Here’s the Score

About the Book

In 1939, a family of twelve siblings coming out of the depths of Great Depression poverty finds itself living in an abandoned town hall that once served as a basketball gymnasium in the small Colorado town of Mead. There, with basketball hoops hanging over their heads, an all-male set of triplets is born, marking the beginning of their destined journey toward leading Mead High School to basketball prominence. Growing up in the ’40s and ’50s, the triplets’ obsession with basketball is inspired and nurtured by their older siblings, schoolmates, teammates, and community members. Throughout their elementary, middle school, and early high school years, the triplets and two other brothers learn from teammates and coaches. They experience adulation and newspaper notoriety, causing their mother to constantly remind them to refrain from self-absorption and to work together. In 1956, the brothers participate in a historic event in the nation’s basketball history when they form and play as the starting five for Mead High. This story, told through the eyes of sixteenth-born and triplet Ronald James Newton, recounts his struggles in the classroom and on the basketball court and portrays his striving toward development of meaningful and satisfying relationships with classmates, family, and friends. The story’s threads of spirituality and facing and rising above adversity are enveloped in the bonding relationships that small-town and small-school athletics provide and are crowned by Mead’s ’57 state basketball championship victory.

About the Author

Ronald James Newton, a triplet and the sixteenth born in a family of twenty siblings, has served as a science educator in public schools and universities for forty years. He is a graduate of the University of Northern Colorado (BA, biology, 1961), the University of Utah (MS, science education, 1966),and Texas A&M University (PhD, botany, 1971). He is retired from academic life and lives with his wife, Mary, in Coppell, TX. They have a son and a daughter and four grandchildren. In 2015, Newton published through Xlibris a memoir of his life with 19 siblings titled, Light of her Children.