I Said Bang! A History of the Dirt Bowl, the Crown Jewel of the Most Basketball-Obsessed City in America

In 1969, amid the turmoil of the civil rights era, two college students started the Dirt Bowl, a summer-long basketball tournament in Louisville's Algonquin Park. By the end of that summer, thousands of people packed the park every weekend to connect with one another and to watch high-level basketball featuring the best players in the region.

It was the biggest event of that year for a great many people in the nation’s most basketball-obsessed city. The rest is history. Generations of people have bonded, reunited, competed, laughed, shown off, and celebrated one another at the Dirt Bowl.