The Kid & Me

<p>The challenge came with a warning: Coach eighth-grade basketball and make sure the town's first Black student is welcomed. Racism in a small community can be ingrained and hard to eradicate but Seamus Smith the coach hoped that basketball could be the bridge to enlightenment and acceptance. He had just a few months with these kids - including The Kid who looked up to him - to make it work. Advice came in a mystical way from Frederick Douglass who had published several newspapers in nearby Rochester NY. The author blends autobiographical material and real places and people with fictional characters and scenes to show how sports - basketball in particular - can be the catalyst to change attitudes in a community.</p>