"FINDING OUR GAME," tells the story of a group of guys who are making the journey through their midlife years. The guys meet during a chance encounter, and find that they all share a common love for the game of basketball. They hit upon a plan to play once a week. Over time, their friendships grow and they start sharing stories, which leads to exploring some common experiences in coping with modern life. All in the group seem to benefit by this amateur group counseling, and they end up having some fun along the way too. The little group slowly starts to expand their membership by enlisting other like minded soles. They also include their sons to the mix too. The basketball dynamics are changed with the "yutes" joining in, and it's not just the pace of the game that changes. The guys find that there are other side benefits to his weekly basketball game. One side benefit is the teamwork and the common ground they are building with their sons. The guys think there are valuable life lessons that are transferred to their sons even though they can't explain or verbalize what these life lessons are. They also feel they are showing their sons how a friendly-good game of basketball could and should be played. The book describes other events that help shape the group. They face pressure from the wives, a nasty neighbor, gym closings, and the death of their friend and leader JB, but the band of b-ball brothers find ways to keep on going, and to keep on playing. They acquire the habit of stopping by the local watering hole for a brew and a post game recap, after playing ball. This doubles the time of the Thursday night outings and leads to other misadventures like: bar hopping, and eventually road trips. The Jumbo Weekend theory is discovered and embraced, mostly because it helps justify their Thursday night outings. Over time, the guys begin to change their basketball game to the type of game they think it ought to be. They try to take the ego out of the game shunning, trash talking, hot dogging, bucket hanging, hard fouls and even arguing. The book also explores the differences between men and women. Women seem to be naturally good at communicating and hence good at creating their own social support network. Guys tend to be loners and keep their frustrations and problems to themselves. Guys just don't naturally develop the support networks, and this group of guys started out no differently. But after a while, the guys start to open up and share their worries and concerns over a myriad of modern life's stumbling blocks, like: to-do-lists, responsibilities, life pressures and divorce. Around this same time, the author finds himself headed for a midlife crisis, but is rescued, in part, by his new found basketball buddies.

There has never been a college sports scandal quite like the one at tiny St. Bonaventure University. The school's president was caught fixing grades on a basketball player after admitting him with only a welding certificate from a junior college. The university had once been a national power in college basketball, and a president with grand ideas for a return to the top corrupted his school's academics to reach that aim. He also made sure his son was an assistant basketball coach. In the end, the school's athletic director was the only hero, and the chairman of the university board of trustees committed suicide with his note saying he had "failed St. Bonaventure." The Father...the Son...and the Sweet Sixteeen is an inside look at the scandal and how it happened, and a cautionary tale about the venality of big time college athletics.

For twelve years the women's basketball rivalry between UConn and Tennessee was the most iconic matchup in women's sports. Even now, twenty years since the annual series started, the competition between these two storied programs still provokes heated argument and bitter resentment. Led by Hall of Fame coaches Geno Auriemma and Pat Summitt, UConn and Tennessee combined for nine national championships, with the UConn Huskies winning five-including four against the Tennessee Lady Vols. In all, UConn won thirteen of twenty-two matchups during the rivalry, and along the way the two coaches-with distinctive and brash personalities and a shared determination to rule their sport-clashed privately and publicly, generating enough heat to make women's basketball relevant in the national sports landscape as never before. On the court, the two teams produced a series of memorable games, from overtime thrillers to timeless classics that defined the sport. Off the court, the coaches' encounters were often marked by their seemingly genuine dislike for each other, until the conflict reached a breaking point in 2007 and Summitt stunned the basketball world by canceling the series for reasons neither side has ever revealed. Now, eight years after the last game, Unrivaled uncovers the on-court and behind-the-scenes story of this intensely personal rivalry between coaches, players, and the two most passionate fan bases women's sports has ever known.

A provocative and revelatory new biography of the legendary UCLA coach John Wooden, by one of America's top college basketball writers

No college basketball coach has ever dominated the sport like John Wooden. His UCLA teams reached unprecedented heights in the 1960s and '70s capped by a run of ten NCAA championships in twelve seasons and an eighty-eight-game winning streak, records that stand to this day. Wooden also became a renowned motivational speaker and writer, revered for his "Pyramid of Success."

