Basketball Memoir

The experiment was dreamed up by two fathers, one white, one black. What would happen, they wondered, if they mixed white players from an elite Seattle private school and black kids from the inner city on a basketball team? The team's season unfolded like a perfectly scripted sports movie: The ragtag group of boys gelled together to win the league championship. The experiment was deemed a success. But was it?

Set against a backdrop of social change during the 1970s, State is a compelling first-person account of what it was like to live through both traditional gender discrimination in sports and the joy of the very first days of equality - or at least the closest that one high school girls’ basketball team ever came to it.

After 12 years of playing basketball at the highest professional level, Brian Grant could have been forgiven for thinking that the hardest part of his life was behind him, that he'd be able to kick back and enjoy the fruits of his considerable labors. But soon after his retirement from the NBA, Grant was diagnosed with Young-Onset Parkinson's Disease, ushering in a challenge greater than any he'd faced before. In Rebound, Grant shares his remarkable life before, during, and after those NBA years with no shortage of compassion and wit.

On the night of March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pennsylvania, right up the street from the chocolate factory, Wilt Chamberlain, a young and striking athlete celebrated as the Big Dipper, scored 100 points in a game against the New York Knickerbockers. As historic and revolutionary as the achievement was, it remains shrouded in myth. The game was not televised; no New York sportswriters showed up; and a 14-year-old local boy ran onto the court when Chamberlain scored his hundredth point, shook his hand, and then ran off with the basketball.

Julius Erving, aka Dr. J, was a wizard with the basketball, performing feats the world had never seen before: midair spins and whirls punctuated by powerful slam dunks, which he was the first to glamorize. In a career that lasted from the 1970s well into the 1980s, he was one of the first players to make extemporaneous individual expression an integral part of the game, setting the style of play that has prevailed ever since. He's also long been respected as a gracious, dignified, and disciplined man. As there are great men of history, there are great men of sports, and Dr. J is just such a man.

On September 26, 2017, the biggest recruiting scandal in college basketball history sent shock waves through the world of sports. Caught up in a massive FBI and NCAA investigation - and the intense media spotlight - was Rick Pitino, the Louisville Cardinals’ Hall of Fame coach. Here, from Pitino himself, comes the real story of the ongoing case and the hard truth about how college hoops has been pushed to the brink of disaster by greed, bad actors, and shoe company money.

At age 26, Joanne P. McCallie, a.k.a. Coach P, began her career at Maine, where in the span of eight years, she elevated the women's basketball program to a very competitive team that outdrew the men's crowds, a rarity in college sports. Over her tenure, she created the Choice Not Chance (CNC) philosophy, training kids how to think and focus on making the correct choices in life. She imparted her passionate philosophy to all of her players and now brings it to her efforts as head coach at Duke. Choice Not Chance highlights McCallie's lessons for building a fierce competitor.

Highlighted by the ESPN basketball documentary Black Magic, Ben Jobe's life and philosophy are captured in Staying Ahead of the Posse. This is history in the flesh, the history of basketball and the Civil Rights Movement, of desegregation and economic exploitation, of African independence and the modern-day plantation that is the American sports industry in general and the NCAA in particular. Ben's 40-plus years of coaching, teaching, nurturing, and mentoring intersected with and was influenced by all those factors.

What happens when a 6' 9" kid from Lobelville, Tennessee is recruited by legendary basketball coach Bob Knight? Kirk Haston’s life was changed forever with just a two-minute phone call. Containing previously unknown Knight stories, anecdotes, and choice quotes, fans will gain an inside look at the notoriously private man and his no-nonsense coaching style. Which past Hoosier basketball greats returned to talk to and practice with current teams? How did the players feel when Knight was fired? In this touching and humorous audiobook, Haston shares these answers and more.

When all she wanted was to fit in, Tamika Catchings stood out and felt left out, never knowing one day she'd stand out - as a basketball superstar and an inspiration. She faced being set apart by her hearing loss, separated from family, living up to high expectations, and the pain and discouragement of debilitating physical injury. Yet she reached for the stars with hard work, perseverance, and her faith in God. Through the silence, she found the way to shine.

