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.

Trial by Fire (7/10)

by Tony Medley

Runtime 127 minutes.

NR

This Is a Film With A Point Of View. In 1991 the home owned by Cameron Todd Willingham (Jack O’Connell) burned to the ground, killing his three little daughters. Willingham was tried, convicted, and executed in 2004. Offered a plea deal to confess in exchange for life imprisonment instead of the death penalty, he refused because he said he was not going to confess to something he did not do.

This film shows Willingham’s trial and that he got a pitiful defense from his attorney, Horton (Darren Pettie), who fails to cross examine witnesses and only presents one witness in Willingham’s defense.

Elizabeth Gilbert (Laura Dern) gets involved in the last hour of the film, disproving everything the prosecution presented, and emphasizing Horton’s incompetence.

Directed by Robert Zwick from a script by Geoffrey Fletcher, and based on a story by David Grann in The New Yorker, this has been the subject of a 2011 documentary. The film takes pains to show Willingham being framed by a corrupt criminal justice system and undone by a lazy, incompetent attorney who apparently prejudged his client as guilty.

The film also takes pains to paint former Texas Governor Rick Parry as complicit in Willingham’s execution by refusing to look at convincing evidence supporting his innocence, his attorney’s malpractice, and unethical prosecutorial conduct collected by Gilbert.

Gilbert provides pretty conclusive evidence that witnesses changed their stories at trial from what they originally told police. I don’t know if that’s true or not, although it is true that the jailhouse informant recanted his testimony that Willingham confessed to him, but denied that he had been promised leniency in return for his false testimony, although independent examinations have indicated that he did get such leniency.

This movie is very well done with fine acting by everyone, especially O’Connell and Emily Meade as Willingham’s feckless wife, Stacy. It’s up to the viewer how much to believe.