Kingdom on Fire: Kareem, Wooden, Walton, and the Turbulent Days of the UCLA Basketball Dynasty

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. (Mar.)