Book Review: They Call Me Goose by Jack Givens
Jack Givens' memoir "They Call Me Goose" is a must-read goes beyond basketball, delving into his childhood, career, faith, and life lessons.
I recently read Jack Givens’ memoir, They Call Me Goose: My Life in Kentucky Basketball and Beyond, which was co-written with Doug Brunk and recently published in paperback. I didn’t get to see Givens play at UK because of when I was born. That said, I had an opportunity to watch the 1978 championship game on DVD through Netflix several years ago. Knowing that my copy of Eruption would be arriving early last week, I opted for a book that I knew I could probably finish quickly, if not during Shavuot. I started reading on a Friday night and was able to finish by the end of Shabbos.
This book is not just about his playing career. It’s a life-spanning memoir that goes from childhood to present day. Of course, his Kentucky Wildcats playing career is why people—okay, Big Blue Nation because we’re like that—are going to have an interest in reading. However, there’s a lot more to Givens than just UK and that’s probably the most fascinating part of the book. We know about the historic 41-point night but how is it that Givens was able to reach the point in which he became a legend for Kentucky. Moreover, his childhood and adolescence sheds light on what it was like to grow up as a Black kid living in a Lexington housing project, let alone growing up in poverty in general.
First interested in baseball, Givens would later make basketball his primary sport with a passion for fishing on the side. His basketball career dates back to playing in the Dirt Bowl league in Lexington. This would spawn an illustrious career at Kentucky before playing in the NBA and Japan. After his playing career, Givens became a TV analyst for college basketball. He eventually got the call to become the TV analyst for the Orlando Magic in the early 1990s.
For a while, it looked as if he might not even play for UK. The SEC was late in integrating basketball teams so it wasn’t until the late 1960s before Coach Adolph Rupp recruited the team’s first Black player. Leaders from Lexington’s Black community were crucial in encouraging Givens to play for Kentucky saying that UK needed him. By 1974, Coach Rupp had retired and Joe B. Hall replaced him. When Givens finished his Kentucky career in 1978, he was a UK legend.
Unfortunately, a sexual assault allegation would end his time with the Magic. Givens writes in-depth about this time in his life. He was suspended by the Magic following his arrest in the early 2000s and used the time to coach youth basketball and earn his real estate broker’s license. His faith and family are some of the reasons why he was able to get through this part of his life. Faith is something that Givens has drawn on time and time again. Our respective faiths may be different but it allows us to get through both the good and bad times in our lives. But anyway, with the Magic suspending him as a broadcaster, he used the suspension to spend more time with his family and reinvent himself once more.
The Givens family eventually moved back to Kentucky following the Great Recession in the late 2000s. It took some time to get going but he was able to get an opportunity with Bowlin Group. During the 2020-21 season, Givens started co-hosting the UK Basketball pre-game show with Dave Baker. Following Mike Pratt’s death in June 2022, he was named as Pratt’s replacement as Tom Leach’s broadcast partner on the UK Sports Network.
The book isn’t without its emotional moments. Givens shares memories of the time he said goodbye to the late Coach Joe B. Hall prior to the Kentucky coach’s passing. Additionally, he talks about other losses, be it family, coaches, or teammates. One such anecdote he shares is when he took his former high school coach to the Sweet Sixteen and how his coach didn’t prepare him for the cursing that would come at both the college level and the NBA.
Because of when the book was being written, Givens sheds light on Rupp Arena and requests to rename the arena back in 2020:
I understand and respect that some people feel differently about this than I do, but my perspective is likely different from those men and women who drafted that letter. I was born and raised in Lexington. I grew up in the Bluegrass-Aspendale housing project fifteen minutes from the university. I played basketball at Bryan Station High School in Lexington, and I started in the very first Kentucky Wildcats game in Rupp Arena. I also view my time at UK as some of the best days in my life. There's an important historical angle to this topic too. Rupp Arena is home court to four of UK's eight national NCAA title teams. Changing the name to something else would not only diminish the importance of the time I spent at UK but also push the sense of that arena's history out of the minds of young fans and future generations of the program's players, fans and supporters. There is a segment of our fan base that may not know that Memorial Coliseum was home court for the Wildcats before Rupp Arena opened in 1976 and that Alumni Hall was home court before Memorial Coliseum opened in 1950. The names of those arenas have not changed, because they are hallowed halls, places where Kentucky basketball built its reputation for excellence and dominance. Similarly, the name Rupp Arena should remain, to preserve the program's history for future generations.
He's not wrong. There are both books and documentaries about Rupp and they touch on why he took so long to recruit a Black player, let alone allegations of racism against him. While the UK starting lineup during Givens’ freshman was all-white, Givens writes about a road game the following season where UK had five Black players on the floor. It took time for Kentucky to fully integrate the basketball program but they were a force to be reckoned with during the 1970s.
If you’re a Kentucky fan, They Call Me Goose is a must-read as it introduces us to Jack “Goose” Givens as a whole person, not just a basketball player.