Sports Fact and Book Rec of the Day 12/23/2007

12/23/1970:
Western Kentucky defeats Jacksonville, 97-84, at Freedom Hall in Louisville in a battle of unbeaten teams led by towering All-American centers. Seven-foot Jim McDaniels leads the Hilltoppers with 46 points and wins his individual duel with 7'2" Artis Gilmore, who tallies 29 points for the visiting Dolphins. These two excellent teams will meet this spring in a first-round game of the NCAA tourney, and WKU will prevail again, 74-72.

Birthdays:
Dick Weber b. 1929
Paul Hornung b. 1935
Jack Ham b. 1948
Jim Harbaugh b. 1963
Brad Lidge b. 1976

HISTORICAL FICTION

A clever premise makes Charyn’s novel enticing and suspenseful. A theater troupe sets up outside of Moscow for a production of King Lear and attracts the admiration of Joseph Stalin. Suddenly the actor playing Lear finds himself juggling a demanding role and a love affair, while he plays dangerous games of deception. The Washington Post promises that “Charyn is a magician...there isn’t another writer in America even remotely like him.”

THE GREEN LANTERN: A ROMANCE OF STALINIST RUSSIA, by Jerome Charyn (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2005)