HiPlains Bookshelf: March Madness Edition

Taking a break from the morning walk thru today due to the fact that I had a free pass to a pre-screening last night of Black Snake Moan and I didn't get to my usual reading. So rather than pretend I did and hustle something together, I'm going to debut something I've been wanting to do for a while: the HiPlains Bookshelf (handily linked in the sidebar.)

I'm entirely serious about compiling one of the greatest sports book libraries ever seen. I've got gold foil ex libri stamps from Barnes & Noble and a 20+ year head start.

The first edition is in celebration of us finally reaching March so we'll take a look at some of the best college hoops has to offer below.

And the movie? Let's just say that I probably owe my girlfriend one chick-flick after watching her squirm for 100 minutes. In other words, guys, it was good. Not great, but Samuel L. was unstoppable. As he says before ripping off the greatest gangsta rap blues song I've ever heard:

Ya'll ready for some shit?


Raw Recruits - Alexander Wolff & Armen Keteyian

Before Nike and adidas logos ever started showing up on the fronts of college jerseys, this book exposed their influence over college hoops and the recruiting game. Read about Chris Mills getting cash in the mail and see Rex Chapman's Puerto Rican-style nameplate necklace.

All you really need to know about this book is summed up by one of its central characters, Sonny Vaccaro, "It's a cesspool and we start the process."


A Season on the Brink - John Feinstein

My college coach was so much like Knight in this book that I swear he must have read it and made the conscious decision to fully model his coaching style on the reporting of John Feinstein. From his fondness for kicking kids out of practice to his deifying former players while denigrating the current squad to judgment clouding competitiveness, it was all there.

My favorite line from the book: "Daryl...do you know you haven't scored a basket inside since Jesus Christ was lecturing in Omaha?"

I don't even know what that means but I love it.



Fab Five - Mitch Albom

Still the only book, regardless of genre, that I've read twice in one week. Not only does it serve as a valuable reminder of when and how college basketball changed to what we see today (read about the equipment manager ordering the extra inches on the inseam and see the players buying black Nike socks at the mall!), the book is also proof that Mitch Albom was, at one time, interesting.

"What are you afraid of Jalen?"

"Death," Jalen said, "because I can't imagine the world without me in it."



To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry - Will Blythe

I included the full-title above because it's a good indication that this isn't your typical sports book. In fact, I'm confident in saying that it's the best book I've read in the past year, no qualifier necessary.

Blythe is a former literary editor at Esquire and the book truly reads like sports literature. An entire book devoted to one man's hatred of Duke? Who wouldn't want to read that? Who wouldn't want to write 20,000 words slamming their personal rival?

"I am a sick, sick man. Not only am I consumed by hatred, I am delighted by it. I have done some checking into the matter and have discovered that the world's great religions and wisdom traditions tend to frown upon this."

It's about basketball. It's about obsession. It's the perfect book to get you through the three days between tournament rounds this month.

Up Next: Opening Day Edition