The following is an excerpt from The Captain Class: The Hidden Force That Creates The World’s Greatest Teams, by Sam Walker. Reprinted with permission from Random House.
BOSTON, 1957
In the seventh game of the 1957 NBA Finals, with his team trailing the Boston Celtics by a point and roughly forty seconds left to play, Jack Coleman of the St. Louis Hawks received an outlet pass at midcourt. It was the most unlikely kind of basketball gift.
As Coleman turned to make a charge at the Boston basket, his path was miraculously unimpeded.