Stockton, California experienced a high-voltage jolt of enthusiasm during the 1960s when a young basketball coach named Dick Edwards brought a city together. Hired by the University of the Pacific to coach its team, Edwards had an ability to go "outside the campus gates" and capture the support of the city of Stockton and the outlying community.
He built a rabid fan base that became honorary Pacific alumni and they all turned an old opera house in downtown Stockton into a "capitol" of basketball. The enthusiasm of the city helped Edwards develop a nationally-ranked program that the University of the Pacific, the city of Stockton, the county of San Joaquin, and the core of California's great Central Valley would grow to give unconditional support and interest.
Read how a fiery coach and a small group of dedicated assistants used a hardscrabble approach with a bunch of driven athletes to make Stockton and the University of the Pacific shine.

About Tom JonesTom Jones was born in Akron, Ohio when it was still "The Rubber Capital of the World" and the acrid smell of sulphur in the air was a matter of civic pride. Like his grandfather and his father before him, he, too, was employed at Firestone Tire & Rubber as a young man. Following his graduation from Kent State University, he packed his Chevette, fled what was then rapidly becoming known as "the rustbelt" and (like his grandfather before him) headed to a boomtown-Houston. After the collapse of the oil industry in Houston three years later, he found employment within the advertising industry in San Antonio for twenty years as a nationally award-winning copywriter. Ten of these years were at his own firm, Flying Terrier Creative Company, which was named after a stray dog with a broken tail that he adopted off the street. That dog's name was Waldo, which inspired his first book, Waldo Maccabees, In the Footsteps of Christ-a fictionalized narrative of the ministry of Christ as seen through the eyes of His dog.Following the publication of Waldo Maccabees, Tom completed the award-winning non-fiction work On A Burning Deck, An Oral History of The Great Migration. Based on over 50 hours of oral histories, as well as 173 rare photos from archives, museums and personal collections around the country, On A Burning Deck is the only work to offer a complete portrait of one family's origins in rural Kentucky, migration to Akron, Ohio, work in the rubber factories and eventual impact on local politics and government.Tom lives in New Braunfels, Texas, with his wife, Steffanie. To contact the author, he can be reached at: Tom@OnABurningDeck.com