Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Swee’pea
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1960
WEBSITE:
CITY: Elmhurst
STATE: NY
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.newsday.com/sports/media/the-legend-of-swee-pea-laments-what-could-have-been-for-lloyd-daniels-1.11139297
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1960.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Journalist. Newsday, reporter, for over three decades.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Long-time Newsday reporter John Valenti has written about sports for more than three decades. He has won several awards and is a nine-time Pulitzer-nominated reporter. He has teamed up with Ron Naclerio, a former baseball prospect and the high-school basketball coach in New York City with the most wins, to publish books on playground basketball in New York and the life of Lloyd “Swee’pea” Daniels. Valenti lives with his family in Elmhurst, New York.
In 1990, Valenti and Naclerio wrote Swee’pea and Other Playground Legends: Tales of Drugs, Violence, and Basketball. The book centers on the talent and destructiveness of Lloyd Daniels, nicknamed Swee’pea. Daniels emerged from the playground basketball courts of Brooklyn with skill likened to that of Magic Johnson. However, Daniels succumbed to the influences of his environment and descended into alcohol and drug abuse. With multiple school failures that left him barely able to read and write, he was nevertheless recruited by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, but was expelled after a drug bust. He never made it to the National Basketball Association but went on to play briefly for the Continental Basketball Association’s Topeka Sizzlers. His basketball career ended after a 1989 drug-related shooting that nearly killed him. The book laments the potential million-dollar career he squandered due to laziness and arrogance, and the teachers and coaches who ignored his issues with drugs and violence.
The book also puts into context other playground basketball legends of the time, players who, despite their talent, never made it to the big time and ended up in prison. A writer in Publishers Weekly commented that “this volume fails in its attempt to turn Daniels’s story into a modern, inner-city tragedy,” citing the disjoined sequence of episodes involving various athletes. In the New York Times, Nelson George remarked that the authors “do an excellent job of tracing Lloyd Daniels’s downward spiral, but much of the rest of the book feels like filler.” On the other hand, a Kirkus Reviews contributor called the book “a perceptive, gloves-off look at an inner-city tragedy.”
With the 1990 book out of print for twenty-five years, in 2016 Valenti and Naclerio published Swee’pea: The Story of Lloyd Daniels and Other New York Playground Basketball Legends, an updated version. The new edition features an author’s note and an epilogue, updating the lives and careers of many of the key figures in the earlier book and providing some new context. Mark Levine noted in Booklist that “the Daniels story is both compelling and sad,” as is the fact that little has changed over the years in the way basketball players are treated and recruited.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 1, 2016, Mark Levine, review of Swee’pea: The Story of Lloyd Daniels and Other Playground Basketball Legends, p. 63.
New York Times, December 23, 1990, Nelson George, review of Swee’pea and Other Playground Legends: Tales of Drugs, Violence and Basketball.
Publishers Weekly, December 14, 1990, Penny Kaganoff, review of Swee’pea and Other Playground Legends, p. 61; May 2, 2016, review of Swee’pea, p. 44.
ONLINE
Guy Who Reviews Sports Books, http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/ (July 4, 2016), review of Swee’pea.
Kirkus Reviews Online, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/ (May 20, 2010), review of Swee’pea and Other Playground Legends.
Newsday Online, http://www.newsday.com (November 18, 2015), Neil Best, “‘The Legend of Swee’pea’ Laments What Could Have Been for Lloyd Daniels.”
'The Legend of Swee' Pea' laments what could have been for Lloyd Daniels
Updated November 18, 2015 2:54 PM
By NEIL BEST neil.best@newsday.com
Reprints + -
Lloyd Daniels speaks to the crowd at the
Lloyd Daniels speaks to the crowd at the world premiere of "The Legend of Swee' Pea" on Tuesday in Manhattan. Photo Credit: Neil Best
Lloyd Daniels does not perfectly fit the stereotype of a New York playground legend who never made it because technically he did, playing for six NBA teams over five seasons in the mid-1990s.
But no one, then or now, considers that Daniels to be the Daniels who might have been had he not had his life and career derailed earlier by drug and alcohol abuse and by being shot three times in 1989.
"When he finally went to the NBA it was almost like seeing Paul Bunyan who had had open heart surgery,'' said Benjamin May, whose film on Daniels, "The Legend of Swee' Pea,'' had its world premiere in Manhattan Tuesday night as part of the DOC NYC film festival.
