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Three for the Final Four
REVIEWS BY BUDD BAILEY College basketball isn't played every single day during March: it only seems that way. While you're waiting for the next tip-off, reading about special games and memorable personalities can be a great way to pass the time. We recommend that you hit the mute button on your big-screen TV and check out one of these new releases on the glories of the game.
The format also gives Feinstein a chance to express a few opinions along the way. For example, he rips the concept of a play-in game, in which the 64th and 65th-ranked teams square off away from the rest of the tournament (the game is played in Dayton, Ohio) for the chance to get beaten up by a top seed in the first round. Feinstein would rather see the field simply go back to 64, or failing that, have the last two at-large teams meet for a full-fledged spot in the Big Dance. If I had the chance to trail anyone around the Final Four, Feinstein would be near the top of my list. Since that won't happen, this book is an excellent substitute.
By John Feinstein Little, Brown, $25.95 384 pages ISBN 031616030X
A whole new game
That game was the subject of a recent movie that shares the title of Haskins' autobiography, Glory Road. Haskins, a no-frills personality if there ever was one, tells the overdue story about how a team from El Paso came out of virtually nowhere to change the game forever. Haskins loved to coach, and he liked to win. He did both with boys' and girls' prep teams, and won several hundred games once he took over at Texas Western. Haskins has a simple yet eloquent explanation as to why his team had five black starters: "I just started my best players." Isn't that what coaching is all about? It didn't occur to him to do anything else. It's nice to get his memories on paper in this entertaining memoir, written with Dan Wetzel.
By Don Haskins Hyperion, $14.95 256 pages ISBN 1401307914
Stormy Knight
It's easy to conclude after reading this biography that Knight would have benefited from a little discipline from his bosses early in his coaching career. Maybe then he could have controlled his behavior—and remained just as good a coach. In any case, Knight remains a fascinating character, and Delsohn and Heisler deserve credit for this fascinating portrait.
By Steve Delsohn and Mark Heisler Simon & Schuster, $25 352 pages ISBN 074324348X
Budd Bailey works in the sports department of the Buffalo News.
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Prolific sportswriter John Feinstein is back with Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four. The book is structured around a typical week at the NCAA semifinals and finals, but that's merely a framework to let Feinstein talk to some of his favorite basketball personalities and share some good stories. Feinstein obviously enjoys the company of basketball people, and he gets them to open up. Everyone from Bill Bradley to Mike Krzyzewski to a UNC benchwarmer gets a chance to talk about the Final Four. The conversations go in a variety of directions, such as when former coach George Raveling explains why he owns the notes that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used in his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C. (Raveling was a bodyguard who stood behind King during the speech).
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Don Haskins only coached in one Final Four, but it was arguably the most important such appearance in history. Haskins led the Texas Western Miners in 1966 when the team started an all-African-American lineup against an all-white Kentucky team in the final. The result has been called the Brown v. Board of Education of college basketball. Texas Western (which changed its name to the University of Texas at El Paso the following summer) won the national title, and segregated teams were instantly on their way out.
Speaking of coaches with many wins, Bob Knight is the subject of a fine biography by Steve Delsohn and Mark Heisler, Bob Knight: An Unauthorized Biography. Knight has won three national championships and an Olympic gold medal during a stormy career that's taken him from Army to Indiana to Texas Tech, making friends and enemies by the bushel along the way. The central question about him always has been whether the ends (championship teams, a clean program) justify the means (intimidation, verbal abuse, etc.). The authors don't come out with a direct answer; they are too busy interviewing as many people as they can find to comment on the events in Knight's career. The resulting book is a balanced look at a life that almost forces people to choose sides.