Kingdom on Fire

January 15, 2024
A tale of basketball heroics against the backdrop of a tumultuous era. John Wooden, the legendary head coach of UCLA Bruins basketball, wasn't quite prepared for the arrival of the late 1960s. Writes veteran sports journalist Howard-Cooper, "His life had been built on structure, discipline, and humility...where the Good Book mattered a few trillion times more than the playbook." Wooden excoriated his early 1970s squad as "victims of a permissive society," but by that time he was starting to loosen up. Some of that was due to a young player named Lew Alcindor, who came to UCLA with a large chip on his shoulder and a profound hatred of white oppression--understandably, given his life circumstances. Alcindor, later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, may have had his troubles, but he loved UCLA, and he arrived as an already seasoned player "needing only to gain strength and stamina to keep up with adults logging about three times as many games a season." Bill Walton came to the court with a hippie ethos that didn't necessarily equate to being laid-back, and Wooden badgered him to cut his hair and submit to "a foundation of structure and discipline." Difficulties ensued, but, as Howard-Cooper writes, the three men learned from each other, sharing notable victories and stinging losses. At the end of his career, Wooden was more relaxed and beloved as a kind of grandfather to the world; Abdul-Jabbar became more forgiving while still working ceaselessly for civil rights; and Walton, still a hippie, became inclined to kindness and tempered observations. Each of them illustrates Wooden's axiom: "Things work out best for the people who make the best of the way things work out." A fluent, fast-moving narrative to delight Bruins fans--and hoops buffs in general.

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January 29, 2024
In this terrific history, sports journalist Howard-Cooper (Steve Kerr) examines John Wooden’s final 12 seasons as coach of the UCLA Bruins basketball team before he retired in 1975, a stretch that saw the team win 10 national championships. Portraying Wooden as an old-school coach swept up in a rapidly changing world, Howard-Cooper contends that Wooden’s insistence that players be “morally fit” to play sometimes hampered the Bruins on the court (for example, he suggests that Wooden’s decision to pull point guard Greg Lee from the starting lineup for smoking marijuana led to the team’s underwhelming performance during the 1973–1974 season). Contrasting Wooden’s conservative outlook with the progressive politics of his two best-known players, Howard-Cooper details how the shy Lew Alcindor (known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar after converting to Islam before his senior year) became involved in Black rights protests and boycotted the 1968 Olympics as a stand against American racism. In the 1970s, center Bill Walton, “a San Diego hippie who thrilled in a good rebellion,” became an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, causing Wooden to worry that Walton was “being used by the antiwar faction for publicity.” Howard-Cooper elegantly weaves together sports, political, and cultural history, presenting a trenchant portrait of college basketball’s most successful dynasty against the backdrop of a country wracked by political upheaval. Perceptive and exciting, this is a slam dunk for college hoops fans. Agent: Susan Canavan, Waxman Literary.