"You could still see the beautiful talent there, but it was 60 percent of what it used to be.''
Daniels, 48, who watched the film for the first time at the premiere, agrees with that assessment, and in the film laments what might have been.
Most powerfully, he revisits the North Las Vegas crack house where he was arrested in 1987, ending his collegiate career at UNLV before it could begin.
May, a radiologist from Minnesota and first-time filmmaker, began his three-year project with a 1990 book by Newsday's John Valenti, "Swee' Pea and Other Playground Legends,'' using it as a "bible'' to identify interview subjects.
(The book, currently out of print, will be reissued with an epilogue next summer.)
After raising funds from various sources, including Kickstarter, May secured the Knicks' Carmelo Anthony's financial and editorial support, and he is listed as executive producer for the project.
Once Daniels came on board, May experienced the ups and downs of working with him that have been part of Daniels' life story since childhood. (His nickname derives from a resemblance to the Popeye cartoon character.)
May includes in the film voice mails from Daniels expressing frustration with the filmmaker -- and at times asking for money.
When asked in a post-screening Q&A about using that material, May said he grappled with "some really difficult questions on how much do you show in order to be respectful to a person,'' but also document all of his sides.
Daniels said he was not offended, bounding up on the stage during the Q&A and saying, "Good job, Ben, I trust you now."
He added, "You just have to see where somebody's heart's at. Ben's a good guy. Sometimes you need a little favor, but I just wanted to see where his heart was . . . It's nothing bad.''
Daniels then took note of the many people from his past in the audience at the IFC Center, across the street from the iconic West 4th Street Courts, which make a cameo appearance in the film.
They included Howard Garfinkel, founder of the Five Star Basketball Camp; famed talent evaluator Tom Konchalski; longtime Cardozo High School coach Ron Naclerio (who collaborated with Valenti on that 1990 book) and others who Daniels singled out for recognition.
Then he announced that he plans to return for another round of rehab with former NBA player and coach John Lucas, "to get my life back together.''
Lucas is quoted extensively in the film and has some harsh words for Daniels, particularly about their time in San Antonio when Lucas coached him with the Spurs.
Others interviewed in the film include former Spurs teammates David Robinson and Avery Johnson and former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian, who died in February.
Daniels, who is divorced, has three children, one a recent college graduate, one in college, and a 17-year-old son who hopes to play in college. Daniels himself attended five high schools in three states.
Daniels said the movie "touched'' him and that he cried while watching it. At a post-premiere party he said there was only one thing in it that bothered him: an allegation he threw a playoff game while at Andrew Jackson High School in Queens.
He said he merely was ill that day.
The film was a chance, he said, to provide a cautionary tale for young players of today, including those he coaches in a youth league in southern New Jersey.
"You want to be honest about it; you can't be sugarcoated,'' he said. "That's what I like about Ben. He did a real good job, because if you're going to do something do it right. I could save another kid's life. I could save a grownup's life. There are a lot of people out here struggling.
"You ain't got to just be on drugs. You have gambling problems, sex problems. It's hard out here, man. Every day I wake up is a struggle but you know what, though, every day I wake up I just look up in the sky and thank God I'm here. That's all you can do.''
The film will have one more screening at DOC NYC, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Bow Tie Chelsea Cinemas on 23rd Street in Manhattan. May is seeking a distribution deal.
Swee'pea: The Story of Lloyd Daniels and Other
Playground Basketball Legends
Publishers Weekly.
263.18 (May 2, 2016): p44.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Swee'pea: The Story of Lloyd Daniels and Other Playground Basketball Legends
John Valenti, with Ron Naclerio. Atria, $16 trade paper (400p) ISBN 9781501116674
"The con man had conned himself," writes longtime New York Newsday reporter Valenti (with an assist from Naclerio,
Lloyd Daniels' mentor and friend) of NYC basketball prodigy Lloyd "Swee'pea" Daniels, who played briefly with the
L. A. Lakers and five other NBA teams. In the 1980s, Daniels was a magician on the court. His otherworldly talents
gave him numerous opportunities; he was able to play professionally without graduating high school. "Lloyd Daniels
can do everything with a basketball except oneautograph it," a high school coach observed. The tragedy of Daniels's
story runs deeper. As broken prorrfises, drug abuse, and screwups accumulated, Daniels' belief in his ability became
delusional, even sad. Valenti is unsparing and critical of Daniels's longtime squandering, but he's also sympathetic. He
explores the circumstances surrounding the young man's strugglethe influence of drug dealers in certain
neighborhoods, the way the NYC school system shuffled Daniels (an undiagnosed dyslexic) to the next grade, and the
ability of decisionmakers in the basketball world to dismiss personal issues when the talent for hoops glows bright. This
rerelease of Valenti's 1990 book, complete with an epilogue, unsparingly looks at how basketball serves as a salvation
and a prison for kids in New York City's poorer neighborhoods. The poignancy of Daniels's story, and the stories of the
other heroes profiled here, are heartbreaking, even when Valenti's editorializing and hardboiled prose take charge.
