Collision Course: The Basketball Lives of Bob Cousy and Oscar Robertson and the Fall of the Cincinnati Royals

by William A. Cook

Following the 1956-57 NBA season the Fort Wayne Pistons relocated to Detroit and the Rochester Royals were moved to Cincinnati. The relocations of the Fort Wayne and Rochester franchises left Syracuse as the last small market team in the NBA. As the 1960s began the NBA entered the crossroads of its existence featuring such mega stars as Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and Hal Greer, the Boston Celtics became the most dominating team in the league. Led by Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, and John Havlicek, the Celtics would win eleven NBA championships between 1957 and 1969. But during the 1960s the Cincinnati Royals were a team also loaded with All-Stars and former Olympic players like Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas, Wayne Embry, and Adrian Smith. But the Royals would never win a championship in Cincinnati and in 1973 relocated to Kansas City. Today the franchise is the Sacramento Kings. So what went wrong in Cincy? While the Royals received only marginal support from their fans and absentee owner Louie Jacobs, the Buffalo concessionaire king and Godfather of sports, the answer to the downfall of the Royals seems to lie somewhere in the basketball stories of Bob Cousy and Oscar Robertson whose brilliant careers collided in an unharmonious relationship when the retired Cousy became coach of the Royals. While Bob Cousy had been credited for saving professional basketball in Boston as a player, he is also credited with destroying professional basketball in Cincinnati as a coach. The uneasy relationship in Cincinnati between Cousy the coach and Robertson the player fueled by leftover competitive conflict from their days as players on the hardwood would become a collision of will between them and render the Royals franchise dysfunctional.

Genres: Basketball, Sports, Nonfiction

335 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 5, 2019

About the author

There is more than one author in the Goodreads catalog with this name. This entry is for William A. ^ Cook.

William A. Cook is the author of numerous nonfiction books, including seven on baseball history, and has appeared in productions on ESPN2 and the MLB Network. A retired health care administrator and former township councilman, he lives in Manalapan, New Jersey.

Reviews

[Lance · Rating 3 out of 5]

The NBA franchise known today as the Sacramento Kings has a very rich and colorful history. Some of the most interesting time for the franchise came during the years 1957-1973 when the team was based in Cincinnati and known as the Royals, keeping the name it had when moving from Rochester, New York in 1957. That portion of the team history, which includes two of the biggest names in basketball history, is told in this book by William Cook.

While the book is supposed to be about the Royals and how those two individuals, Bob Cousy and Oscar Robertson, the book covers so much more. Especially when giving the background information on both of the Hall of Fame players. There is so much written about Cousy's time with the Celtics, I almost forgot that the book was supposed to be about the Cincinnati Royals. Cook also spends significant space in the book on other related but not necessary information on the history of the league before the Royals moved to the Queen City, the college basketball gambling scandals of the 1950's and the history of the shot clock in the NBA. All interesting topics and at times, he ties in important Royals figures but all in all, I felt there was a lot of sidetracking from the team. There are also some editing issues with the final Kindle edition that I read.

Which is a shame, because when the Royals are the main subject, it makes for good, informational reading and how they were really bought just to make sure that the main business of the Jacob brothers, concessions, will still be thriving in another market with more dates. Cook, through his writing, makes it clear that the Jacobs don't understand the business of running a sports team as well as concessions, as despite having terrific talent such as Robertson and Jerry Lucas.

There were a few seasons when the Royals made a good playoff run, but when those ended and the team started having trouble winning and attracting fans, the team decided to lure Cousy from his college coaching job at Boston College and coach the Royals. Here, this is where the title of the book starts and Cook does a nice job of capturing the mood of the team, Cousy and the players whom he eventually trades away because he feels that their style of play are not compatible with what he wants. This leads the team to trade away Lucas and Robertson, whose feeling about the franchise, the city of Cincinnati (where he also played college ball) and Cousy are spilled. This was too much to overcome and in 1973, the franchise relocated once again to Kansas City. It should be noted that in both Cincinnati and in Kansas City, the team was considered "regional' and played home games at multiple sites, which in the end was not helpful for attendance or for fans to call the team "local."

This is a book loaded with useful and entertaining information about a nomadic franchise that has promise, but in the end, it is just an okay read.

https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...

[HR-ML · Rating 2 out of 5]

Basketball bio.

The author Mr. Cook had a marked preference for NBA
player ( & later coach) Bob Cousy over NBA great Oscar
Robertson. Bob was known as a playmaker and passer.
But he dribbled from behind and threw passes between
the legs of teammates. A showboat. Whereas Oscar
learned the fundamentals & practiced. He passed the ball
as often as he shot to score. He knew offense and defense.
( Cousy knew offense best). Oscar took the game seriously.
He was excellent in every aspect of basketball.

Cousy never coached in the NBA when he took the helm
of the Royals. Hyper-critical Cousy sounded like he did
not know how to motivate or appreciate the Cinti. Royals
as their coach. He traded players & waited till the last
minute to explain a man was traded. He showed no class.

Cook claimed Oscar acted like a victim b/c of his race.
Cook seemed to rationalize "Jim Crow" laws/ customs.
When Oscar went on the road with the University of
Cincinnati basketball team, only he was asked to leave
the Hilton. The U.C. coach should have told Hilton mgt,
if this young man leaves, the whole team leaves. I read
Oscar's memoir, & several times, he was threatened by
the KKK. Or others tried to intimidate him. Would Cook
consider this a 'walk in the park?'

So Oscar was good enough to entertain college basketball
fans but not good enough to go to an eatery, movie place,
club, or hotel? Hypocrites.

I learned some things RE the shot-clock & 3 pointers
& the territorial draft being introduced to pro basketball
& subsequent innovations. Also that Sandy Koufax played
baseball & basketball (the latter under Ed Junker) for U.C.
But I did not feel Cook was objective about the players
themselves.

Maurice Stokes played for the Royals before "the Big O "
joined the team. Maurice was injured on the court and
landed on his head during an away game. The coach
should've sent him to the ER instead of back in the game.
This was before MRIs. MDs in another city later discovered
Maurice had a traumatic brain injury & would never walk
again. The coach showed poor judgment.

[Writemoves · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read about 75% of the book. Unfortunately Kindle pulled it off my reading list and I was not able to finish it. I agree with the Goodreads reviewer who said that it was a good book about the early NBA but that he did not see the connection between Bob Cousy and Oscar Robertson. Maybe I would've seen it at the end of the book, but thanks to Amazon and Kindle, I'll never know.

This book moved in different directions from NBA history to stories about Cousy and Robertson.

For what it's worth, both were great basketball players in their day. That's why I decided to read the book. I really didn't get out of it what I was expecting.

[William O'Brien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting history on early NBA

William Cook's book "Collision Course" is a very interesting read. He thoroughly researched and replicated the times of the early NBA. For the basketball fan, this book is focused on the troubles between the Cincinnati Royals' struggle for agency in the world of professional basketball and their inability to draw a sizeable fan base. Bob Cousy and Oscar Robertson didn't mesh, but, in fairness, the team never really was solidly built. Very well written and explored.

[Goh Low · Rating 1 out of 5]

An interesting story had someone else told it to you, recounted in perhaps the most boring way possible. Cook is barely a storyteller; large chunks of this book are spent listing the results and leading scorers of random games without any attempt at connecting them to the major narrative the book's title presents. You could gain the same amount of information with the same amount of narrative intrigue by merely going on BasketballReference. Awful book.

[William Previdi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book about basketball in the 1950’s and 60’s but so little about the “collision course “ between Oscar and Cousy.