SWIDEY

Reporter Neil Swidey has written about the Red Sox, presidential campaigns and conflicts in the Middle East. But there’s one story that has captivated him like no other.

It’s about a high school basketball team.

First, there’s Jack O’Brien, the Charlestown (Mass.) High School team’s coach — and, in some cases, surrogate father — who’s fixated not only on winning but also on mapping his players’ futures. And there’s O’Brien’s two star players, the friendly Ridley Johnson and the hard-edged Jason “Hood” White, longtime teammates who are friendly only on the hardcourt.

But Swidey’s story — first published as a three-part series beginning in April 2005 in The Boston Globe Magazine, where Swidey is a staff writer, and now in his first book, The Assist: Hoops, Hope and the Game of Their Lives — doesn’t stop with jump shots and points in the paint. It delves into the issues of race and class, of families and teamwork, of the little things that can throw a promising future out of balance.

Swidey, a former Providence Journal intern who grew up in Somerset, where his parents, Sam and Mary, still live, will hold a book reading and signing tomorrow night at 6 at the Brown Bookstore, 244 Thayer St., Providence.

The Assist has earned rave reviews since its release last month, making The Boston Globe’s bestseller list this week.

Swidey, in a recent phone interview, said he had the idea back in 2004 to follow a Massachusetts high school basketball team for a season. The sports staff at The Globe suggested Swidey feature Charlestown High’s team, which had won four back-to-back state championships. Swidey’s first thought was: how interesting could a team that successful be?

Then Swidey met with Coach O’Brien at a Bickford’s restaurant. They talked for three hours and in that time, O’Brien only mentioned basketball twice. Instead, he spoke about his commitment to his players’ lives, about how he carts them in his Dodge Caravan to visit colleges, how he gets on their case about doing their schoolwork. O’Brien, it became clear, needs his players as much as they need him.

Swidey was hooked. For the next three years, Swidey attended practices and games and tailed the players in the school hallways and on their long commutes across Boston to school — many of the players come from some of the city’s more disadvantaged neighborhoods. Swidey was working all along on other assignments, but it was the story of the Charlestown team that gripped him.

“It was the one that I just kept finding more and more fascinating,” Swidey said. “It became a way for me to tell the stories about the issues I care about: urban education, fairness, race, crime and the court system. This story was a window into all of that.

“This story never got boring,” he said. “What’s most surprising and important, I think, are the lessons it gives us about the wider world around us.”

The longer Swidey spent with the players, the more they realized his commitment to telling their stories. The story became a family project for the Swideys. Neil took his two daughters, now ages 8 and 5, to some of the team events. His wife was nine months pregnant and having contractions on the evening of the team’s first game in 2004. Swidey planned on skipping the game, but his wife convinced him that he couldn’t very well write the story if he missed the opening game. So Swidey’s wife and two daughters came along. The couple’s third daughter was born the following day.

Swidey said he learned that many promising college ball players lose their way once they’re outside the cocoon of high school. So, Swidey has created the Alray Taylor Second Chance Scholarship Fund — named after a former Charlestown High player who was shot and killed in 2006 — to provide mentoring for inner-city youths whose college careers get derailed. Portions of the proceeds from The Assist benefit the scholarship.

Swidey has finished his time with the Charlestown team, but he admits it’s been difficult for him to move on.

“On some level, it’s hard for other stories to compete,” Swidey said. “These are people that I know so well now. But the book allows the story to continue.”

For more information on Neil Swidey, his book, The Assist: Hoops, Hope and the Game of Their Lives, or the Alray Taylor Second Chance Scholarship Fund, visit www.theassist.net.

mwims@projo.com