Agent: Monika Taga, Taga Literary Works. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Swee'pea: The Story of Lloyd Daniels and Other Playground Basketball Legends." Publishers Weekly, 2 May 2016, p.
44+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA452884031&it=r&asid=8ee5814c1661465d7073535e2d3a7c5d.
Accessed 5 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A452884031
2/5/2017 General OneFile Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1486323729360 2/3
Swee'pea: The Story of Lloyd Daniels and Other
Playground Basketball Legends
Mark Levine
Booklist.
112.17 (May 1, 2016): p63.
COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Swee'pea: The Story of Lloyd Daniels and Other Playground Basketball Legends. By John Valenti and Ron Naclerio.
July 2016. 400p. Atria, paper, 516 (9781501116674); e book, $11.99 (9781501116681). 796.323.
Originally published by a small press 25 years ago, this account of playground basketball in the 1980s receives a
deserved new life. It begins powerfully with playground superstar and 21yearold drug abuser Daniels' shooting and
near death, and it intelligently zigzags though New York street basketball and Daniels' life. As one observer points out,
"Daniels can do everything with a basketball except one ... autograph it." Whether due to dyslexia, as the authors
suggest, or some other cause, Daniels could barely read, and his youthful neglect is rendered in painful detail. The
author profiles other streethoops "legends" (including Kenny Anderson), and the text is, as a consequence, disjointed,
even at times preachy, but the Daniels story is both compelling and sad, made all the more so by the fact that little has
changed in the way talented young basketball players are treated (the section on college recruiting is particularly
damning). Coauthor Naclerio is the very successful coach at Cardozo High School in Queens.Mark Levine
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Levine, Mark. "Swee'pea: The Story of Lloyd Daniels and Other Playground Basketball Legends." Booklist, 1 May
2016, p. 63. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA453293799&it=r&asid=a154a5f063e28d65a756b7747c5b4fb0.
Accessed 5 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A453293799
2/5/2017 General OneFile Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1486323729360 3/3
Swee'Pea and Other Playground Legends: Tales
of Drugs, Violence and Basketball
Penny Kaganoff
Publishers Weekly.
237.50 (Dec. 14, 1990): p61.
COPYRIGHT 1990 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
SWEE'PEA AND OTHER PLAYGROUND LEGENDS: Tales of Drugs, Violence and Basketball
John Valenti with Ron Naclerio. Michael Kesend (Talman, dist.), ISBN 0933576398; cloth 38X Despite impressive
raw talent as a basketball player, Lloyd (Swee'pea) Daniels hasn't made it to the NBA. Likewise, despite its
melodramatic hype, this volume fails in its attempt to turn Daniels's story into a modern, innercity tragedy. Valenti, a
sports writer for New York Newsday, and Naclerio, a high school basketball coach, serve up a disjointed sequence of
episodes about athletes who, like onetime pro player Earl Manigault, learned basketball on the street and squandered
their lives on drugs. But the focus is on Daniels, who did not finish high school and can barely read yet attended the
University of NevadaLas Vegas, where he was arrested in a drug raid. He also put in a stint with the Continental
Basketball Association's Topeka Sizzlers and, most dramatically, nearly died after he was shot in $10 drug deal.
Coaches and colleagues tried to discipline him, yet Daniels emerges as a man whose skill is exceeded by his laziness
and arrogance, a player who cuts practice, "blaming poor performance on injuries or on teammates, but never on
himself." This career could never end with a bangonly a selfcentered whine.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
Kaganoff, Penny. "Swee'Pea and Other Playground Legends: Tales of Drugs, Violence and Basketball." Publishers
Weekly, 14 Dec. 1990, p. 61. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA9245902&it=r&asid=70fed8d96996a6256437ef82cfc16338.
