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Books by WSU alumni and friends
Sports
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Bunion Derby: The 1928 Footrace Across America
By Charles B. Kastner '81
From the publisher:
On March 4, 1928, 199 men lined up in Los Angeles, California, to participate in a 3,400-mile transcontinental footrace to New York City. The Bunion Derby, as the press dubbed the event, was the brainchild of sports promoter Charles C. Pyle. He promised a $25,000 grand prize and claimed the competition would immortalize U.S. Highway Route 66, a 2,400-mile road, mostly unpaved, that subjected the runners to mountains, deserts, mud, and sandstorms, from Los Angeles to Chicago. The runners represented all walks of American life from immigrants to millionaires, with a peppering of star international athletes included by Pyle for publicity purposes. For eighty-four days, the men participated in this part footrace and part Hollywood production that incorporated a road show featuring football legend Red Grange, food concessions, vaudeville acts, sideshows, a portable radio station, and the world's largest coffeepot sponsored by Maxwell House serving ninety gallons of coffee a day. Drawn by hopes for a better future and dreams of fame, fortune, and glory, the bunioneers embarked on an exhaustive and grueling journey that would challenge their physical and psychological endurance to the fullest while Pyle struggled to keep his cross-country road show afloat.
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Himalayan Quest: Ed Viesturs on the 8,000-Meter Giants
By Ed Viesturs ('87 D.V.M.) with Peter Potterfield
From the publisher: Himalayan Quest offers an unforgettable glimpse into the remarkable world of Ed Viesturs, America’s best-known high altitude climber, and the breathtaking landscape in which he works. It is an unparalleled showcase of both the heartbreaking tragedy and the ineffable joy Viesturs has experienced while striving at the limits of human endurance. Written with Peter Potterfield, an award-winning mountaineering journalist, Viesturs narrates his quest to climb the 14 highest mountains in the world—those peaks above 8,000 meters in height. At the center of this extraordinary account of his mountaineering adventures are Viesturs’s own awe-inspiring photographs from the top of the world. This collection of images will show readers, as never before, the deadly beauty and haunting menace of the Himalaya. A unique, inspiring, and spine-tingling glimpse into the rarified world of the extreme climber, Himalayan Quest will appeal not only to Viesturs's significant fan base (fondly known as Edophiles or Edheads), but to outdoor aficionados and armchair adventurers everywhere.
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Home Stand: Growing Up in Sports
By James McKean ’68
Jim McKean weaves together a series of essays about growing up in the Pacific Northwest in the late ’50s and early ’60s, coming to terms with his father and his family, and playing basketball at WSU, where his sensitive soul began to feel the cultural and political changes that swept across the U.S., including the Vietnam War protests and the civil rights movement. If you were a student at WSU in the 1960s, you should read this book. If your parents were students at WSU in the 1960s, you should read this book to understand the time they lived in. If you’re a sports fan, you should read this book. If you’re not included in those categories, read it anyway. Read it slow for its poetry, or read it fast for its prose. Read it at one sitting to absorb its overarching themes, or read it one chapter at a time to enjoy its story-telling qualities.
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Read a chapter from the book.
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Playing Nice and Losing
By Ying Wushanley '91
From the Publisher: For nearly a century, women physical educators kept an iron-fist control of women's intercollegiate athletics within the "sex-separate" spheres of college campuses and under an educational model of competition. That control began to falter when Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments in 1972. Title IX meant greater opportunities for women in educational activities, including intercollegiate athletics. Ten years after the passage of the law, however, women not only gave up their “educational model” but also lost their power and control of women's intercollegiate athletics. In Playing Nice and Losing, Ying Wushanley looks into the evolution of women's intercollegiate athletics from a historical perspective and examines the demise of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) from both women’s and men’s viewpoints. Five major themes emerge: the movement from protectionism to sex-separation of women's college sports; the ascendance of women's sports as a result of the Cold War and power struggle within U. S. amateur sports; the challenge to the sex-separatist philosophy; the NCAA takeover and bankruptcy of the AIAW; and the defeat of the AIAW as a defender of the “separate but equal” doctrine. With Title IX and formerly men's organizations entering the governance of women's intercollegiate athletics, the sustaining of the sex-separatist AIAW became untenable in American society.
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ROD: A True Story
John A. Kuri
Rod Retherford ’84 triumphed as an undersized athlete, but his plucky comeback tale has always been told in spaces that were too small to fully contain it. There were plenty of headlines in 1980 after a bullet ripped through the football player’s shoulder and lodged permanently in his neck, nearly killing him. Media interest soared after Retherford mounted a miraculous comeback and terrorized opposing offenses. People always said Retherford’s story was worthy of a book or movie, but New York and Hollywood never called. ROD: A True Story finally – and fully – captures the story behind the headlines.
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Stadium Stories: Washington State Cougars
by Bud Withers '70
From the publisher: Cougar Pride runs strong through the wheat fields of Eastern Washington and beyond, and author Bud Withers has penned thirteen great stories celebrating the finest moments in WSU football. From victories over archrival Washington in the annual Apple Cup to thrilling appearances on the national stage in the Rose Bowl, there's plenty in this book for Cougar fans to stand up and cheer about.
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