Outskirts Press, INC.

A former All-American and European pro basketball player, Dirk Dunbar is a humanities professor at Northwest Florida State College. He has published essays in ReVision, The Trumpeter, The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, Quodlibet, Ashé Journal, and others. His books include A Matter of Perspective, The Balance of Nature’s Polarities in New Paradigm Theory, and the soon-to-be-released, Renewing the Balance. Dirk Dunbar’s Confessions of a Basketball Junkie offers a personal glimpse into the archetypal journey that we are all destined to navigate—from the call, departure, and tribulations to the return to the place and person we are meant to be. Filled with poetry and athletic anecdotes, mystical and humorous experiences, and truth-seeking explorations into our local and planetary purpose, this extraordinary memoir affirms the grandeur of being at home in the universe. All this while recapping a phenomenal, yet injury filled basketball career that is captivating, painful, and inspiring. The ideas are big, but simply and profoundly expressed. This book is sure to touch athletes, incite seekers, and enthrall human-interest readers worldwide. “A walk in the woods never lies,” Dirk Dunbar says up-front in Confessions of a Basketball Junkie, and this autobiography by the pro athlete, humanities professor, musician and sometime mystic demonstrates the point. In easygoing, familiar language that belies the depth of his knowledge, Dunbar here retraces the many paths of his life as a promising NBA star, a finely tuned philosopher, and a devoted friend and family man. What you take away from this book are not just recollections of his walk through life and depictions of sung and unsung athletes and friends, but a startling ebullience of spirit, an appreciation of life in all its flower, and an unflagging sense of hopeful good humor—even during the darkest days of career-altering injuries. As if that’s not enough in a book, you also get accessible explanations of the Earth-centered philosophies that have shaped a real life. Confessions of a Basketball Junkie is a saunter through the woods of the human spirit at its everyday and sometimes buzzer-beating best. —Dana Wilde, author of The Other End of the Driveway: Observations in the Maine Woods