Accessed 5 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A9245902
SWEE'PEA AND OTHER PLAYGROUND LEGENDS: TALES OF DR
By
GET WEEKLY BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:
Email Address
Enter email
Subscribe
Email this review
KIRKUS REVIEW
A close accounting of the decline and--with his near-fatal, May 1989 drug-related shooting--perhaps permanent fail of Lloyd "Swee'pea" Daniels, a basketball phenomenon who's been called "Magic Johnson with a jumpshot." In telling the 22-year-old's story, sportswriter Valenti (Newsday), with the aid of Naclerio, the young man's former coach and mentor, illuminates some of the root causes--including drugs, violence, and benign neglect--that contributed to the self-destruction of a world-class talent. Growing up orphaned in Brooklyn's East New York and Brownsville sections, involved with drugs since age 10, Daniels's "mystical grasp of the game" was all that mattered to his teachers, coaches, family, and himself. Though a few tried to help him in school, most looked the other way as he skipped classes, failed tests, but then was passed on to the next grade. At 16, Daniels was in the eighth grade, reading on a third-grade level. He could "do everything with a basketball except one thing: Autograph it." He attended four different high schools in three states--mostly arranged so that he could play basketball--until he dropped out his junior year. Recruited and signed by the Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas (he couldn't read his acceptance letter), Daniels was involved in a drug bust and expelled before ever playing a game. On the comeback trail following the shooting in front of his grandmother's home (he was shot three times in the chest and shoulder over an $8 vial of crack), Daniels enrolled in a drug rehabilitation program and later played briefly with Quad City in the Continental Basketball Association before being cut. To further amplify Daniels's story, Valenti looks at other "playground legends" as well, such as James "Fly" Williams, Joe Hammond, and Pee Wee Kirkland, providing insight into why they all wound up in prison and, like Swee'Pea, "never made it to the big time. . .despite their vast abilities." A perceptive, gloves-off look at an inner-city tragedy.
Pub Date: Dec. 22nd, 1990
Review Posted Online: May 20th, 2010
Monday, July 4, 2016
Review of "Swee'pea"
Happy Independence Day for my fellow Americans who are celebrating today. On this Fourth of July, what better sport to read about than the one whose origins are strictly American, basketball? This book on New York City playground legend Lloyd "Swee'pea" Daniels is a very compelling read and one that I enjoy immensely. Here is my review.
Title/Author:
“Swee’pea: The Story of Lloyd Daniels and Other Playground Basketball Legends” by John Valenti and Ron Naclerio
Tags:
Basketball, race, society
Publish date:
July 5, 2016 (updated version of book first published November 1990)
Length:
416 pages
Rating:
4 ½ of 5 stars (excellent)
Review:
Lloyd Daniels seemed to have it all – at least when it came to his status as a playground basketball legend in New York City. He had dreams of making it to the NBA and nothing was going to stop him. However, there were plenty of thing that DID derail the young man’s drams and they make for a very sad tale. Lloyd’s dilemma is not uncommon and his story, along with several other playground legends, is expertly captured in this compelling book by John Valenti.
The book was first published in 1990 when Daniels, nicknamed “Swee’pea” after the character in the Popeye cartoons, was eye-opening for what it revealed about life in the inner city for these basketball players. They are so focused on basketball that other options, such as education, and perils, such as drugs and street crime, are either ignored or the young man succumbs to them.
Daniels’ story is particularly sad, as he was provided so many chances to succeed. He was enrolled at a community college without a high school diploma or GED, played on a basketball team with NBA talent at a drug rehabilitation facility, enrolled in a major college without said diploma or even passing grades in community college and most importantly, many opportunities to recover from his drug addiction. It is a fascinating tale, mostly sad, at times irritating, but always compelling.
There are many other stories of players who had the same types of struggles as Daniels – mostly with the same fate, but a few success stories such as Kenny Anderson. While they made for good reading, I thought they were a bit of a distraction from the main story of Daniels. Nonetheless, because the goal of the book was to make the reader become more aware of these stories, it was good that they were included.
