The night of April 4, 1988 will forever live in the hearts of fans of Jayhawks basketball. On that night, the Jayhawks and their fans raucously celebrated the team’s first national title since 1952. This game for the ages is one of 22 contests joyously recalled in this reissue of Steve Buckner’s Game of My Life Kansas Jayhawks. For fans of the Kansas Jayhawks, Game of My Life is a fabulous stroll down memory lane in which several Jayhawks basketball legends detail the events that culminated in the game of their lives. Players from the 1988 NCAA Championship squad share their insights into the collective game of their lives, as well as the defeat of rival Oklahoma in the national championship game. Former players featured include Mark Turgeon, Drew Gooden, Steve Woodberry, Paul Pierce, Nick Collison, Rex Walters, Mario Chalmers, and Kirk Hinrich, along with former coach Larry Brown and many more legends. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Players from the 1988 NCAA Championship basketball squad share their insightsinto their defeat of rival Oklahoma in the national championship game in thischronicle. Photos.

The University of Kansas basketball team has the most winning seasons of any team in college basketball. The history of KU basketball goes back 115 years. This volume describes many unbelievable game-stopping moments in the history of the game, as well as the most inspiring coaches and players and infamous team rivalries. It includes some incredible historical images from KU basketball history and a timeline for fast reference for the avid sports fan.

KU alumnus and Jayhawk enthusiast Kenn Johnson is back with even more legends and firsts. Notable coaches like Danny Manning, who won the national championship as a player in 1988 and again as part of the coaching staff in 2008, have shaped and molded the team throughout the decades. Players like Raef LaFrentz, who became the first Jayhawks player in twenty-seven years to average a double-double over an entire season, keep the fans coming back for more. From the history of the famous Allen Fieldhouse to current coach Bill Self, Johnson offers a closer look at the team's unique contribution to the sport of basketball.

He’s been called a journeyman. Even Paul wouldn’t dispute that classification. Regardless, Bill Simmons, ESPN’s “The Sports Guy,” has said of Paul Shirley, “We could finally have an answer to the question ‘What would it be like if one of our friends was an NBA player?” There’s no denying that Paul Shirley is the closest thing pro basketball’s got to Odysseus. In Homeric fashion, he has logged time practically everywhere in the roundball universe, from six NBA cities to pro leagues in Spain and Greece to North America’s pro ball Siberia, the minor leagues. Hell, he’s even played in the real Siberia. And in Can I Keep My Jersey?, Shirley finally puts down roots long enough to deliver one of the great locker-room chronicles of the modern age. With sharp elbows and an even sharper wit, Shirley–whose writings have been described as “wildly entertaining” by The Wall Street Journal–drops hilarious commentary, revealing which teams have the best cheerleaders (he’s spent many a time-out watching them ply their trade), why Christ is rapidly becoming every team’s “sixth man,” and even the best ways to get bloodstains out of your game uniform, using only an ordinary bar of soap and a hotel bathroom sink. From sharing the court with Kobe and Shaq to perusing the food court at some mall in a bush-league burg; from taking pregame layups to getting laid out by a stray knee from an NBA power forward; from hopping a limo to the team’s charter jet to dashing to catch the van home from a B-league game in Tijuana, Shirley dishes on what it’s like to try to make it as a professional athlete. Can I Keep My Jersey? is a rollicking, thoughtful, even thought-provoking insider’s look at a pro baller’s life on the fringe. Like Jim Bouton’s Ball Four or John Feinstein’s A Season on the Brink, Shirley’s odyssey deserves to find a home on every sports fan’s bookshelf.