Wooden: A Coach's Life - Tapa blanda

"Mr. Davis beautifully captures the ties that bound a strong-willed coach and his players. His biography is superb--readable, well-reported and savvy in its understanding of basketball." --The Wall Street Journal

"Neither a hatchet job nor a hagiography but a meticulously researched and evenhanded assessment." --The New York Times Book Review

"Superb . . . Surprising as it seems, Wooden, arguably the most influential coach in basketball history, has never had a definitive biography until now. . . . [Seth Davis] has written a virtual cutaway view of the history and evolution of basketball in the form of a biography. Davis takes us on bus rides over snow-covered roads to Friday-night high school games, puts us in the frantic and precarious whirl of semi-pro basketball barnstorming in the Midwest and, finally, gives us a courtside seat in the high-stakes pressure cooker of big-time college basketball." --Los Angeles Times

"Finally, John Wooden has a biography that's worthy of its subject." --Buffalo News

"A clear-eyed look at a flawed but extraordinary man." --Dallas Morning News

"An unusually rich and illuminating portrait...In this hefty but well-paced account, Sports Illustrated scribe Davis provides entertaining play-by-play and color commentary on Wooden's dynasty-building, key games, and the grueling, authoritarian methods... he used to impart his innovative fast-break system." --Publishers Weekly

"[Davis] has provided a multidimensional, nearly cradle-to-grave portrait of a highly successful and revered coach and teacher, in the process delivering a history of the evolution of college basketball and profiles of many of its stars." --Booklist (starred review)

"This is a superb biography, worthy of its subject. With deep research, clear writing, and objective thinking, Seth Davis has cut through the mythology to present John Wooden and his UCLA dynasty in a fresh and compulsively readable way." --David Maraniss, author of When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi

"Wooden: A Coach's Life is a truly remarkable achievement. Seth Davis has produced the most authoritative, comprehensive, and entertaining book ever written on John Wooden. He immerses us in every area of Wooden's life and provides a detailed and rich picture of this complicated and iconic man. I simply couldn't put it down. Wooden is a master work." --Jay Bilas, ESPN college basketball analyst and author of Toughness

"Relentlessly researched and written with devastating detail and texture, Seth Davis has delivered the definitive biography on the most important figure in college basketball history. There are complexities in the simplicity of Wooden and his UCLA dynasty, and Davis peels back the myths to bring light to the truths. This is Wooden, in full." --Adrian Wojnarowski, author of The Miracle of St. Anthony and Yahoo Sports NBA columnist

"Who knew that John Wooden was a pool shark? That's just one of the many fascinating revelations in Seth Davis's insightful bio of the man who remains the gold standard for basketball coaches. No one needed humanizing more than the Wizard, and Seth figured out how to do it. Goodness gracious sakes alive (as Wooden would say), this is a terrific book." --Jack McCallum, author of the New York Times bestseller Dream Team