March Madness! - Craig Leener

a supernatural force wants to take away the game of basketball that's the premise behind a new trilogy for young adult readers that brings together basketball friendship mathematical equations and an unlikely road trip to the university of kansas great leader is the other it was never about basketball and its sequel all roads lead to lawrence welcome craig it's great to be here thank you your protagonist in this series and seventeen year old is the keel archer who's love a bathtub owl takes him on a strange adventure literally into other worlds come about fake well these are high school star but he's got scholarship chamber citizens back pocket he's in the biggest game of his career and he's been guarded by his arch nemesis think a kid named brock decker whose his name is as destiny might say is he is faced with a decision to make a mixer on wait commits an act of violence and in the course of what happens next are they forfeit the game he's he's expelled from school he loses a scholarship to kill you and he's forced to live

out the rest his high school days at the california educational systems version of purgatory continuation school and that's where the story picks up i have you read from that part of the book if if you well sure on and take us where is he makes that wrong turn this is a sikh describing is like basketball is my world i have a basketball with me have your ego everything important in my life is connected to the sport or thailand about the decisions people make and the motivations behind those decisions through one of the complete stranger would react under pressure but a basket monsanto tom run a fast break with a game on the line to see pass to a teammate or pull up and shoot to get to the room or valves of office for them out of bounds it's the ultimate study of the human condition artie no self one central had investors city finals before losing to mid city press i can deal with losing heck i lost a ton of us want him to my seventeen years but it was harley losses haunted me ever since their temper got the better of me and i made an awful decision right there on the basketball court a place i hold sacred

just one punch led to a broader let my losing everything i've worked my entire life for including a college basketball scholarship to the university of kansas that was february twenty six our final day that self one central person stretch and i reassessed sentenced him a journey for the rest of our senior year and that's one of the weird things started happening that's it was never about basketball by craig leaner six story takes him on an unlikely adventure that ultimately leads to us surprise encounter with dr james naismith will know dr naismith as the father basketball but it turns out that in this world at least there's far more to dr naismith than meets the eye well dr naismith was was brought to earth by an injured dimensional energy been very critical of the seven to mention some dimension how broad basketball to earth as a means of fostering peace and brotherhood amongst men and dr naismith his crew they get selected to to do that to foster that

it's clear throughout the book it was never about basketball and all roads lead so warren's they're your books about basketball of course but in a larger sense basketball is clearly meant as a metaphor for life and how to lead a decent life talk to me about that boy i grew up around the game of an early age it was exposed to it in and i found that time for me was a great way to measure like that was how the color the prism through which i view the world and i had the good fortune of being at every home new zealand ask about infinity palpably opened in nineteen sixty five until about nineteen seventy four all became time to do other things so i got a witness all those dynasties i'm i got to interview john wooden for a for a fourth grade class assignment was ten years old my dad was a he was a la mr andy pulls the strings and next thing you know i'm sitting with his office and asked him questions and over a squeaky voice

and all that just came together and it's hard to describe this led to my love of the game and then how we view the world for time in our rule number five year rule number five that some you know i've read the rules before i decided to make it a story point now i'm stuck with me because there's too much violence in this game is to many people taken cheap shots of other people and so i decided i have to hang the story on that one evan in the tent into another player and this is dr james naismith original roles about golf well number five is actually admitted that rules along the role but the part that is really relevant is there any player who as evident and internal player he's out over here she's out an underground substation involved back then so you would really hurt your team sa decided to arm to make an example of the

sikh for that role and as emma craig winner he is the author of it was never about basketball and all roads lead to laurence fink have the conversation in the second book with a co worker that really stuck with me and that's that basketball and status have a lot in common they share some strategies ends it was talking with a young man named nathan freeman who has some issues of his own that he's working out in the course of that book i was very angry young fellow is a junior college chess champion and he had a tough upbringing and he's trying to reconcile a lot of that through the air the game chess and you draw some parallels was talking was it in the break room at the smartest or are they both work and him evolve our strategy thinking ahead you're sizing up your opponent and there's a few ways of doing it whether you're moving around on the court for you to sing across from somalia of just a well you're also a chess player a deeply jealous of a concern myself a player in much the same way as i take pictures but among the photographer that idea

another quote from this was never about basketball in the last seconds of the big game the game that will determine whether zeke and his friends will win the turn a man and go on to play at the university of kansas in another term and zeke says to himself basketball had a way of protecting the eu when i needed it to whom are getting emotional visceral those words back yeah he wanted for the the winning lay up and he used the backboard honest as a way of screening off the person who was guarding and that's that's what i meant by that it is figuratively literally protecting him and that's dads how's life worked and as in a crate leader he's the author of this was never about basketball and all roads lead to lawrence the third book in his trilogy it was always about basketball is expected to come out in twenty twenty one craig and no big spoilers here to give us a sense of what to expect in it was always about basketball you were in a fine elements

of our sacred geometry and time travel and i will give you a further insight into the book we're going back eighty ninety one where the game was invented in springfield mass transit is gonna participate in the invention of the game could tell me as lawrence kansas plays out big role in these books talk about what it's like to come here to lawrence the home of basketball and dr james naismith i cannot walk into allen fieldhouse without getting tears in my eyes i cannot stop myself from feeling now allied commanders it's an overwhelming feeling to walk in a better reader and just to be or anywhere around that time it's very grounding kind of intimidating at the same time and like i have so much to learn by being here average is an incredibly inner he's the author of this was never about basketball and all roads lead to lawrence began his third book in the trilogy it was always about basketball is expected to come out next year craig thank you so

much for coming in today for leadership thank you terry