The Steve Spurrier Story
by Bill Chastain
(Alpha Sigma ‘76 - Ga. Tech)
Long time sports writer and Kappa Alpha Bill Chastain took on the monumental task of both understanding and accurately describing the sometimes infamous football character, Steve Spurrier, in The Steve Spurrier Story: From Heisman to Head Ball Coach. The book provides a look at the controversial player-turned-coach and his life away from the field. It has received acclaim from sports writers and critics from many publications, including the Tampa Tribune, Sarasota’s Herald-Tribune, New York Times Magazine, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“Chastain brings to life the man behind the myth in this fascinating and intimate portrait of America’s most controversial coach,” said Matthew Brzezinski, a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. Through interviews with his family, friends, colleagues, and players, Chastain tells Spurrier’s tale, especially focusing on his sense of competition gained in childhood.
Chastain is the president of Chastain Communications, which is a media consulting and public relations business in Tampa. He worked 18 years as a sports writer, including 12 at The Tampa Tribune. He is currently working on a biography of Jose Canseco.
For the Glory of France
by Floyd H. Duncan
(Beta ‘79 - VMI)
For the Glory of France asks how the climates of Vietnam, France, the United States, and the rest of the world would be different had the Vietnam War began directly after World War II. If the American government had listened to Ho Chi Minh in 1945 and his pleadings for American friendship and support, how would history have unfolded? The sad story fuses fact with fiction that demonstrates its author’s mastery of the subject matter which produces a seamless tale including a believable main character, Ho Chi Minh. The character of Ho Chi Minh was created from numerous first hand sources including OSS agents.
This story centers on the idea that if the Unites States had followed the lead of several OSS agents, who saw Ho Chi Minh as more Nationalist than Communist, and prevented France from reclaiming their former colony, the 30-year Vietnam tragedy, including American military activity, would have been avoided. How the struggle became the center of global attention and a source of so much conflict is examined in this book which never loses sight of the original fight, even as it whirled out of control.
Duncan is a professor of economics at the Virginia Military Institute and is a retired Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. He is a veteran of the Vietnam War and lives in Lexington, Va. with his wife. He has four children and two grandchildren.
Like Shooting Rapids in the Dark: Selected Writings on Education
by Billy O. Wireman
(Beta Delta ‘52 - Georgetown)
Billy O. Wireman is an unstoppable force in American education and his 33 years of college presidency make him the second longest serving college president in America. After 42 years in education, Wireman is retiring from his post as president of Queens University in Charlotte, N.C ., and has written a memoir of life lessons gathered by teaching.
An understanding of the magnitude of Wireman’s work in education is necessary before a reader can appreciate the writings. To that extent, The Charlotte Observer’s description of Wireman fits him well, “Money is important, but the measure of a school is not its balance sheet, but its success in teaching and learning. An avid reader, writer, traveler, and teacher, Wireman might well be the model for the school he led: insatiably curious, pragmatic, yet adventurous, eager to meet new challenges but rooted in enduring values.”
The book is organized as a collection of dozens of short lessons each carefully crafted by a skilled writer who demonstrates his precision with each mini-lecture.
Now that he is finished with his memoirs and his college presidency, ever-energetic Wireman is doing consulting work in China and Russia.
An Invincible Summer
by Ivan Scott (Scott Sergent)
(Delta Delta ‘89 - East TN State)
Ivan Scott’s first novel is a romance that captures and delights its readers from the first page to the last. With meticulous details of a world now gone, the cities of New York and Chicago in the mid- 1950’s, Scott creates a novel that pairs the present time with the past in an uplifting tale of romance.
The book is best described by Gigi Weinrich of Barnes and Noble Books who said, “What a sweet, funny tale of love’s exit and joyous return beautifully set in days long ago when the affairs of life were simpler, but of the heart, just as curious and complex.”
The story features two vastly different men who spend a summer overcoming their tragic pasts. The lessons Jack teaches Sam include every example of romance, passion and beauty the world has to offer.
While Jack slowly begins to question the pain of his past, Sam encounters a mysterious woman who puts Jack’s lessons to the test. The novel examines love and the human response in a vivid world established around firm and lovable characters.
Scott has written for various Atlanta Braves publications and articles promoting attractions in and around Atlanta. He is featured in The Erato, a poetry magazine published by the Georgia Institute of Technology. He enjoys soccer, softball and lives in the Atlanta suburb of Vinings, Ga.
