Seth Davis Releases WOODEN: A COACH'S LIFE on 50th Anniversary of John Wooden's NCAA Championship at UCLA

In January 2014, Sports Illustrated writer and CBS college basketball analyst Seth Davis's definitive and unflinching biography of UCLA coaching legend John Wooden will be the talk of the sports world. Davislooks at Wooden's life as he lived it, beyond the press clippings and championships. This is not a book that will further lionize or deify the great man, that's been done before too many times to count. This book simply presents John Wooden to the sports world for the first time...the man, not the mystique.

In anticipation of the release, Davis has launched an informative website for WOODEN: A Coach's Life (released by Times Books, January 14, 2014). The site includes a book trailer narrated by CBS Sportscaster Jim Nantz, preparing the reader for one of the greatest sports reads of the New Year as we kick of a new NCAA season.

WOODEN: A Coach's Life

By Seth Davis

On the 50th anniversary of John Wooden's first NCAA Championship at UCLA in 1963-1964,

Sports Illustrated senior writer and CBS analyst Seth Davis presents the unflinching and definitive biography of one of the giants of the game in WOODEN: A Coach's Life (Times Books, January 14, 2014). "WOODEN" captures the life, legacy and essence of the sports icon. Davis's research is exhaustive and exemplary and his prose is artful and entertaining, as he offers perspective on this quintessentially American tale.

The "Wooden mystique" was built on his sweat-soaked gymnasium floors, his awe-inspiring fast break, his harnessing the talents of legendary players like Lew Alcindor, Gail Goodrich, Walt Hazzard and Bill Walton, and his unmatched record in the NCAA tournament. Davis celebrates the mystique and how it was built, but digs further. He takes full measure of the man who was often considered an enigma in his playing and coaching days before he was elevated to "St. John." John Wooden was a disciplined and hard-nosed man, who dealt with the issues that all coaches of that era dealt with (race relations, political protests, mercurial athletes, overeager boosters and the heavy weight of expectations), and others that don't quite mesh with the lasting memories we have of "The Wizard of Westwood." In order to take full measure of the man, we must know the full story, warts and all. In "WOODEN", Seth Davis grants us a clear-eyed look at a gifted player, a brilliant coach, and a master teacher, and helps us appreciate John Wooden for what he was. Not a god, or a saint, or a wizard-but a man.

"This is a superb biography, worthy of its subject. With deep research, clear writing, and objective thinking, Seth Davis has cut through the mythology to present John Wooden and his UCLA dynasty in a fresh and compulsively readable way."

- David Maraniss, author of When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi

Seth Davis is the author of the New York Times bestseller When March Went Mad: The Game That Transformed Basketball and the memoir Equinunk, Tell Your Story: My Return to Summer Camp. He is a senior writer at Sports Illustrated as well as a college basketball studio analyst for CBS Sports and CBS Sports Network. A graduate of Duke University, he lives with his family in Los Angeles.

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