Underbelly Hoops

Hailing from basketball's epicenter, the great state of Indiana, Carson Cunningham memorized Georgetown's starting five in Kindergarten. Over the next twelve years or so, he played all the time with his buddies, stopping occasionally—oftentimes only because his parents forced him to – to read the books and magazines and newspapers laying around his house. Before he knew it, he'd become an all-state player in Indiana, a runner-up for PAC-10 Freshman of the Year honors, and then, after transferring to Purdue, a two-time Academic All-American. From there, came a journey into basketball's professional underbelly, which consisted of all or parts of three seasons in the CBA and stints playing in Australia and Estonia. Cunningham is the author of  American Hoops: U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball from Berlin to Beijing, which offers a dynamic portrait of the global age through basketball, and of Before the Curse: The Chicago Cubs' Glory Years, 1870-1945. In 2006, he earned a Ph.D. in history from Purdue University, and is on track to complete an MBA in DePaul University's Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. He teaches history at DePaul and lives and coaches where basketball thrives: Indiana. His wife Christy and his three children are his seashells and balloons.