Why would a successful college basketball coach walk away from a lucrative job in America's most glamorous sport? The burned out Rus Bradburd, enamored with Ireland and its music, took a job coaching in the lowly Irish Super League, but was unprepared for what he found. Perplexed by the small town Tralee's Frosties Tigers--a cast of misfits and underachievers more concerned with their day jobs, Gaelic Football, and Guinness--he turned to traditional Irish music for wisdom and solace.
"Paddy on the Hardwood" is partly Rus Bradburd's story of his struggle to transform Tralee's Tigers. But it is also the tale of a man making peace with his own life and career.
"No reader will come away from this irresistible, honest, and deeply human account without a profound appreciation for Ireland and the beguiling power of its people and culture. "Paddy on the Hardwood" is a basketball book, to be sure, but also one about questing and, ultimately, finding. And it's all the richer for how it engages things that seem distant from sports, but in the end aren't so unrelated at all."--Alexander Wolff, "Sports Illustrated" senior writer and author of "Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure"
""Paddy on the Hardwood" is hilarious, heartbreaking, and touching--I couldn't put it down. I'm an avid reader, and it's the best sports book I've read in a long while."--Jerry West

Born in El Paso's Segundo Barrio, Nolan Richardson was the first black star for legendary basketball coach Don Haskins at Texas Western College. Rising to national prominence at the University of Arkansas, Richardson became the first black coach at a Southern school to win the NCAA Championship, playing an electrifying style dubbed "Forty Minutes of Hell." His outspoken response to perceived racial injustices culminated in Richardson's accusing his university of discrimination, bringing about an abrupt end to his college career. The only coach in history to win a Junior College, NIT, and NCAA title, Richardson now coaches in the WNBA.

Rus Bradburd, a former assistant coach under Don Haskins, highlights Richardson's trailblazing career with empathy and intimacy, revealing a man whose hard-won successes were matched by deeply felt losses. An inside look at the politics of race in college sports, Forty Minutes of Hell sets Richardson's complex story against the backdrop of a decisive time in American history.