Purely fiction, these stories tell the tales of athletes in a variety of sports, including track, football, martial arts, Ping Pong, fishing, and dirt bike riding.

From award-winning author Kennedy Ryan comes the soul-gripping, unforgettable first installment of the Hoops trilogy. Iris DuPree meets August West in a sports bar during her last semester of college. It's the conversation of a lifetime and sends sparks flying in every direction. The connection is undeniable...but the timing is all wrong. August is poised for the NBA draft, and Iris belongs to another man--basketball's "golden boy" and August's long-time rival. The two go their separate ways, but they often recall that electric night and what could have been. While August has embarked on his all-star life, studded with wealth and fame, Iris's perfect public relationship has become a nightmare behind closed doors. A tarnished dream of fool's gold. When August re-enters her life, the world seems briefly bright again, but Iris's darkest nights are not over yet. To survive, she must build her own strength and trust that her bond with August can endure after all this time. Even when her fraudulent prince has vowed never to let her go.

When Nick and Kia arrive for try-outs for the basketball team they played on the previous year, they are surprised to meet their new coach. Coach Barkley is a former college star known for his fierce desire to win. Though the coach has been away from the game for many years, his competitive instincts are as strong as ever and his aggressive coaching techniques are a new experience for these kids. Suddenly making the rep team no longer seems the sure thing that Nick and Kia expected when they came to try-outs. This is hard on Nick and Kia, but especially difficult for the coach's son, L.B., who is also trying out for the team. When the coach matches them up against a team of older players and then refuses to accept their loss, the kids begin to wonder if they even want to make this team. Nick, Kia and L.B. finally have to decide whether to play for a tyrant or to take a stand on principle and face the consequences.

As development overturns the landscape of North Carolina, tenth-grader Chris Fuller knows he'll end up fighting Brandon, a new kid who just moved into the housing development that destroyed Chris's beloved pine forest. Brandon turns out to be a real runner, far better than Chris, shows no respect for locals, and when it comes to a school project that has Chris baffled, slams his hand down and says, "It's as good as done!" Chris needs an idea for the project, but mostly he's trying to find a way to be talking to violinist Muriel. She makes the crazy suggestion he try talking to someone from the past, anyone who might give him an idea. But he's pretty sure he's already been spoken to, maybe by a mythological night sky jaguar, who asks, "Do you know how fire burns in water?" When Chris's first idea falters and he gets desperate, the jaguar makes a way for Brandon's troubled past and Chris's faithfulness as a friend to cross paths and carry them to a new place of standing and friendship.

It was a time before television sets, Big Macs, video games, and Harry Potter. The Japanese had bombed our naval base at Pearl Harbor. Older brothers, uncles and even fathers were drafted into the Armed Forces. Gene Autry was busy riding the range. Batman and Robin kept our cities safe, and Tarzan swung from vines in a jungle habitat. The magic of radio kept imaginative minds occupied with the adventures of Superman and the Lone Ranger. In spite of the hardships of World War II, it was a marvelous adventure to be a boy growing up in a multicultural Pennsylvania steel town. Join Ralphie and his First Street Rambler teammates Heads Pinasko, Half-Pint Hayes, Jonesy. and Jay Boy Husher in their adventures as they built their own ball fields, swam in sulfur creeks, raided cherry trees and cabbage patches, shined shoes on street corners, and made their own sling shots, go carts and rubber band guns! If you lived during that era, you will find joy in revisiting a past which has long disappeared. If you missed out on those cherished years of a bygone era, you are in for a delightful history lesson!

Born on a snowy night in January 1938, with a drunken father who refused to take his pregnant wife to the hospital, Kenny began his existence in Scotts Addition, a poverty stricken section of intercity Richmond, Virginia. Two years later, his father leaves a sick Kenny with a temperature hovering over one hundred degrees to go hear Glenn Miller play in Philadelphia. While his father is away, only the intervention of a Negro midwife saves the two year olds life. In 1941, Kennys father again leaves, divorcing his mother and leaving her to raise Kenny and his older brother Keith on eighty dollars a month. A loving mother teaches the young Kenny proper moral values and the importance of relationships, but much of his learning must come from the streets, where a boy must fight to survive. Humorously told in personal stories and anecdotes, Kenny gradually develops from an undernourished kid to a teenage product of the rock and roll fifties. On the way, he discovers the meaning of friendship, love and relationships with others. Living with a stern grandfather, Kenny quickly adopts an aversion to garden spiders and shaving straps. Pride and prejudice reign even in the poor community of Scotts Addition as Kenny learns even in church, where Gods love is proclaimed from the pulpit, that prejudice is alive and well. He comes face to face with prejudice when, in his first year of junior high school, the mother of a friend from an exclusive neighborhood refuses to let her son play with Kenny because of where he lives. Kenny and his friends go on escapades searching for fun and excitement. They take an all night camping trip on the James River and traipse through a railroad yard of moving trains. Kenny learns about girls from Della Mays first kiss to his placing an engagement ring on the hand of Kay, his future wife. He experiences all the excitements and depressions of a growing teen in between. At fourteen, he barely survives his first seduction by climbing out of a three-story window. When all is said and done, it is the people of Scotts Addition that have given Kenny the tools to face the world outside. Scotts Addition is a fun look at the forties and fifties and a tribute to the spirit and fortitude of an individual, proving that you can grow up poor and still be enriched.

From Clinic to Corner Office – Organization and Management on the Exam Table By: Mitchell Rabkin At age 35, and with little experience as a manager, Mitch Rabkin became CEO of Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital and began an intense process of learning. Over thirty years, he and his team worked to transform Harvard-affiliated BI (now, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) into a world-class teaching hospital, research institution and regional healthcare network. Enriched by on-the-job study and reflection on organizations and their management, Dr. Rabkin offers practical examples valuable to all managers and those who aspire to that role.