Books in Cool Sports series

Kick snow from your shoes and step into the warmth of the old Hoosier high school basketball gym, where farmers in overalls line the court and students heckle referees from planks above the bleachers. Revisit a unique era when nearly every town had a high school and its own basketball team. The gyms featured here no longer host high school games, but once they were home to the Ladoga Canners, the Mecca Arabs, the Roll Red Rollers, the Arlington Purple Breezes, the Warren Lightning Five and dozens more. Now they are elementary schools, community centers, fire stations, churches. Some are homes. Sadly, others are wasting away. But once again, the ball thuds in these gyms. The screams reverberate. The whistles blow. Join the Indianapolis Star's Kyle Neddenriep on this tour of one hundred former Hoosier high school basketball gyms.

Like many before him in the Bluegrass State, Michael Blowen, a former "Boston Globe" entertainment writer, fell in love with horses, specifically Thoroughbreds. The reality beyond the racetracks, he knew, was that each day a Thoroughbred was in the spotlight, for some of these distinguished athletes, their days were numbered. For that reason, he dreamed of finding a way to give them a dignified retirement after they completed their rigorous racing careers. When he opened the Thoroughbred retirement farm Old Friends in Kentucky in 2003, he never dreamed his idea would grow so big, so fast. Today, Old Friends is home to more than 130 horses, many of them stallions, as well as geldings, mares and one loveable miniature horse named Little Silver Charm. Join journalist and horse lover Rick Capone for the story of Old Friends and the horses that call the farm home.