I didn’t expect my many years experience as a college basketball referee making bogus calls to prepare me for rigging the National Collegiate Athletic Association Championship game.

First there would be the oppressive pressure of the whole world watching and the possibility that if I screwed up, I might end up in jail or with my feet cast in concrete on the bottom of some out of the way body of water. And second, the best laid plans are sometimes foiled by the players who refuse to stick to their expected roles. I mean, these are just kids who often defy expectations, performing either better or worse than what past performance would indicate. There are no guarantees in this fixing business, regardless of what Switchblade thinks.

You can foul-out the entire starting lineup and the second string can come in and blow away the opposition. The best player on the floor can have an off-night, tossing up brick after brick, scoring five instead of his usual 25. Choking is a big part of the sport. This isn’t the PGA where the fans are so quiet for a meaningless three-foot putt by Tiger Woods that you can hear a tee drop on a plush putting green. We’re talking about 18-year-old kids on the foul-line with 30,000 hysterical fans screaming and waving banners and millions more watching on national television. Unfathomable amounts of dollars are commonly on the line for a player’s school and maybe for himself if he’s good enough for the pros and can handle the pressure. Anything can happen.

Defying the odds, Hampton College, a private school of less than 5,000 students, wound its way through the tournament with miraculous buzzer-beating wins against heavy favorites to face mighty Texas State for the championship. A classic David versus Goliath. A match-up made in marketing heaven.

The Hampton team of unknowns—its tallest player was only six-feet-seven inches—employed a three guard offense that excelled in shooting three-pointers. Its route to the final game was more suspenseful than a Tom Clancy novel, two games won in overtime and the other three by a total of seven points. I think the crowds pushed them over the top in several of their cliffhangers. There hasn’t been a crowd favorite like Hampton since Larry Bird’s Indiana State in 1979.

Texas State, on the other hand, was ranked number one all season and crushed their tournament opponents with incredible inside action. All three of the front line, two measuring six-feet-ten and one at seven-feet three inches tall, would play in the NBA the following year. They won their five tournament games by a total of 85 points, and were never in serious trouble. The line was Texas State by 12, the largest margin for the final game in memory and the betting was lopsided for State.

But Hampton was my pick. Why? Because twelve points provided lots of room for me to maneuver. Hampton was the overwhelming favorite of the media and fans which would provide cover for any bad calls I might have to make. Some quick fouls on State’s big boys would even the odds. The game looked like a natural for my methods.

The match-up was so good that I bet one million smackers of my own money earned from past point shaving efforts. I was surprised when my bookie, Flip, said he had to think about taking a bet of that size. “What? Not consult with Switchblade? I thought Switchblade was your boss.”

Flip responded with a tiny smile that indicated I had their roles reversed. Even though Flip referred to Switchblade as the boss, the reality was the opposite. They played the good guy/bad guy roles to perfection, with Flip making all the decisions in a firm, but friendly way and Switchblade providing the fear factor. Flip didn’t need Switchblade’s or anyone else’s approval. He was simply buying time to analyze how accepting my bet would affect his profits. It was one hell of an opportunity. He and his organization would make a staggering amount of money. My bet, although huge by my standards, would be dwarfed by and buried within his worldwide action. Of course if we lost, Flip would be more than unhappy and lose that same staggering amount of money. He would rely on Switchblade, the bad side of the good guy/bad guy team, to guarantee that I deliver the game, no matter what happened on the floor. As Switchblade said, “If you hafta foul out da whole goddamn team to win, you do it.”

Flip didn’t analyze for long. An opportunity like this didn’t come along very often. “What the hell. I’ll take the bet,” he said. I think he accepted my bet as one additional incentive for me to deliver the game, as if Switchblade’s “We’ll Kill ya,” threat wasn’t enough.

A successful mission would net me a million bucks for the bet and another million payment for making sure Hampton beat the spread. The two million would give me a comfortable nest egg of around five million dollars, plenty of dough for my life on the beach of some tropical paradise.

So I had to come up with a book idea so compelling to break out or this conundrum. One that even the most reluctant publisher would believe was marketable and would make some money. So I compiled a list of quotations, all concerning everybody’s favorite topic, sex. I named the raunchy compilation Sex Talk. The first publisher I sent the manuscript to bought it.

The quotes were selected on the basis of humor, entertainment value and the credentials of the author. Groucho Marx, Mae West type quotes. Raunchy, funny stuff about sex.

The net result was that I not only found a publisher, but I made some money. While not making it to the top of the New York Times best seller list, it sold enough to warrant a sequel, More Sex Talk, and was reprinted in 6 foreign countries. And it got me past the publishing “Catch 22.” People would now talk to me about other book ideas. A few agents even called, wanting to get in on the Sex Talk action.

If anyone has any suggestions about this web site or anything else, except my golf game, e-mail me at james@jameswolfebooks.com.

Chip Hagen with the help of Matt True, a stars characters in Little Balls, Big Dreams, wrote maxims to help improve one’s golf game. The tips do not cover techniques like stance, grip and swing. Check out the following from the book.

-80% of golf luck is bad.

-Know your limitations. If you can’t hit a shot, don’t.

-You’re as good as you think you are. Or at least the downside of this maxim is on the money. If you think you’re a loser, you’re a loser. On a golf course or anywhere else.

-Don’t sweat the small stuff. All things considered, the shanks, yips, ducks hooks are pretty small potatoes in the big scheme of things. Don’t sweat the big stuff, either. Because it simply doesn’t matter. At least not as much as you think it does.

-Let it all hang out. Express your emotions, while managing them. Experience the ups and downs, understanding that they will affect the next shot. A good shot not only increases your confidence and expectations, a good thing, but also your heart rate, a not so good thing. A bad shot can make you angry and frustrated, a bad thing, but part of living. And it can destroy your confidence. Feel and express your emotions then haul them back under control before the next shot.

Since a penalty plays an important part of Little Balls, Big Dreams, here as some quotes from notables golfers.

“What’s the penalty for killing a photographer-one stroke or two?”
-Davis Love III on a picture distracting his swing

“Hey, is this room out of bounds?”
-Alex Karras, football great on hitting a ball through a clubhouse window

“I’ll tak a two shot penalty, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to play the ball where it lies.”
-Elaine Johnson on her tee shot that hit a tree and landed in her bra

“We have to emphasize that we’re the only game where you call penalties on yourself.”
-Arnold Palmer

“I saw a course you’d really like, Trent. On the first tee, you take a penalty drop.”
-Jimmy Demaret to Robert Trent Jones, course designer