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.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING PART ONE (10/10)

by Tony Medley

163 minutes.

PG-13

Just looking at the runtime, this would be a good choice of a film to avoid. But that would be wrong. This is 163 minutes of a good film with a good script. But most of all it is filled with amazing, death-defying stunts. And they were all done by Tom Cruise, as usual.

Cruise is known for doing his own stunts and they are generally unbelievable. But he tops himself in this one. When I saw the film at Paramount, I was disbelieving. But then I watched the short films documenting the stunts and that made me a believer, and an admirer of Cruise who is clearly not just a pretty face. I’m not going to describe the stunts because that might act as spoilers, but when you see the film, just realize that really is Tom Cruise doing all these things and there is no green screen or anything else that generally creates Hollywood Magic.

I don’t know where Cruise gets all his energy but what’s really amazing is that he didn’t just do these stunts once, he did them over and over again until they got it right.

Directed by Christopher M^cQuarrie from a script by him and Erik Jendresen, the story is the same MI theme developed by Bruce Geller for his television series, a dangerous mission to save the world. But this is not just the same movie done many times with different McGuffins, even though it is filled with chases that I usually abhor. It is unique enough to stand on its own. As the title indicates, though, there is more to come. As an added plus are terrific scenes of Rome and countrysides. The cinematography (Fraser Taggert) and Italian and Norwegian locations are gorgeous.

I’m not going to waste your time by writing thousands of words about it. I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying this.