Seth Davis of "Sports Illustrated" and CBS Sports has written the definitive biography of Wooden, an unflinching portrait that draws on archival research and more than two hundred interviews with players, opponents, coaches, and even Wooden himself. Davis shows how hard Wooden strove for success, from his All-American playing days at Purdue through his early years as a high school and college coach to the glory days at UCLA, only to discover that reaching new heights brought new burdens and frustrations. Davis also reveals how at the pinnacle of his career Wooden found himself on questionable ground with alumni, referees, assistants, and even some of his players. His was a life not only of lessons taught, but also of lessons learned.

Woven into the story as well are the players who powered Wooden's championship teams - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Walt Hazzard, and others - many of whom speak frankly about their coach. The portrait that emerges from Davis's remarkable biography is of a man in full, whose life story still resonates today.

This book will teach you: How Ben went from living in a dairy farming village in the English countryside to playing college basketball in the United States-on a scholarship worth more than $160,000 How to get noticed by U.S. college coaches Need-to-know facts about U.S. college basketball and NCAA eligibility How to build self-confidence and take hold of great opportunities What to expect from life in the colonies

This book is the result of many years of study in an interesting segment of a basketball game - a segment that has always been there but remained hidden. These three chapters highlight not only the concept but the factual information which confirms that concept. It is targeted for coaches but will be a source of information for players, administrators, and fans. The author, Ron Ekker, has had extensive basketball coaching experience including high school, college, and the NBA. Though the book is small, it has a stunning message.

How to Rig the NCAA Basketball Championship for Fun and Profit is a humorous, poignant and alarming novel about a guy who plans to fix the biggest college game of them all to draw attention to the games mounting problems, for revenge and to make a whole lot of money. Over the many years Stanley Osborn reffed, college basketball had grown into a huge business, enriching universities, coaches, equipment and apparel manufactures, donors and the NCAA; everybody associated with the game except the players. The brutal treatment of refs by rabid fans, overpaid coaches, the media and the many conference and NCAA officials increased along with the game's popularity. And it was becoming harder each season to convince his wife and daughter that his avocation was worth his time away from home. But most troubling for Stanley was reconciling the sleazier aspects of big-time college sports with its purpose of providing fair, equitable and sportsmanlike competition as part of the higher educational experience of the student-athlete. Finally, after being suspended for tossing perhaps the best coach in the basketball out of a key game, Stan had had enough. He developed a plan to get even with all who had questioned his officiating talent and honesty and to focus much needed attention on the exploitation by and corruption of the sport he once loved. Stan made the life-altering decision to apply his officiating skills to influence the outcome of games without attracting attention. The successful execution of the plan would make him rich. And hopefully promote some much needed reform of college athletics. How to Rig the NCAA Basketball Championship for Fun and Profit is a no-holds barred examination of the good, bad and ugly about college basketball. Frankly, it's downright scary.

Motivating, life changing and spiritual. This book unlocks the true secrets of basketball.

When Coach Johnny Carter led the Kennard Tigers to their first State Championship, he did more than defy expectations. The small team from east Texas was unassuming and newly- integrated. They had a rookie coach no one had ever heard of and they went from being on no one's radar to claiming the title. They did it all in their very first season. www.CoachJohnnyCarter.com

Kile and LD go to the West Coast to play for the LA Riot with their friend Eric as an assistant coach. They win another ring, but LD encounters tragedy. Kile's wife, Abbey, takes a ballet fellowship at LA City College and works with yet another Ashley. KIle and Eric return to Ohio for the next season to sign with the Calipers again who are still in Richfield due to more complications in Cleveland. Ron has been promoted to GM, Chaz to team president, and Johnny to head coach. Brianna and Chaz get married but not before unforeseen snag. The Calipers avoid catastrophes off the court in the west and the northwest in winning yet another ring, but Eric isn't so fortunate. Kile recruits Tyler and Stinky to the Cals to replace LD and Andre. Tyler and Kile also play in the Pan Am Games and new Wide Tracks center Vlad the Impaler Putinsky causes problems for the Cals and the league including a new commissioner before Kile curtails his bad behavior through rash action of his own.

