The book devotes four of its 31 chapters to Allred's time at Utah. He was very careful to only use stories of his Utah experience when he had another witness to back him up. He says he doesn't hold any ill feelings toward Majerus or blame him for his failure at Utah.

"Majerus was brutal to all of his players, some more than others, and I wasn't an exception," he said. "Sure, I was a Majerus-type player, but personality-wise, no. When you have someone like Majerus, who you admire and you want so badly to please, but he'll never give it to you, you find yourself obsessing and obsessing. My personality mixed with his was just gasoline over fire." While Allred shares the blame for his failure at Utah, he also says "I can give Majerus no credit for my subsequent success. There are things I do as a player now that have allowed me to be successful, he would never let me do."

He still gets grief from some folks for Majerus' departure, and says, "They'll never know how much I loved that place and what really went on there. If I need to be the scapegoat for it, fine. Hopefully he's learned lessons as well."

After leaving Utah, Allred transferred to Weber State, where his career took off under the more laid-back style of Joe Cravens, a former Majerus assistant coach. Knowing both well, Cravens says, "There couldn't be a worse match than Rick Majerus and Lance Allred."

Cravens told Allred to not think much about basketball during his year off as a redshirt and he allowed him to play the game he had been taught in high school under Kerry Rupp.

By the time he was a senior, Allred was one of the top rebounders in the nation. He waged a yearlong battle with Utah's Andrew Bogut and future Jazz-man Paul Millsap of Louisiana Tech, finishing just short with 12.0 boards per game compared to Millsap's 12.4 and Bogut's 12.2.

"I told him if you want to obsess about something, why don't you obsess about rebounding," recalls Cravens. "And he did. He'd knock over a guard 20 feet from the basket to get a rebound. He was really into leading the nation in rebounding."

Cravens calls Allred "brilliant," but acknowledges he wasn't the easiest player to coach. "I used to say, 'coaching Lance is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.' He's a very unique person."

However he's not the least bit surprised that Allred has gone on to play in the NBA and get a book contract worth close to six figures.

"I fully expected him to be successful person after he got out of college," he said.

While he may have a promising future as a writer, Allred said he still loves basketball and will play it until his knees say "no more."