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. This is the only book that gives a true picture of the character of John Wooden and the influence of his assistant, Jerry Norman, whose contributions Wooden  ignored and tried to bury.

Compiled with more than 40 hours of interviews with Coach Wooden, learn about the man behind the coach. The players tell their stories in their own words.

Click the book to read the first chapter and for ordering information. Also available on Kindle.

Thumbnails Nov 18

by Tony Medley

A Star is Born (9/10): Top quality production design and captivating cinematography are enhanced by wonderful editing, and original music by director/star Bradley Cooper, costar Lady Gaga, that is a cinch to win the Oscar®. This movie is an effulgent treat. Lady Gaga is a brilliant singer and Cooper shows surprising musical talent (not to mention the directing, for which he should receive an Oscar® nomination, in addition to Best Actor). The movie drags in the last half hour, but the preceding 90 minutes are enough to carry it. I can’t say enough about the quality of the music and concert performances.

Bohemian Rhapsody (9/10): Everything I said above applies to this biopic of Queen and their lead singer, the convention-shattering Freddie Mercury, who was enthralling onstage. Rami Malek gives a boffo performance as Mercury, looking, walking, and performing in his spitting image. Even though there is a lot of music and mind-blowing concert performances, I wished there were more.

Trust Machine: the Story of Blockchain (8/10): This is a much-needed, fascinating study of blockchain, which is the basis for bitcoin and all the other virtual currencies. Directed by Alex Winter, this is esoteric stuff. The movie does a good job of making it relatively understandable. Laura Shin, a Forbes editor, says that people who criticize bitcoin (like Warren Buffet and Jamie Dimon, Chairman of JPMorgan Chase) are people who don’t understand the technology, “I just don’t know how much homework they’ve done. If they have done the research then they will pretty quickly figure out that these are probably going to disrupt their business models.”

Maria by Callas (7/10): If you love opera, you should love this because there are, from my non-operatic POV, too many arias sung in their entirety (although I did love “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” [Love is a Rebellious Bird], aka Habañera, from Bizet’s Carmen, one of my favorite songs). I found the film entertaining while exasperating in what it omitted. Because it is told without narration, much of what goes on in her life is left poorly explained. The many interviews show her as a sensitive, beautiful woman (much more beautiful than I had thought), not the tempestuous diva that has been her unfortunate reputation; it does a good job of capturing her true personality.

First Man (5/10): Long, depressing, and black, projecting very little feeling for the enormous accomplishment, this fails to adequately capture the tension and danger of putting together a try to get to the moon. Immensely disappointing are the promised scenes of the moon in IMAX. There are only a few shots of the moonscape and they were made at a quarry in Atlanta.

Front Runner (5/10): Burdened by a painfully tedious first 45 minutes, this telling of the Gary Hart/Donna Rice scandal finally picks up somewhat with good performances by Hugh Jackman as Hart and Vera Farmiga as Hart’s wife Lee, but the inaccurate portrayal of Rice by Sara Paxton as a quintessential bimbo, cheaply beautiful but really dumb and inept ruined the movie for me. I met Rice more than a decade ago and she was nothing like this. She was beautiful, but not in a cheap way. And she was smart and knowledgeable. After the Hart affair she got married and as Donna Rice Hughes she became a born again Christian. She is President & CEO of Enough is Enough and the author of “Kids Online: Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace.” Shame on Reitman & Co. for this misleading portrait of a woman who is still alive, and not adding her present status to the postscript of his movie, which tells about Gary and Lee’s situations today but omits Rice.

The Old Man and the Gun (3/10): Iconic actor Robert Redford chooses this plodder as his swan song? I can see why Redford might want to choose a movie like this for his last performance, though. There are three advantages. First, there is no acting required. All he has to do is recite his lines like Robert Redford and smile a lot. Second, since he’s sitting down much of the time he doesn’t have to worry about hitting his marks. Third, he no longer needs to be shot through the Doris Day filter. The point of the film is that he’s an old geezer and his face needs to look worn and lined, which it is.