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.

Fool’s Gold (3/10)

by Tony Medley

Maybe the most telling commentary on this film is that even though the two leading actresses, Kate Hudson and Alexis Dziena, spend much of their time in bikinis, the largest breasts in the film belong to Matthew McConaughey. If you’re making a film populated by bikini-clad women, said women should have a reason to wear a bikini top.

It is obviously getting more and more difficult for Hollywood to tell an original story. This one has been told more times than I care to count. Every character has appeared time and again each decade. There are the two gay men who are lovable; a couple (Hudson and MCConnaughey) clearly in love with one another who are divorcing and constantly spatting; a father (Donald Sutherland) and daughter (Dziena) who misunderstand each other; a black rapper (Kevin Hart) who is a bad guy; two other black stepnfetchit bad guys who are more comedic than bad; a treasure that only the good guy can find but which the bad guy discovers because he’s following the good guy.

That’s enough of the plot that has been beaten to death. If you want to see the entire story, see the trailer. The only fools in this movie are the audience who paid to get in.

What’s really dismaying is that McConaughey seems to be wasting what should be a fertile career. Here’s a guy who is good looking, appears athletic, and isn’t a bad actor. Yet he continues to sign up for bad films with terrible scripts like this. His list of less-than-mediocre films is as long as my arm. These roles he continuously plays allow him to just mail in a performance and still cash a big check. If he wants to take any pride in what he does, he needs an integrity transplant. Ask yourself, Matthew, would Russell Crowe appear in something like this more than once?

As to Hudson, she’s pretty smart in that she realizes that about all she has to offer is a dazzling smile. (For that matter, McConaughey has one of the best smiles in the business, too. And he uses it with impunity. With the two of them onscreen, I wished I had my sunglasses there was such an abundance of glaring whitened teeth flashing at me in the sunshine of the Caribbean).

Hudson has blazed a career playing the same character over and over and over again, based solely on this smile. Still, she continues to get roles. As long as she can smile, I guess her career is secure, unless the audience begins to demand a little more from her. Come to think of it, I saw this on opening night and the crowd was meager. Maybe they’ve already wised up and realized that a smile isn’t worth ten bucks for two hours.

February 9, 2008