John Wooden on his 96th birthday.I'm not much of a basketball fan. In fact, I'm not really a big sports fan at all. I enjoyed watching a variety of sports when the girls were in school: soccer, swimming, track, volleyball, cross country. But if I don't have a child ... or soon, a grandchild ... on a team, it's unlikely you'll find me sitting in the stands.

I have attended a few professional sporting events, thanks mostly to free tickets I used to get from my former employer. And I do enjoy going to baseball games with friends and family now and then. But watching sports is not something I do often, from either the stands or from my couch when there's a game on television.

The sport I'm least likely to watch, other than golf or NASCAR, is basketball. Yes, basketball is exciting and all, but the darn squeaking of the shoes on the court drives me absolutely batty for some reason, and I can concentrate on nothing but that grating noise while watching the game. (Note to Megan and Preston: I promise to overcome such nonsense when Bubby starts playing basketball; I will watch his games any time, anywhere, regardless of how much shoe squeaking goes on!)

But -- and as Pee-Wee Herman once noted, "everyone I know has a big but" -- by not being a basketball fan, I think I've missed out on familiarizing myself with what seems to have been a truly great man.

John Wooden, one of the most successful coaches ever, winning 10 national titles in 12 years for UCLA, died last week at the age of 99. Yeah, I saw the news reports and didn't really think too much about it. He was old, he lived a long life, sounds like he accomplished a lot during his 99 years.

Then yesterday I received my daily Shelf Awareness newsletter about the book industry, and it included a tribute of sorts to Coach Wooden. Seems Wooden not only rallied his teams to success, he was a rather successful writer, having written several books selling millions of copies. And although I don't care a whole heckuva lot about basketball, I do love quotes, and the Shelf Awareness newsletter included some of Wooden's most oft-quoted aphorisms:

"It isn't what you do, but how you do it."

"You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you."

"Be quick but don't hurry."

"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."

"Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability."

"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be."

"Listen if you want to be heard."

"If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"

That is one smart man, one brilliant man, one thoughtful, caring, wise man. And now I regret having never watched such a man in action.

According to Shelf Awareness, a book commemorating Wooden's life was scheduled to publish in October in honor of his 100th birthday. Titled The Wisdom of Wooden: A Century of Family, Faith, and Friends, written with Steve Jamison, Wooden did have the opportunity to proof and approve of the final product. Upon his death, the publication date has been moved up to July.

So in July, despite my general disdain of the squeaky game called basketball, I will be buying a book about a basketball coach, a book about a remarkably wise man.

And starting today, I will try to do something daily for someone who will never be able to repay me.

Today's question:

What's your favorite sport to watch?

My answer: Like I said, I don't watch a lot of sports, but when I do, hockey is my favorite.

Bubby packin' books -- a gift he LOVED from my friend Debbie.I love books. My girls love books. Bubby loves books. I know LOTS of people who love books.

But the book industry is flailing. And that worries me. Mostly because I love books, my girls love books, and Bubby loves books.

(Full disclosure: It also worries me because I've got one of my books submitted to a few agents and the industry can't -- simply CAN'T -- wither down to nothing before I get one or two or ten published!)

The impetus for today's worry is information I received in a newsletter I'm subscribed to from a site called Shelf Awareness that focuses on the book industry. Here's the scary news I got yesterday (quoted directly from Shelf Awareness):

Net book sales in 2009 in the U.S. fell 1.8%, to $23.95 billion, according to estimates by the Association of American Publishers based on sales data from 86 publishers as well as on data from the Bureau of the Census. In the last seven years, the book business has had a compound annual growth rate of 1.1%.

Category	Sales	Percent Change
E-books	$313 million	176.6%
Higher ed	$4.3 billion	12.9%
Adult hardcover	$2.6 billion	6.9%
Children's/YA paperback	$1.5 billion	2.2%

Book clubs/mail-order	$588 million	−2%
Mass market paperback	$1 billion	−4%
Children's/YA hardcover	$1.7 billion	−5%
Adult paperback	$2.2 billion	−5.2%
Religious books	$659 million	−9%
Audiobooks	$192 million	−12.9%
El-hi books	$5.2 million	−13.8%

Sure, there are still millions and billions of books still being sold, but the number is decreasing. And at the rate at which it's decreasing, will Bubby have books readily available when he's an adult? Will he be able to pass them down to his grandchildren? Will the ones I've given him -- and will continue to give him -- become relics of days gone by?

That el-hi number? Those are textbooks, the books kids use in school. To think schoolbooks are decreasing at such a crazy rate is absolutely frightening.

And that number for Children's/YA hardcover? Aack! Picture books are my forte; picture books are Bubby's best friend. What's up with that?

People are still reading, obviously. The adult hardcover and higher ed numbers are encouraging. And readers are obviously snagging up those e-books like there's no tomorrow. Now I'm a fan of technology and all, but I'm a bigger fan of books -- real, live, turn the page by hand, fall asleep with it on your lap and worry about scrunching the pages books.

I'm sure books will never completely disappear. There are too many people who believe as I do that books not only fill out one's time and mind marvelously, they also fill out one's room quite nicely. You can't line the walls of the study with Kindles and Nooks.