In 2008, the surviving members of the Crenshaw Post 715 American Legion team gathered in Sedona, Arizona, to honor the memory of Billy Consolo. Stories of their fallen teammate opened a door to cherished memories of time spent together in childhood, learning the game of life through the game of baseball. With no adults to supervise them in the playgrounds and sandlots, Carl Paul Maggio and his friends grew to understand the principles of fair play.

From 1971 to his retirement in 2011, Woody Durham was the "Voice of the Tar Heels," the radio play-by-play man for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In this autobiography, Woody takes the reader on a nostalgic stroll down memory lane - from his descriptions of a sleepy Franklin Street in Chapel Hill and the days of football legend Choo Choo Justice to the enormous changes in college sports and how they are covered to his dozens of behind-the-scenes stories about the coaches and players he worked with during his tenure.

From the smallest kid on every team to the game-changing, record-breaking NBA All-Star he is today, Steph Curry’s journey to stardom is a master class in excellence. Bolstered by what he calls his irrational confidence, the “baby-faced assassin” shattered expectations and accrued millions of fans as he led the Golden State Warriors to championship after championship, garnered multiple MVP awards, and emerged as the greatest three-point shooter of all time. Steph Curry: Life Lessons from a Legend gives you courtside seats to the incredible highs and lows of his phenomenal career.

From the day Sports Illustrated deemed him “The Chosen One” when he was still in high school, LeBron James, a skinny kid from Akron, Ohio, rose to stardom for his world-class athleticism. Two decades, four NBA championships, three Olympic medals, four MVP awards, three teams, and eighteen All-Star selections later, LeBron is the reigning king of the NBA. LeBron: Life Lessons from The King offers courtside seats to the highs and lows of LeBron’s unbelievable journey and reveals valuable insights for anyone trying to make their own lofty dreams come true.

Craig Sager shares incredible stories from his remarkable career and chronicles his heroic battle. Whether he's sprinting across Wrigley Field midgame as a college student with cops in pursuit, chasing down Hank Aaron on the field for an interview after Aaron broke Babe Ruth's home run record, running with the bulls in Pamplona, or hunkering down to face the daunting physical challenges of fighting leukemia, Craig Sager is always ready to defy expectations, embrace life, and live it to the fullest.

Paul Westhead was teaching high school in his native Philadelphia when he was named La Salle University’s men’s basketball coach in 1970. By 1980 he was a Los Angeles Lakers assistant, soon to be hired as head coach, winning an NBA title with Hall of Fame center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and rookie guard Magic Johnson.

It seems unlikely that James Naismith, who grew up playing "Duck on the Rock" in the rural community of Almonte, Canada, would invent one of America's most popular sports. But Rob Rains and Hellen Carpenter's fascinating, in-depth biography James Naismith: The Man Who Invented Basketball shows how this young man - who wanted to be a medical doctor, or if not that, a minister (in fact, he was both) - came to create a game that has endured for over a century.

Learn the secrets and skills of Stephen Curry! Are you inspired by sports heroes? Do you aspire to the grit and determination of professional athletes? Do you want to learn fascinating details about basketball legend Stephen Curry? If so, Stephen Curry: The Fascinating Story of a Basketball Superstar is the book for you! You’ll learn all about Stephen’s life and rise through the ranks. You’ll be thrilled by his record-breaking performances and motivated by his struggles to surpass injuries and reach new heights! Listen to this book right away!

The basketball rivalry between Duke and North Carolina is the fiercest and longest-running blood feud in college athletics, and perhaps in all of sports. To legions of otherwise reasonable adults, it is a conflict that surpasses athletics; it is rich against poor, locals against outsiders, even good against evil. In North Carolina, where both schools reside, it is a way of aligning oneself with larger philosophic ideals—of choosing teams in life—a tradition of partisanship that reveals the pleasures and even the necessities of hatred.

At a time when heroes are too rare, C. Vivian Stringer sets a shining example. She has time and again shown character, fortitude, and heart, both on and off the hardwood, and in the face of unbearable loss. In Standing Tall, she shares her remarkable life story, inspiring us to find this fortitude within ourselves.