Under the Boards by Jeffrey Lane

Biography

I grew up playing, watching, talking, and thinking about basketball while listening to hip-hop music.  In high school in New York City in the mid-nineties, I captained a mostly white team playing against mostly black competition and was taken by the contested racialization of the game evident in interpretations of style of play, uniform, even cheering.  

In 2001, I earned a B.A. with honors in sociology from Wesleyan University.  My senior essay was "The Definition, Construction, and Marketing of Black Authenticity in Professional Basketball."

I founded and currently direct Schoolhouse Tutors, a tutoring/mentorship group providing course assistance, mentorship, and standardized test prep to middle school and high school students in Manhattan and Brooklyn.  We offer SAT prep for athletes pursuing freshman eligibility requirements.

Combining my passions for basketball and bettering young people's lives, I have led workshops for New York City schoolteachers and students on the sport's intersection with hip-hop and its influence on youth and youth culture.  Both independently and under the aegis of The Leadership Program, an alternative educational group catering to the New York City school system for over 20 years, I design and facilitate programs that use basketball as a tool to increase communication between teachers and students and develop students' self-awareness.  My workshops are based on the belief that today's culture of basketball plays an important role in the formation of young peoples' values and identity, influencing the products and clothing they buy, the relationships they form with authority figures and peers, and the dreams they pursue.

I am currently pursuing a PhD in sociology at Princeton University.

A 6'2" forward, I play regularly on the blacktop and hardwood.

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