RetroSimba

One of America’s most inspiring sports stories gets the attention it deserves in the newly released book “We Will Rise.”

In December 1977, a chartered airplane carrying the University of Evansville men’s basketball team crashed shortly after takeoff, killing all on board. United in their grief, the school and community were determined to rebuild. Led by a brash, talented coach, Dick Walters, the Evansville Purple Aces won their conference championship in March 1982 and reached the NCAA Tournament.

With the writing skill of a novelist and the research quality of an investigative reporter, author Steve Beaven has produced a gripping account of the true-life drama. Far more than a basketball story, the book offers rich characterization of the people involved and provides understanding and context to what happened before and after the tragedy.

Beaven and I were colleagues at The Evansville Press when I covered the Evansville basketball team during the Dick Walters years. I arrived in Evansville in May 1978, five months after the plane crash and two weeks after graduating from college, and found a school and community determined to rebuild. When the team reached the NCAA Tournament in March 1982, it did so not as a long-shot but as a peer to the best programs in the nation, having earned its way step by step through a steady series of achievements.

As someone who witnessed the rebirth of the program and the impact it had on the school and community, I can attest to the accuracy and quality of Beaven’s work.

This is a first-rate book and one I highly recommend. You can order the book by clicking this link.

Here is a transcript of an interview I did with Beaven in December 2019:

Q.: Congratulations on writing the book. What inspired you to do it?

Beaven: “I went to graduate school about 10 years ago for a master’s of fine arts in creative writing. Early on, I was talking to my adviser about possible thesis topics, and this immediately came to mind. The crash was a huge event in my hometown. Everyone who lived there remembers where they were when they heard. This was catastrophic for our community.”

Q.: From inception to completion, how long did the project take and what was the most time-consuming aspect?

Beaven: “I started the thesis in 2007, but I didn’t start writing a book until early 2016. The research was by far the most time-consuming part. I did about 250 interviews. I had thousands of documents, newspaper clips, etc. Just keeping track of so much information was a lot of work.”

Q.: What was the biggest obstacle or challenge you had to overcome and how did you do it?

Beaven: “Writing an ending was incredibly difficult because (spoiler alert) Evansville lost the big game against Marquette. So, how do I create a satisfying ending for the reader? I want to build suspense. I want the reader to feel like he/she is watching the game, eager to find out how it would end. Ultimately I used a radio broadcast to create the scene and set the tone.”

Q.: What are your personal remembrances of the Evansville tragedy and what was its impact on you?

Beaven: “I have a really foggy memory from that night. I was 10 and my dad and I had just come home from a high school basketball game. He flipped on the TV, we saw the news and he started to cry. I don’t think I’d ever seen him cry before. I started crying, too. That’s a really powerful memory for me.”

Q.: The book is journalistically honest in that it is compelling and uplifting but doesn’t sugarcoat or sensationalize. How were you able to strike the right balance?

Beaven: “The research and reporting were the most important part of the project and I wanted to be rigorously factual. When you have a really compelling story and you’ve done the research, you don’t have to be sensational or sugarcoat anything. The story tells itself.”

Q.: What has been the most rewarding aspect to you in writing this book?

Beaven: “I’ve interviewed the families of lots of people who were on that plane. They were so incredibly kind and gracious to me. Elderly parents and aging siblings who talked to me for hours on end, invited me into their lives. The players would be in their early 60s now and their families are carrying around a lot of hurt and suffering for decades and they were willing to share that with me.”

Q.: This is primarily a baseball blog, so I have a couple of baseball questions. You went to the same high school, Reitz Memorial in Evansville, as Don Mattingly. What insights can you provide about him?

Beaven: “First, I’ll say that injuries have left him far, far underrated. You could make an argument that over a five- to seven-year span he was the greatest overall hitter in baseball. And I grew up right across the street from the Memorial baseball field. I went to every one of his football and basketball games, too. Once, when I was maybe in fifth grade, he joined my sisters and I when we were sledding and it felt like a brush with greatness, even though he was probably only 15 at the time.”

Q.: Can you share with us a favorite personal baseball anecdote?

Beaven: “There is a very strong Iink to baseball in the book. Marv Bates was the University of Evansville play-by-play guy for radio. He also called Evansville Triplets baseball games. The Triplets were Detroit’s top farm club. Marv was a local icon. Sometimes he would recreate Triplets road games as they happened, live from the studio in Evansville, using all kinds of sound effects and details from the old ticker tape wire service. He made recordings from each of the ballparks early in the season and later used them when he recreated games. He had clips of trains going by, race cars from a stadium near a track. I mean, he was very detailed. These were part-time jobs for Marv. He taught high school social studies during the day. He did the broadcasting gigs because he truly loved the city and those teams. He was on that plane.”

Q.: Final question. Why should someone read this book?

Beaven: “This is really a book about community. We experienced the loss together and we celebrated the success of the new team together. Ultimately, I think it’s an uplifting story.”