GILDEA, William 1939-

PERSONAL: Born February 2, 1939, in Baltimore, MD; married September 26, 1964; wife's name Mary F. Education: Columbia University, M.S., 1961.

ADDRESSES: Home—Bethesda, MD. Office—Washington Post, 1150 15th St. N.W., Washington, DC 20071.

CAREER: Washington Post, Washington, DC, journalist, 1965–.

WRITINGS:

(Coauthor) Larry Brown, I'll Always Get Up, Simon and Schuster (New York, NY), 1973.

(Coauthor, with Steve Turan) Steve Wright, I'd Rather Be Wright: Memoirs of an Itinerant Tackle, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1974.

(Coauthor) Christopher Jennison, The Fighting Irish, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1976.

When the Colts Belonged to Baltimore: A Father and a Son, a Team, and a Time, Ticknor & Fields (New York, NY), 1994.

Where the Game Matters Most: A Last Championship Season in Indiana High School Basketball, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1997, updated with a foreword by John Wooden, Triumph Books (Chicago, IL), 2000.

(With others) The New Updated Edition Redskins: A History of Washington's Team, Washington Post Books (Washington, DC), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS: William Gildea is a sportswriter for the Washington Post whose work is "always quick, intelligent, and entertaining," to quote Andrew Riccobono in the Library Journal. Gildea joined the staff of the Washington Post in 1965, having grown up in nearby Baltimore, Maryland. His book When the Colts Belonged to Baltimore: A Father and Son, a Team, and a Time recalls the special relationship between the 1950s-era Baltimore Colts and their dedicated, working-class fans. In particular Gildea explores the bond he forged with his own father as they planned their autumn Sundays around attending Colts games. According to Wes Lukowsky in Booklist, reading When the Colts Belonged to Baltimore "is a very special experience; it's seldom so many topics … are examined so sensitively and so perceptively in one volume."

Where the Game Matters Most: A Last Championship Season in Indiana High School Basketball tells of the final season in which all Indiana high schools, no matter the size, competed in the state championship tournament. From 1911 until 1997 the Indiana state tournament ended with one team at the top, allowing occasional "miracle" titles by small, rural schools. Since 1997 Indiana has run its state tournaments in four tiers based on school population. Gildea used the final season under the old rules as an opportunity to explore the special passion Indiana residents have for high school and college basketball. A Publishers Weekly contributor praised the book for its "memorable portraits" of coaches, players, and special games. The reviewer also felt that Gildea conveys the unique qualities of a state "whose residents claim that their priorities are family, church, and basketball."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August, 1994, Wes Lukowsky, review of When the Colts Belonged to Baltimore: A Father and Son, a Team, and a Time, p. 2015.

Library Journal, December, 1997, Andrew Riccobono, review of Where the Game Matters Most: A Last Championship Season in Indiana High School Basketball, p. 113.

New York Times Book Review, November 20, 1994, Amy Edith Johnson, review of When the Colts Belonged to Baltimore, p. 22; January 11, 1998, J. D. Biersdorfer, review of Where the Game Matters Most, p. 15.

Publishers Weekly, June 27, 1994, review of When the Colts Belonged to Baltimore, p. 63; November 3, 1997, review of Where the Game Matters Most, p. 74.