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.

The Book of Eli (3/10)

by Tony Medley

Run time 117 minutes.

Not for children.

This is a dark, unforgiving parable set in the future. Eli (Denzel Washington) is traveling on foot through a war-ravaged American desert carrying and protecting a book he feels can save mankind. He runs into a tyrant, Carnegie (Gary Oldman), who runs a small town in the middle of the desolation, who has been looking for the book and wants it.

Brothers Allen and Albert Hughes direct this post-apocalyptic future western without a hint of humor, and that’s a shame. It’s pretty grim sitting through this thing without even a glimmer of lightness. In fact the film is shot so monochromatically, it often looks like black and white without much white.

There is an abundance of graphic violence in this film, but what really sets it apart are the plot holes, which abound. Eli is walking west. He’s been doing so for thirty years. But he carries a gun and never runs out of ammunition. Where does he get it and where does he carry it?

Carnegie sends his minions out to look for a book. They bring lots of books back but never the right one. Eli just happens to show up with the book for which Carnegie yearns. What are the odds of that?

Eli carries an Ipod with him. Now, let’s think about this. The war that devastated the world was at least 30 years ago. Eli walks through one ruin after another. But his Ipod is powered so he can listen to it. If you have an Ipod, you know that Apple’s support is virtually non existent  unless you are loaded with dough and patience. And you know that the battery has to be constantly recharged. Yet this Ipod has run for 30 years while Eli has been walking alone across the desert! Even amazing doesn’t describe that.

Carnegie runs a small town. The small town has stores. What supports the town? Where do people get their money to support the stores? What do the residents do all day long? Where do the people in Carnegie’s bar get the money to spend?

If you think that the worlds of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse are fantasies, they have nothing on the world of Eli and Carnegie. It seems to me that if you are going to create a world for your film, there should be some substance for that world.

Oh, well, the action starts after Eli leaves Carnegie’s town with Carnegie’s adopted daughter, Solara (Mila Kunis), as his unwanted companion and Carnegie sets out after them to get the book. This causes lots of violence.