Bloomington Days


Book Description

Frat boys who think Mario Lanza is an Italian sports car; journalists who consider "Man arrested for blowing mucus from nose at an officer" a news story . . . Welcome to Bloomington: a world of grey cells and limestone, catfish and cheerleaders, binge drinking and bigots, Ockham's razor and buzz cuts. This is the tiny college town where Alfred Kinsey catalogued gall wasps before stinging a nation into belated sexual awareness. If you're gay or Greek, love opera or hoops, Bloomington is heaven on earth; we have as many same-sex couples as sorority sisters, as many divas as athletes. Welcome to my home, a quixotic mix of small-town life and larger than life campus, squirreled away in the flatlands of Middle America, where torpor is sometimes mistaken for nirvanic serenity, irony for insult and "ethnographic dazzle" for deep differences.




Days of Knight


Book Description

“A personal glimpse into how the legendary Indiana basketball coach taught and mentored his team.”—Jared Jeffries, former Indiana Hoosier and New York Knick What happens when a 6' 9" kid from Lobelville, Tennessee is recruited by legendary basketball coach Bob Knight? Kirk Haston’s life was changed forever with just a two-minute phone call. With previously unknown Knight stories, anecdotes, and choice quotes, Haston gives fans an inside look at the notoriously private man and his no-nonsense coaching style. Which past Hoosier basketball greats returned to talk to and practice with current teams? How did Knight mentally challenge his players in practices? How did the players feel when Knight was fired? In this touching and humorous book, Haston shares these answers and more, including his own Hoosier highs—shooting a famous three-point winning shot against number one ranked Michigan State—and lows—losing his mom in a heartbreaking tornado accident. Days of Knight is a book every die-hard IU basketball fan will treasure.




Railroad Telegrapher


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Glory Days


Book Description

A rollicking guided tour of one extraordinary summer, when some of the most pivotal and freakishly coincidental stories all collided and changed the way we think about modern sports The summer of 1984 was a watershed moment in the birth of modern sports when the nation watched Michael Jordan grow from college basketball player to professional athlete and star. That summer also saw ESPN's rise to media dominance as the country's premier sports network and the first modern, commercialized, profitable Olympics. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird's rivalry raged, Martina Navratilova and John McEnroe reigned in tennis, and Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon made pro wrestling a business, while Donald Trump pierced the national consciousness as a pro football team owner. It was an awakening in the sports world, a moment when sports began to morph into the market-savvy, sensationalized, moneyed, controversial, and wildly popular arena we know today. In the tradition of Bill Bryson's One Summer: America, 1927, L. Jon Wertheim captures these 90 seminal days against the backdrop of the nostalgia-soaked 1980s, to show that this was the year we collectively traded in our ratty Converses for a pair of sleek, heavily branded, ingeniously marketed Nikes. This was the year that sports went big-time.




Calendar of Events


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The Railroad Telegrapher


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The Vermont Brigade in the Seven Days


Book Description

The Vermont Brigade, sometimes referred to as the "First Vermont Brigade" or the "Old Brigade," fought its first full-brigade engagement in the Seven Days' battles. The leaders, as well as the rank and file, were inexperienced in warfare, but through sheer grit and determination they made a name for themselves as one of the hardest-fighting units in the Army of the Potomac. Using soldiers' letters, diaries, and service and pension records, this book gives a soldier's-eye-view of the Virginia summer heat, days of marching with very little rest or nourishment, and the fear and exhilaration of combat. Also included are the stories of 29 men that were wounded or killed and how the tragedies affected their families.













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