Kingdom on Fire
Kareem, Wooden, Walton, and the Turbulent Days of the UCLA Basketball Dynasty
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4.5 • 12 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
In the tradition of Blood in the Garden and Three-Ring Circus comes a bold history of the iconic UCLA Bruins championship teams led by legendary coach John Wooden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Bill Walton—set against the turmoil of American culture in the 1960s and ’70s.
Few basketball dynasties have reigned supreme like the UCLA Bruins did over college basketball from 1965–1975 (seven consecutive titles, three perfect records, an eighty-eight-game winning streak that remains unmatched). At the center of this legendary franchise were the now-iconic players Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton, naturally reserved personalities who became outspoken giants when it came to race and the Vietnam War. These generational talents were led by John Wooden, a conservative counterweight to his star players whose leadership skills would transcend the game after his retirement. But before the three of them became history, they would have to make it—together.
Los Angeles native and longtime sportswriter for the Los Angeles Times, Scott Howard-Cooper draws on more than a hundred interviews and extensive access to many of the principal figures, including Wooden’s family, to deliver a rich narrative that reveals the turmoil at the heart of this storied college basketball program.
Making the eye-opening connections between UCLA and the Nixon administration, Ronald Reagan, Muhammad Ali, and others, Kingdom on Fire puts the UCLA basketball team’s political involvement and influence in full relief for the first time. “Perceptive and exciting, this is a slam dunk for college hoops fans” (Publishers Weekly).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
