Sept. 7, 2002

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams and author David A. Vise have completed an autobiographical book on the national champion coach which will be released in bookstores in October. The book, titled Sweet Redemption captures the journey that carried Williams - a Maryland alum and former player - back to his alma mater during an era of frustration and despair, and through 13 seasons that led the Terrapins to the 2002 NCAA championship.

Williams, 274-143 as Maryland's head coach, is the only active coach in America to guide his alma mater to consecutive appearances in the NCAA Final Four. He is the first coach since 1974 to guide his alma mater to the national title.

Vise, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist with the Washington Post, is most recently noted for his best-selling book, "The Bureau and the Mole" which tells the story of the FBI and its notorious double-agent Robert Philip Hanssen.

Together, Gary Williams and David Vise have committed to a series of local book-signing opportunities in the Baltimore-Washington area beginning in October, just prior to the beginning of the Terps' 2002-03 season and the school's Midnight Madness festivities at Comcast Center on Oct. 11. Local book-signings are scheduled for:

1. Tuesday, Oct. 1 at the Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Bethesda (4801 Bethesda Ave.), beginning at 7:30 p.m.

2. Wednesday, Oct. 2 at the Barnes & Noble On The Avenue in White Marsh/Baltimore (8123 Honeygo Blvd.), beginning at 7:30 p.m.

3. Tuesday, Oct. 8 at Borders Books at White Flint Mall (Rockville Pike), beginning at 7:30 p.m.

4. Friday, Oct. 11 before Midnight Madness activities at Comcast Center (time to be determined)

Vise will appear, individually, at signing events at the Baltimore Book Festival (Mount Vernon Place, 600 block of North Charles Street) on the afternoons of Sept. 28 and 29 (12 to 4 p.m.).

Additional book-signing events may be announced later. The book retails for $24.95 and is published by Sports Publishing. The book includes a 16-page photo layout and begins with a foreword by former Terps guard and 2002 Final Four MVP Juan Dixon.

SWEET REDEMPTION SUMMARY
Sweet Redemption is the amazing, inside story of how Coach Gary Williams survived devastating defeats and overwhelming odds to build a championship basketball program at Maryland and win the 2002 NCAA title.

In a series of exclusive interviews that take you into the huddle, into the locker room and into his head, Gary Williams, for the first time, pulls back the curtain and tells his incredible story through best-selling author David A. Vise, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the Washington Post.

Sweet Redemption also takes you into the heart and soul of Gary Williams and the team's star guard, Juan Dixon, providing a vast array of never-before-told stories about the mysterious forces and people that fueled their rise. It is a fast-moving inspirational tale of trial and triumph. And it is the story of a man, a family and a team whose lives were made, and saved, through a simple game involving a ball, a hoop and a dream.

When he arrived in College Park in 1989, Williams absorbed one knockout punch after another as the new head basketball coach of his alma mater. His promising career seemed over and Maryland basketball appeared destined, like its greatest player ever, to plunge to an untimely death.

But by the spring of 2002, when Coach Williams and the Terrapins stood on the podium in the Georgia Dome to receive the NCAA Championship Trophy, he had brought about some of the most far-reaching changes in the history of college athletics. Sweet Redemption is the story of how he did it.