This new release seeks to tell the tale of basketball at the University of Evansville, a small Division I school in Indiana. Like many areas in the American midwest, the community surrounding the school is tight-knit and obsessed with basketball. Before moving into Division I, the program even won several national championships at the Division II level.

There’s a wrinkle in the true story that makes its telling especially emotional. In 1977, the entire basketball team died in a plane crash. A new basketball coach and a new team were brought in to complete the season. Within a few years, they miraculously qualified for their first Division I basketball tournament (i.e., the NCAAs or “March Madness”). Obviously, this brought deep joy and pride – dare I say, redemption – in the Evansville community.

As the afterword suggests, this story is based on an abundant amount of research. It’s almost as if you can hear the words of the first-hand witnesses in the tale. The story presents as an anthology of short, personal anecdotes masterfully weaved together into a coherent narrative. Although probably not difficult to an Evansville fan, the cast of characters is so wide that it is tough to keep the names straight. Still, as the author sometimes deliberately slips into the first person, one hears genuine excitement through the narrative. The author thus portrays his personal connection to the story.

Why do we need another sports story? The movie We Are Marshall details the loss of the Marshall University football program in a 1970 plane crash. This tale has similar resonance. I’m composing this review days after Laker great Kobe Bryant died with his daughter in a helicopter crash. As evident by the national outpouring of grief in the Bryants’ deaths, these stories tend to define American culture. Sports make us feel as if we know the players, as if they are part of our circle of friends. The players’ untimely deaths, therefore, profoundly affects us – our hopes, our dreams, our perspective of life. In modern society, sports stories convey our humanity in a way that national politics, religion, and other unifying forces do not and cannot. We use these stories to show who we are in our hearts. As such, Beaven in We Will Rise uses the Evansville saga to remind us more of what it is to be human, to be alive, to be American, and to believe.