Four Corners: How Unc, NC State, Duke, and Wake Forest Made North Carolina the Crossroads of the Basketball Universe
If you want to major in Carolina basketball, this is certainly the primary text. Breezily written, well researched, and rich with anecdotes,Four Cornerssolidly surveys a remarkable sporting phenomenon: the concentrated quartet of hoop dreamers--UNC, NC State, Duke, and Wake Forest--that dominates the ACC, and, for that matter, the NCAA tournament. Menzer, a sportswriter for theWinston-Salem Journal, tips off in the pre-ACC era of Coach Everett Case at State, and then looks at the teams and programs molded over time by such outsized presences as Frank McGuire, Dean Smith, Jim Valvano, Bones McKinney, and Mike Krzyzewski. "People can talk all they want about the Big Ten," says Duke's charismatic Coach K. "About Michigan and Ohio State and Indiana and Kentucky or whatever, but there's no way that compares. They're in different states. Here, we share the same dry cleaners."Four Cornerscarefully examines what comes out in the wash and, in the process, airs some pretty good dirty laundry.--Jeff Silverman