Out of print for more than 30 years, now available for the first time as an eBook, this is the controversial story of John Wooden's first 25 years and first 8 NCAA Championships as UCLA Head Basketball Coach. Notre Dame Coach Digger Phelps said, "I used this book as an inspiration for the biggest win of my career when we ended UCLA's all-time 88-game winning streak in 1974."

Compiled with more than 40 hours of interviews with Coach Wooden, learn about the man behind the coach. Click the Book to read the players telling their stories in their own words. This is the book that UCLA Athletic Director J.D. Morgan tried to ban.

Click the book to read the first chapter and for ordering information.

Shoot ‘Em Up (0/10)

by Tony Medley

Although Clive Owen has been in some of the worst films I’ve had to sit through, I’ve liked him. I thought he should have been the new James Bond, rather than that guy of dubious sexuality. But I’m beginning to think that maybe there’s a connect between the bad films and the actor, especially after seeing this odious outing.

“Ugly, disgusting, revolting, sadistic, and pointless” were the words my friend used to describe her reaction when we left the theater. Those words are apt for this dark, worthless excursion into violence perpetrated upon the theater-going public by writer-director Michael Davis.

I’d like to give Davis the benefit of the doubt and say that he might have been trying to make a satire commenting on action films that abound in bullets and mayhem. But he won’t have any of that, saying that he views the film as a “Blue-collar James Bond movie.” So much for trying to give the film the best of it.

This is a film where you will see a character suckling a lactating Donna Quintana (Monica Bellucci), and come away with milk on his face, where the main bad guy, Herz (Paul Giamatti) fondles the breast of a corpse and gets off on it, and, of course, where millions and millions of bullets fly all over the place.

There is neither rhyme nor reason as to what’s going on or why, although there is a meager attempt at an explanation. It is unremittingly violent. At one point Herz breaks the fingers of Mr. Smith (Owen) one at a time. I thought that this was put in to be humorous as Mr. Smith then has to shoot his gun by putting his hand at an odd angle to use the broken digits. But the breaking of the fingers is so graphic and sadistic that only a masochist could find it humorous.

As far as the acting goes, the only thing Owen adds is that he needs a shave. Every second Giamatti was on the screen was excruciating. As for Bellucci, they must have been looking for the worst actress available, and they found her.

If it is intended as a satire, it fails. If it isn’t it is a grotesque disgrace.

September 9, 2007