‘Shark Attack’ author Yaeger holds Tark close to his heart

Maybe it's cynicism, maybe it's being a curmudgeon: It seems the older one gets, the fewer pedestals one has for heroes.

Yes, I did enjoy those "Iron Man" movies. Now get off my lawn.

Nowadays, it seems the sports people I most identify with are those in its margins: Utility infielders, pro bowlers, backup goalies, Paraguayan javelin throwers, guys (and gals, lest I forget Ana Beatriz and Simona De Silvestro, the "Swiss Miss") who start in the back rows at the Indy 500.

So now, as one who writes short stories, I mostly admire people who write books. It takes a lot of discipline to write a book.

Don Yaeger has written 20 books, according to his listing on Amazon.com. Plus one on John Smoltz that isn't listed. Yaeger must have the discipline of a Marine drill sergeant. If he were a football coach, he'd probably lose to Southern Cal, because he would be Woody Hayes.

Yaeger has written books about Walter Payton, John Wooden, Rex Ryan, Warrick Dunn and Michael Oher's blind side.

About Tug McGraw, Dot Richardson, Dale Brown, George Karl and Dick Hoyt, a man who competes in triathlons with his son, who suffers from cerebral palsy, by pulling him along in boats, on bicycles, in wheelchairs.

About the Duke lacrosse team and the Notre Dame and Alabama football teams, and the NCAA's team, which he found evil and diabolical. On that note, he's even written a book about a sports agent, Drew Rosenhaus. In retrospect, he wishes he hadn't.

Yaeger's second book was about Jerry Tarkanian. "Shark Attack: Jerry Tarkanian and his Battle with the NCAA and UNLV" was published in March 1993. The second book in the Tark trilogy (Terry Pluto and Dan Wetzel wrote the others), there are six new copies from $15, 22 used from $2, available through Amazon.

Today, that seems like so little for a book that meant so much, at least to the guy who wrote it, one of only 200 authors to put four books on the New York Times bestseller list.

"(Tark) believed in me before other people did," Yaeger said. "He gave me a chance to do a huge book, when I really had no credentials."

We were chatting in a booth at the All-American Bar & Grille at the Rio on Sunday night. Don Yaeger had a bowl of French onion soup in front of him. His plane home to Florida was leaving in a couple of hours.

I had intended to bring along my copy of "Shark Attack" - I know it's in an unmarked box somewhere, with my slot cars, baseball cards and birth certificate. Had I looked any longer, Yaeger's soup would have been cold.

After a stint at Sports Illustrated, he's now 50 years old and a motivational speaker. He was in Las Vegas to meet with other motivational speakers; at first, I thought that's what he wanted to talk about. But mostly he wanted to talk about Tark and about that book, which basically told the coach's side of the story (though Tark was none too pleased about the Lloyd Daniels chapter).

Others have slowly come around to Tark's side, too. There was a positive story in the New York Times last week, another in "Playboy" last month. A lot of basketball people, like Jay Bilas, now say Tark was ahead of his time, that how he built programs here and at Long Beach State wasn't much different than how guys such as John Calipari now build them at Kentucky.

Is there a chance Tark might finally be admitted to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame? There's always a chance. Butler had a chance against Duke, another chance against Connecticut.

Maybe this will be the year that Gordon Hayward's halfcourt heave finally falls. Maybe not. Not everybody views Tark as Jay Bilas does.

But Don Yaeger mostly wanted to see Tark, because he had heard Tark wasn't doing so well.

The author can relate. Nine years ago, while playing pickup basketball with pals, one caught Yaeger flush with a Christian Laettner-like elbow. The blow broke his nose. When the doctors were straightening it, they found cancer in his thyroid, and it was stage 3, and that scared Yaeger, scared him big-time.

And so now he mostly writes books about people who inspire rather than polarize.

He said he had breakfast with Tark at the Omelet House on Saturday, because that was always Tark's favorite place, and that the coach's wife, Lois, and his son, Danny, came along. And that Danny picked up the tab, keeping alive his father's streak of never paying for a meal.

They had a nice visit, though Tark didn't say much.

But when they were saying goodbye outside, Don Yaeger maneuvered around Jerry Tarkanian's walker, told him how much he had meant to him, and gave him a hug bigger than his next book advance.

He said Tark hugged him back.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski