The Best Game Ever
Reviewed
by
Bob Young...one of
the original team members of the 1956-57 Dream Team.
To
write about a half-century old major sporting event, a
special team and a memorable basketball season requires
curiosity and an enormous amount of research. Adam Lucas
succeeds admirably with this fine retrospective of the U.N.C.
1957 N.C.A.A. Championship team. He brings this miraculous
season to life as the coach and his team lived it, game by
game, fifty years ago.
With
television in its infancy and coverage of basketball in the
south playing a distant second fiddle to happenings on the
gridiron, it took Coach Frank McGuire's dream and his small
band of talented athletes from the New York area to capture
the nation's interest in UNC basketball.
Frank
McGuire left the comfort of St. John's University in Queens,
NY, venturing south to overhaul a tired basketball program,
igniting enthusiasm and fervor that eventually set the
foundation for what has become a basketball dynasty.
From a
player perspective, this book re-kindled fond memories of a
time when North Carolinians embraced a group of NYC kids and
their coach and cheered them to 32 consecutive wins,
culminating with two triple overtime victories on
consecutive nights, over Michigan State and a heavily
favored Wilt Chamberlain led Kansas team.
That
championship season changed our lives forever, and forever
linked us as a family. What a wonderful experience, enriched
by time and I was so fortunate to have been a part of the
best game ever.
This
book will bring you to a different era, an exciting time in
college basketball history and will certainly make you glad
that the author has written it.
Author
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly, the
nation's most widely read magazine devoted to University of
North Carolina athletics.
He is
a past winner of the North Carolina Sports Columnist of the
Year Award, and the featured columnist on
TarHeelBlue.com.
The
Lions Press, 2006, ISBN_13: 978-1-59228-982-0 ISBN-10:
1-59228-982-7
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