 13, 2016, from his home in Andover, Massachusetts, and began by describing his relationship with his father, Dr. Robert Woodbine.
The book Dr. Onaje Woodbine recommends is “Jesus and the Disinherited” by Howard Thurman.
Barry Vogel, Esq. is the host and producer. Ignacio Ayala is the assistant producer.
As Radio Curious begins the 30th year of weekly broadcast, we're proud to be a part of the Library of Congress Audio Division. Our interviews cover a curiously wide variety of topics about life and ideas. Currently all of our half-hour, long-form interviews are from the Radio Curious archives. The website is www.radiocurious.org.
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Dr Onaje Woodbine- "Black Gods of the Asphalt, Part One"
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