John Edgar Wideman
From Hoopedia
John Edgar Wideman (born June 14, 1941, in Washington, DC) is a former college basketball player and an American writer.
Wideman grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA and much of his writing is set there, especially in the Homewood neighborhood of the East End. He graduated from Pittsburgh's Peabody High School, then attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he became an All-Ivy League forward on the basketball team. He was the second African-American to win a Rhodes Scholarship (New College, Oxford University, England), graduating in 1966. He also graduated from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.
In 1965 he married Judith Ann Goldman, an attorney, with whom he has three children: Daniel, Jacob, and Jamila. That marriage ended in divorce in 2000. In 2004 he married journalist Catherine Nedonchelle, and currently lives with her and her son, Romeo Alexander, on the Lower East Side.
Jamila Wideman later became a professional basketball player in the Women's National Basketball Association and the Israeli League.
Wideman has written on many topics, including basketball. He is author of Hoop Roots: Basketball, Race, and Love, a multilayered memoir of basketball, family, home, love, and race.
