Hoop dreams

摘要

When she is not holding a basketball, Lucy Adler is gangly, self-conscious and invisible; she is a "pizza bagel" (a Jewish-Italian "mutt-girl") with few friends. But on the court she is a "Warrior Goddess of Mannahatta", schooling geezers who mistake her for an easy mark. Lucy knows she must play it cool at first, as men get angry when a girl makes them look bad. But when she assumes her full powers, she is triumphant. She loves the sound of a ball going through a hoop: Thwip. Perfection, the chain-link net jangling "just quietly enough to sound like someone counting rosary beads".