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: The Trials of Tom Brady 10 Aug 15

by Tony Medley

Tom Brady Dying Hard: What’s hard to believe is that poster boy Tom Brady is not only still fighting deflategate but that anyone cares. Let’s get real here. Does anyone really believe that pretty boy Tom isn’t guilty as charged? His defenses, listed below, are without merit, to put it kindly.

1. “I didn’t do it.” To buy this, one has to believe that Jim McNally, the Patriots employee who took the balls from the referees after they approved them, immediately went into the bathroom stall behind closed doors for almost two minutes and deflated the balls all on his own. Why would he do that unless Tommy requested it? Of course there’s always the Henry II defense in the 1170 murder of Thomas À Becket. Maybe McNally overheard Brady say something akin to “Who will deflate for me these troublesome balls?”
2. Brady is being punished in part because he destroyed his telephone when he knew the investigators suspected it had incriminating material. Brady’s defense is that he told the NFL he replaced the broken phone “AFTER my attorneys made it clear to the NFL that my actual phone device would not be subjected to investigation under ANY circumstances.” Pssst. Tom, baby, let’s talk. Telling someone you are not going to provide something they want is not a defense to your not providing it. That might be a little complex for a poster boy NFL quarterback to comprehend but maybe your high fashion model wife could explain it to you. You remember her; she’s the one who disguised herself in a burka to go get plastic surgery so no one would know.
3. Brady is still relying on that hoary “preponderance of evidence” issue, in which the Wells report said it was “more probable than not” that Brady knew about the ball deflation. Brady claims that such weak language is damning. Tom, baby, we have to talk again. You can forget that defense because Wells framed that report in the actual language of the deal with the NFLPA. That’s what your union agreed to! This argument is specious.
4. Finally there’s the argument that Commissioner Roger the Dodger Goodell making a determination on a decision he, Goodell, made is a violation of due process. Forget that for at least two reasons. First, as with #3 above, that’s what the union agreed to. If you don’t like it now, too bad; you’re stuck with it. Second, this is an arbitration. Courts are historically reluctant to overturn arbitration decisions based on mistakes of either fact or law. Arbitration awards are almost always inviolable unless someone can prove fraud, which is why nobody in their right mind should ever agree to binding arbitration.

Brady and New England fans should not lose heart, however, just because none of his arguments have any merit because the United States system of civil justice is corrupt to the core. Throughout the country judges make decisions based on how they feel regardless of the law, witness U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ recent Obamacare decision which stands for the proposition that words don’t mean what they clearly say, they mean only what a court says they mean. In fact, my feeling is that the weaker the case, the better the odds the weak side will win, especially if Brady gets a judge who is a New England fan.

Lackadaisical Dodger: In the top of the second inning of the Dodgers August 5 game against the Phillies, Dodgers pitcher Brett Anderson tried to lay down a sacrifice bunt. Forgetting his abysmal form (because that’s the way everyone in baseball bunts today); he laid down a terrible bunt in front of the plate. Instead of putting his head down and running hell bent for first base, he laggardly trotted down the line watching the play at second base. Setting a record for the slowest time running the 90 feet to first, six seconds (that’s equivalent to 20 seconds for the 100 yard dash or almost half the time of the 13.3 seconds it took Evar Swanson to run four times as far circling the bases in 1932), he was easily doubled up. That apathetic effort would have earned a stiff fine from John “Mugsy” McGraw or Leo “The Lip” Durocher, but nary a public peep from today’s Dodgers manager.

Trivia Time: The aforementioned McGraw, known mainly as the short (5-7), squat longtime manager of the New York Giants from 1902-32, has the highest lifetime batting average of any third baseman, .334, and the third highest on base percentage of any player who ever played the game, .466.