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.

Couples Retreat (1/10)

by Tony Medley

Run time 113 minutes.

Not for children.

Dave (Vince Vaughn) and Ronnie (Malin Akerman) are the social epicenter of their group of friends. Over the years, they’ve built a full life through commitment to their kids, friends and work.

After eight seemingly blissful years together, Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell) are at a crossroads. The once-happy pair shocks their close friends—Dave & Ronnie, Joey (Jon Favreau) & Lucy (Kristin Davis) and Shane (Faison Love) & his new girlfriend Trudy (newcomer Kali Hawk)—when they announce that they are considering a divorce.

Jason and Cynthia have discovered Eden Resort, a tropical island paradise in the South Pacific (actually shot in Bora Bora, using the St. Regis Bora Bora Resort) specializing in extensive couples therapy. But the only way they can afford to go is through the “Pelican Package,” Eden Resort’s group rate. While they get the counseling they need, their friends can bask on the white, sandy beaches, relax in the spas, ride jet skis and just enjoy themselves.

As tempting as it sounds (and as much as everyone wants to help Jason and Cynthia), there’s just no way they can all get away…until Dave & Ronnie agree to go. Now the four couples are on their way to paradise. But there’s one small catch…The group discovers that ALL of the couples must partake in the unorthodox counseling techniques of Eden Resort’s renowned “Couples Whisperer”— Monsieur Marcel (Jean Reno). It’s all or none.

And if it’s none, they will all be sent home. The couples soon find out that not everything is as it seems, especially in their own relationships. Directed by longtime producer Peter Billingsley and written by Favreau, Vaughn and Dana Fox, I thought the first 25 minutes, when all this is set up was dispiriting, but when they finally arrive at Eden, what follows is truly dismal.

Trudy and Shane are both black and they are stereotyped in such a way that it would embarrass Stepinfetchit. It’s hard to believe that that are walking caricatures of their race on its audience. Just as one example, Trudy starts virtually every sentence with “Yo.” And she butchers grammar, talking like a streetwise ho.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The other protagonists are equally inane, and I don’t think that’s the way they were intended to be viewed by the filmmakers. If these people are meant to be representative of today’s 30-somethings, our society is in big trouble. There is one outstanding performance that almost saves this, by Peter Serafoniwicz as Sctanley (“Stanley with a C”). If everyone had been as humorous as Serafoniwicz, this would have been a winner. Unfortunately, Sctanley appears when they arrive at the resort to introduce the characters them to Eden and then disappears. All the charm that might have been possible disappears with him.

This is a movie to avoid.