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 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. Also available on Kindle.

The Debt (9/10)

by Tony Medley

Run time 113 minutes.

OK for children.

Readers know that there are a few actresses I would pay to see, like Emma Stone and Amy Adams. Not surprisingly, they are not only terrific actresses, they are gorgeous young women with lots of sex appeal. However, topping my list is someone who is old enough to be their mother, Oscar®-winner Helen Mirren. Even though she is on the shady side of 65, she still has enormous sex appeal, and is simply the best actress out there, heads and shoulders above all the others.

While she shines in this tension-filled thriller set in both 1997 and 1965 based on the 2007 Israeli film Ha-Hov, Jessica Chastain, who plays Mirren's character, Rachel Singer, in 1965 Berlin, is a young Mirren in more than looks. She gives a smashing performance of which Mirren must be proud, since they worked together before filming to work out shared characteristics that would resonate in the film.

The entire cast is exceptional. What's involved is that a trio of Mossad agents is sent behind the Iron Curtain to East Berlin in 1965 to kidnap Nazi war criminal, Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen), a doctor who has killed or maimed thousands during WWII, to bring him back to Israel for trial. Martin Csokas plays the lead Mossad agent, Stephan Gold, as a young man; Tom Wilkinson as the older man. Ciarán Hinds play the second man, David Peretz, as an old man; Sam Worthington as the youngster. Rachel is the third, on her first mission.

It's a complex, visceral plot with interwoven relationships among the three. The spookiest scenes for me were the ones where young Rachel is being treated with her legs apart by Vogel who has remade his career as a gynecologist.

While sticking with the basics of the original, Director John Madden and writers Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman along with subsequent writer Peter Straughan put more emphasis on what happened in 1965 than what finally occurs in 1997 than the original.

This is a high-voltage film with a surprising twist, expertly handled.