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.


Sports Medley: Would You Send Your Child to Baylor? 10 Apr 17

by Tony Medley

Baylor is a private Baptist University in Texas. One would think that sending a child to a Christian-based school would be relatively safe. But Baylor is anything but a safe place. A lawsuit filed against the University in January alleges that 31 Baylor football players committed 52 acts of rape between 2011 and 2014. The stonewalling by Baylor about these allegations resulted in the dismissal of the football coach, Athletic Director, and, finally the President of the University. Clearly, at Baylor, sports are more important than integrity.

Now, a movie that is presently appearing on Showtime, entitled Disgraced, showcases the murder of one Baylor basketball player, Patrick Dennehy by teammate Carlton Dotson in 2003. That’s bad enough, but what the film reveals is the extraordinary lengths that then Baylor basketball coach Dave Bliss took to cover it up. According to the film, he was secretly recorded by one of his assistant coaches, Abar Rouse, suborning other players to falsely accuse the deceased player of being a drug dealer.

Worse, the film shows interviews with heretofore respected NCAA Head Coaches Mike Krzyzewski of Duke and Jim Boeheim of Syracuse being starkly critical of Rouse! In my world, Rouse is a hero. And in that same world, people who act as Krzyzewski and Boeheim have in this instance are disgraceful. This is an exceptionally informative film that I highly recommend.

As a postscript, Bliss was recently hired by NAIA school Southwestern Christian University after the 10 year ban imposed upon him by the NCAA expired. After the film made its appearance on Showtime, Bliss was fired from this position. Rouse, on the other hand, has not found another job coaching.

Not a Baywatch Babe: Anybody who believes there is not sexism in TV is whistling Dixie. And anybody who believes that males are not discriminated against on the basis of sex on TV is whistling an advanced version of Dixie.

Exhibit number one is comprised of all the female pre-, mid–, and post–game interviewers on sporting events, who are almost all female. They are not hired for their knowledge of the sport or of the participants. They are hired because they are female (and generally attractive females), period, end of story. Their questions, which have been documented here for several years, are inane and exhibit their ignorance of the sporting event that just took place.

That’s why it was a pleasure to see that CBS had Jim Nantz as the interviewer after the Masters Tournament Sunday. Here are some of Nantz’s questions to winner Sergio Garcia, none of which would have occurred to the bimbos employed as on-field interviewers for the networks:

  1. “You had a couple of moments I’d like to talk about. First off, the par at 13. It was called ‘the par of a lifetime’ for you because here you were at that point in danger of falling perhaps four strokes behind Justin and somehow you faced that adversity and made a par. (Okay, that’s not a question, but it is an obvious request for him to discuss a key moment in the match).
  2. “The last player to Eagle the 15th in the final round on his way to winning was José Maria Olazabal in 1994. Tell us about that one.
  3. “How about a comment about the back-and-forth between you and Justin showing sportsmanship out there every step of the way when it was so intense?”

These are the types of questions that sports fans want to hear answered, not nonsense like the Michele Tafoya-types regurgitate, “What were you thinking when (that ball was hit to you, that ball was thrown to you, etc.”). The networks should dump of all these ignoramuses who insult the intelligence of their viewing audience with their senseless, simplistic questions.

 

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