Lyndonville, VT - Former Lyndon State College basketball player and 1984 graduate Mike Whaley has written a book on small-college basketball in New England, centered around the lesser-known college sports organization -- the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).  The book is called "Floor Burns: A Wild Journey Across the Forgotten Backroads of NAIA Basketball in New England."   Sprawling, intimate and colorful, it highlights all six New England states, starting in New Britain, Connecticut, in the 1940s and wrapping up in present-day Boston at tiny Fisher College.

There are several stories on Lyndon, specifically on former coach Skip Pound and national scoring champion Ricky Sutton.  More than a dozen former LSC players were interviewed for the book.  There are other Vermont stories on Johnson State College, Castleton State College, where former NBA coach Stan Van Gundy got his start, Green Mountain College, the College of Saint Joseph, and Windham College.

The book was published by Bondcliff Books of Littleton, NH, owned by Lyndon graduate Mike Dickerman.  It is available online at www.shopball603.com and at select bookstores throughout New England, including Green Mountain Books in Lyndonville.

Whaley has been an award-winning sportswriter in Maine and New Hampshire since 1987.  A two-time New Hampshire Sportswriter of the Year, he played basketball at Lyndon from 1979 to 1983 in the era of short shorts with no 3-pointer or shot clock.  He was inducted into the Lyndon Athletic Hall of Fame in 2005.  This is his second book.  Whaley lives in Portland, Maine, with his wife, Jill Rosenblum.