There is something about teams who play intense, effective and hard nosed man-to-man defense that sets those teams a notch above other good teams. These great defensive teams exude a confidence that other teams often find intimidating. What sets these great defensive teams apart from average man-to-man defensive teams is usually not the overall defensive system. It is a combination of small details, intensity and an emphasis on the team concept. Fine Tuning Your Man-to-Man Defense contains 101 concepts capable of improving any man-to-man defense plus 60 drills designed to teach defensive skills and concepts. The concepts and drills, as well as additional bonus content, are illustrated with over 150 diagrams.

While battles swirl all around him, Will Stover finds himself in an unfamiliar position - on the bench. In Rebound Rival, the second book in The Will Stover Sports Series, rivalries are all too common. From a teammate with a longstanding grudge to a long-distance relationship, Will struggles to find his place both on and off the court.

Basketball Chronicles: Articles on Youth Coaching is a compilation of twenty-six articles I have written about coaching basketball, especially youth basketball. I have been coaching youth sports for twenty-five years. In addition to coaching basketball, I have coached soccer, baseball, and softball. When coaching, I have found that some drills and techniques will work with some teams and in certain years, but may not work with a whole new group of players in another season. As coaches, we have to learn to be flexible and adapt. These articles will tend to sound like a biography about my experiences in basketball, but I have related many events in my lifetime from watching basketball to coaching this great game. Featured in these articles are both on-field and off-field topics that are designed to help the youth coach run a successful season, whether it is handling the team's parents or reviewing shooting drills for youth athletes. Based on my experiences, the subjects discussed in the following articles are overlooked by many coaches, but could be the secret to success. A number of years ago I produced a baseball video The 59 Minute Baseball Practice, which was a compilation of drills that became very popular for youth baseball coaches. My main goal in making that video is very similar to my goal in writing this book. I want coaches to put on their creative hats and invent their own drills, inbound plays, defensive schemes, and more.

"A reporting tour de force and an utterly gripping account... "Outside Shot" unmistakably triumphs, with the reader rooting hard for the Cardinals--and delighted that O'Brien has brought his considerable skills to telling their story." --Wayne Coffey, "New York Times Book Review"

The Cardinals of Scott County High School were beloved once---and with good reason. For years, the boys and their legendary coach gave fans in central Kentucky, deep in the heart of basketball country, just what they wanted: state titles, national rankings, and countless trips to Kentucky's one-of-a-kind state tournament, where winning and losing can change a young man's life.

But in 2009, with the economy sputtering, anger rising, and Scott County mired in a two-year drought, fans had begun to lose faith in the boys. They weren't the heroes of Scott County anymore; they were "mini-athlete gods," haunted by dreams, burdened by expectations, and desperate to escape through the only means they knew: basketball.

In "Outside Shot," Keith O'Brien takes us on an epic journey, from the bluegrass hills and broken homes of rural America, to inner-city Lexington, to Kentucky's most hallowed hall: Rupp Arena, where high school tournament games are known to draw twenty-thousand people, and where, for the players and their fans, it feels like anything is possible.

The narrative follows four of the team's top seniors and their coach as they struggle to redeem themselves in the face of impossible odds: once-loyal fans now turned against them, parents who demand athletic greatness, and scouts who weigh their every move. It delves deep inside the lives of the boys, their families, and their community---divided along lines of race, politics, religion, and sports. And it chronicles not only the high-stakes world of Kentucky basketball, but the battle for the soul of small-town America.

A story of inspiration and poignancy, filled with moments of drama on and off the court, "Outside Shot" shows that if it's hard to win basketball games, it can be even harder to win at life itself.

Imagine a boy, five feet tall and one hundred pounds, who wants to play high school basketball. Now imagine that he was blind until the age of six and that he's the first black student to attend his suburban school. And there you have Michael Thompson in 1965 in San Bruno, California. He played at the school where a young English teacher was coaching "lightweight basketball," a competition for smaller players that has since disappeared. The team that Coach John Christgau put together came to be called the Whiz Kids for the way they rocketed up and down the court, led by Michael and invariably winning.

"Michael and the Whiz Kids" tells the story of the team's 1968 championship season. It is a tale of cliffhanger games and players as outsized in character as they are short in stature, from the wild-haired, bespectacled "Professor" to the well-traveled Latvian dubbed "Suitcase" to the quiet and tenacious "Salt," as in "of the earth." But it is also a tale of the time--of counterculture, suburbia, integration, and racial brawls erupting on the court. In Christgau's deft telling, it is an absorbing, often comic story of coming of age, for coach and Whiz Kids alike.