Receive Undefeated: From Basketball To Battle Developed By Jim Noles Offered As Audio Books

West Point basketball team, the Cadets, had only managed arecord, and for theseason coach Ed Kelleher's hopes in reversing Army's fortunes rested on his five starters.


They consisted of three seniors team captain "Big Ed" Christl, John "Three Star" Hennessey, and class president Bobby Faas and two juniors, Dale Hall and Doug Kenna.
At the academy, Kelleher molded his cadets into a new kind of team, and, as the new season opened in January of, Kelleher's strategy paid handsome dividends.
By the end of January, West Point wasby the end of February, the team boasted arecord, Of course, during those weeks, it only took a glance at the newspaper headlines to be reminded that there were far bigger contests than intercollegiate basketball afoot in the winter of.


The cadets would not be able to play in the NIT or NCAA national tournaments for a likely national championship, The world was at war, and the U, S. Army needed its finest on the front line more than on the court, Just after their incredible basketball battles ended, the three seniors were about to enter other battles, Hennessey endured months of frontline fighting, battling from the waistdeep snow of Alsatian forests to the bombedout rubble of German cities, Christl, a fearless forward observer for his field artillery battalion, made it all the way to Austria, where he would lose his life in the final week of the war in Europe.
Three months later, Faas was shot down over Japan and forced to bail out over the Pacific Ocean, Coach Kelleher would die overseas on his own special assignment with the Army,

In the years that followed, the Army's basketball team would never again have a chance to again play in the NCAA tournament and, in the modern era, few remember West Point's perfectseason.
Although West Point's home basketball court is named the Edward C, Christl Arena, and the National Invitational Tournament's trophy is named after his coach, Edward A, Kelleher, too few people fully appreciate why, But after reading Undefeated, they will, .