Kareem Abdul-Jabbar explores his 50-year friendship with Coach John Wooden, one of the most enduring and meaningful relationships in sports history. When future NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was still an 18-year-old high school basketball prospect from New York City named Lew Alcindor, he accepted a scholarship from UCLA largely on the strength of Coach John Wooden's reputation as a winner. It turned out to be the right choice, as Alcindor and his...

"Bleu Montclair knew as a young girl that she would one day escape the hard, unrelenting streets of Flint, Michigan, and when her desperate prayers are answered in the form of a scholarship to UCLA, Bleu knows she's struck gold. But soon after arriving, all her beautiful, bright dreams begin to fall apart. Endless temptations abound in the form of cars, clothes, booze, drugs, and Bleu cannot keep up"--Page 4 of cover.

Co-author Swen Nater, one of John Wooden's former basketball players at UCLA, provides insightful first-hand accounts on the many life lessons he learned from Wooden that has applied to his life since becoming a teacher himself. Wooden's principles, conveyed by Nater and co-author Ronald Gallimore in this book, can be studied and applied by teachers, coaches, parents and anyone else who is responsible for, works with, or supervises others. In this...

"A bold narrative history of the iconic UCLA Bruins championship teams led by legendary coach John Wooden-an incredible true story about the messy, never-easy pursuit of perfection set against the turmoil of American culture in the 1960s and 70s"--