The North Carolina basketball team-with its light blue line of All-Americans and championships stretching from one end of the Dean Dome to the other-may be the most storied in college basketball history. But what happened to the players who wore Carolina blue once the cheering stopped in Chapel Hill and they went on with the rest of their lives? North Carolina Tar Heels: Where Have You Gone? answers that question for three dozen of the most interesting players in Tar Heel basketball history. Written by Scott Fowler, a North Carolina graduate himself and now a sports columnist at The Charlotte Observer, the book details the life of a different former Tar Heel player in each chapter. Every chapter is based on an exclusive, in-depth interview with the player featured, as well as interviews with Tar Heel coaches Dean Smith, Bill Guthridge and Roy Williams. Woody Durham, the radio play-by-play voice of the Tar Heels since 1971, contributes a heartfelt foreword to a book that serves both as an alumni guide and a yearbook bulging with extraordinary moments. Featured players include All-Americans like Phil Ford, Billy Cunningham, Joseph Forte, Charles Scott, Larry Miller, Bobby Jones, Bob McAdoo, Mike O'Koren and Eric Montross. Also included are some of the unselfish hustlers who contributed so much - men like Jim Delany, Tommy Kearns, Scott Williams, Dick Grubar and George Lynch. From Lennie Rosenbluth to Julius Peppers, the past 50 years of Tar Heel basketball is unfurled.
Scott Fowler is an author as well as a national award-winning sports columnist for The Charlotte Observer, the largest newspaper in the Carolinas. He has written for The Observer since 1994. You can also visit his personal website at www.ScottFowlerSports.com -- information about all six of his books can be found there -- or e-mail him at ScottFowlerBooks@aol.com.
Scott's newest book -- "Lost on the Road to Nowhere," published in 2012 -- is the fictional adventure of four children stranded in the North Carolina woods in the aftermath of a car wreck. It is family-friendly and recommended for ages 8-14.
Scott's newest nonfiction book -- "What It Means to be a Tar Heel" -- is an affectionate oral history of UNC basketball, told through the eyes of 42 of the program's greatest players. It is available from Amazon.com and was named one of the "Top 20 New Sports Books" by bleacherreport.com.
A native of Spartanburg, S.C., Scott graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a journalism degree from the University of North Carolina in 1987.
He worked for three years from 1987-90 covering the University of Kentucky sports teams - primarily UK basketball - for The Louisville Courier-Journal. He then took a job with The Miami Herald and covered the NFL's Miami Dolphins for most of three seasons, writing about teams led by head coach Don Shula and quarterback Dan Marino.
In 1994, Scott moved back closer to home to write for The Charlotte Observer's sports section. Scott and his colleague Charles Chandler combined to cover the Carolina Panthers on a day-to-day basis during their early seasons. They also co-wrote a regional bestseller called "Year of the Cat" (1997, Simon & Schuster).
He followed it with "Tales from the Carolina Panthers Sideline" (2004); "North Carolina Tar Heels: Where Have You Gone?" (2005); and "Jimmy Black's Tales from the Tar Heels" (2006), which was a story of the 1982 UNC title team that Scott wrote in collaboration with Black, the squad's senior point guard.
Scott has been a Charlotte Observer sports columnist since 1999. He writes mostly about the Carolina Panthers, college basketball, NASCAR and the Olympics. He has interviewed a number of sports celebrities (that picture with him in the orange shirt is a shot of Scott interviewing Michael Jordan).
Scott's newspaper work has won more than a half-dozen national awards and has been published in numerous magazines and newspapers around the country. He has made several appearances on ESPN and was on camera as part of HBO's 2009 "Tobacco Road" documentary on the UNC-Duke basketball rivalry.
Scott and his wife Elise live with their four rambunctious children in North Carolina. He welcomes your e-mails at ScottFowlerBooks@aol.com or your visit to his personal website at www.ScottFowlerSports.com.
