Runnin Rebel

“The wildest college basketball story ever told.” —Adrian Wojnarowski

Traces the history of the University of Las Vegas, Nevada Runnin' Rebels basketball team.

Prematurely retired after suffering a stroke, San Francisco detective Vinny Oliveto’s life turns upside down when he finds himself stuck at the Gold Doors nursing home in the middle of Kansas. His fortunes change, however, when he encounters two wheelchair bound octogenarians who secure a detective’s license for him in the hopes he can solve a ticket scam and a series of petty thefts. Death by Drive-By follows the exploits of Vinny Oliveto, an unconventional sleuth who attempts to solve multiple mysteries ranging from theft to murder in an action packed, roller coaster ride laced with humor. After the drive-by shooting of a beloved long-time resident, the desperate Gold Doors director seeks Vinny’s help. Vinny, unleashed, launches multiple investigations across several states in a chase for the manipulator behind the murder. All things are not as they seem.

Two books on hoops weren’t enough, so now there’s a third: Basketball Championships’ Most Wanted™, focusing on the best, worst, greatest, and most amusing from basketball’s long history of championships in college and the pros—mens’ and womens’, ABA and CBA, and the Olympics as well! March Madness is one of the most exciting times of year, when anything can happen and Cinderella looks for her prince, sometimes even finding him. And when May and June roll around and the NBA playoffs are in full swing, the intensity ratchets up as the professionals take center stage. Basketball Championships’ Most Wanted™ celebrates both of these and more, with fifty top-ten lists on topics like unlikely heroes and fantastic freshmen in the NCAA tournament, some of the best long-range gunners in play-off history, players who stepped up big-time with a triple-double in important games, the best buzzer-beaters of all time, and even teams that excelled in the regular season but withered in the pressure cooker. The championship hunt is the most thrilling and action-packed time of the year in basketball, and now you can relive all the excitement. Get in on all the “hoopla” with Basketball Championships’ Most Wanted™: The Top 10 Book of March Mayhem, Playoff Performances, and Tournament Oddities.

Scandals about cheating and corruption have dogged amateur and professional sports in the United States since the nation's earliest days. This work examines the most infamous and consequential of these controversies and scandals both on and off the field. Authoritative Individual essays tackle notorious events in popular American sports ranging from the 1919 Black Sox scandal to revelations of sign stealing by the Houston Astros throughout their 2020 championship season, with stops in between to survey horrific sex abuse scandals at Penn State, Baylor, and Michigan State; steroid and drug scandals that brought down once-admired athletes like Mark McGwire and Lance Armstrong; and cheating/betting controversies that tainted individual players (Pete Rose), teams (Boston College, New England Patriots), and entire leagues (including the Little League World Series in 2001). But this work does more than just recount these events; it will also examine the cultural and economic pressures and forces that contributed to these events, as well as the lessons learned and steps taken (if any) to enact reform and help the sport recover.

Commercial aspects of college football and basketball during the mid- to late 20th century were dominated by a few "get rich quick" schools. Though the NCAA was responsible for controlling such facets of college sports, the organization was unwilling and unable to control the excesses of the few who opposed the majority opinion. The result was a period of corruption, rules violations, unnecessary injuries and overspending. These events led to the formation of larger conferences, richer bowl games and rules intended to preserve the "money-making" value of college football and basketball. This book explores gambling, academic fraud, illegal booster activity and the single-minded pursuit of television contracts in college sports, as well as the NCAA's involvement--or lack thereof--in such cases.