If a reader read the original book in 1990, the updated information is very good and helps explain the story in more depth. If the reader is like me and this version is the first time he or she has read the book, it is well worth the time to read in order to gain a better understanding and appreciation of the life and trappings that a playground basketball star will encounter.
I wish to thank Atria Books for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Too Good for His Own Good
By Nelson George; Nelson George is the author of a forthcoming history of black men in basketball.
Published: December 23, 1990
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
GOOGLE+
EMAIL
SHARE
PRINT
REPRINTS
SWEE'PEA AND OTHER PLAYGROUND LEGENDS Tales of Drugs, Violence and Basketball. By John Valenti with Ron Naclerio. Illustrated. 272 pp. New York: Michael Kesend Publishing. Cloth, $26.95. Paper, $13.95.
BOOKS about the failure of gifted black basketball players from the inner city to fulfill their potential constitute a substantial subgenre of sports literature. In fact, three of the best basketball books -- Pete Axthelm's "City Game," David Wolf's "Foul!" and Rick Telander's "Heaven Is a Playground" -- are detailed accounts of New York schoolyard players whose exploits, in the years before millionaire slam-dunkers and signature shoes, made them legends. Connie (The Hawk) Hawkins, Earl (The Goat) Manigault and Jackie Jackson were skying, double-pumping products of New York City in the 60's and 70's, a time when public funding was available for youth programs, heroin was the drug devastating America and professional basketball lost money.
Astronomical network and cable television contracts for the National Basketball Association and big-time college programs, the marketing of individual stars and the spread of a violent cocaine culture have all profoundly altered the game and its players. The financial rewards -- for leagues, teams, agents and players -- are so high today that no gifted player, no matter how emotionally unstable, drug-addicted or selfish, is overlooked by the voracious profit seekers of basketball. A flair for putting an orange globe through a metal circle turns businessmen from Topeka to Las Vegas, from Brooklyn to New Zealand, into social workers.
It is in its treatment of this issue that "Swee'Pea and Other Playground Legends" is most insightful. Written by the New York Newsday reporter John Valenti with Ron Naclerio, the dean of special education at a junior high school in New York City, the book tells the sad saga of Lloyd Daniels, a 6-foot-8-inch stringbean guard from Brooklyn with the skills of Magic Johnson and the self-control of Bart Simpson. Jerry Tarkanian, the basketball coach at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, compared Mr. Daniels favorably to Jerry West, Oscar Robertson and Magic Johnson -- and recruited Mr. Daniels to his school although he could barely read.
But, as one former teammate described Mr. Daniels, "The trouble with him is he's kid-minded." Addicted to crack when he was a teen-ager, according to the authors, Mr. Daniels quickly learned the crucial lesson of athletic stardom: if you play well, school administrators will bend over backward to pamper you. "Teachers told me, coaches told me, 'All you got to do is come to school and we'll make sure you get a passin' grade, even if it ain't nothin' but a seventy,' " he said. "They told me that in junior high school."
SO at every level of basketball -- save, thankfully, the N.B.A. -- those in authority have ignored Lloyd Daniels's demons and given him opportunities. He moved from Andrew Jackson High School in Queens to prep-school basketball factories (Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina) without attaining a degree from any of them; almost attended St. John's University; enrolled at Nevada-Las Vegas (where he miraculously made the dean's list); was arrested for crack before donning the school's red jersey; then went on to play professionally for the Continental Basketball Association's Topeka Sizzlers and the Waitemata club in New Zealand. Finally he was shot three times in front of his home in Queens in what the authors say was a dispute over $8 worth of crack. Mr. Daniels was 22 years old at the time of the shooting. A year and a half later he is still seeking an N.B.A. contract, though his history and his physical deterioration make that seem improbable. (He recently signed with the Albany Patroons of the C.B.A.)
Mr. Valenti and Mr. Naclerio do an excellent job of tracing Lloyd Daniels's downward spiral, but much of the rest of the book feels like filler. The sections on other schoolyard failures read like condensed versions of previous books. More crucially, the authors' attempts at documenting the sociology of Mr. Daniels's world and depicting the poverty of Afro-Americans often have a rote quality. Still, as a chronicle of how far many white people will go to help a black man who is good with a basketball, "Swee'Pea and Other Playground Legends" scores points.
Photo: Lloyd Daniels playing for Andrew jackson High School, Cambria Heights, Queens, in 1985. (Steve Ross for The New York Times)