Join us as we celebrate the release of Jerry Ratcliffe and Chris Graham’s book, Team of Destiny: Inside Virginia Basketball’s Run to the 2019 National Championship. A signing will follow. This event will be free and open to the public. If you would like to pre-order a copy of Team of Destiny through the shop, please email us at staff@ndbookshop.com or call us at (434) 295-2552.
Team of Destiny: Inside Virginia Basketball’s Run to the 2019 National Championship will take you from the aftermath of the stunning first-round loss to UMBC in 2018, and how coach Tony Bennett and his team used that loss as the source of strength, to the ACC regular-season championship, the run to the Final Four, and the thrilling overtime win over Texas Tech to win the 2019 national title, the first in school history.
"This is a hoops story you will LOVE! Jerry and Chris capture the sensational and dramatic championship journey by Tony Bennett and his tenacious Cavalier team. UVA was 'Awesome Baby' and so is this book!"
—ESPN Basketball Announcer Dick Vitale
Jerry Ratcliffe is the dean of the UVA sports media. He has covered the Hoos and ACC basketball for forty-five years. The four-time Virginia Sportswriter of the Year, as selected by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, Ratcliffe is also the author of The University of Virginia Football Vault: The History of the Cavaliers, published in 2008. “Hootie” is now the editor of the popular JerryRatcliffe.com and the host of The Jerry Ratcliffe Show, which airs on Saturdays at 9 AM on ESPN Charlottesville, 102.9 FM.
Chris Graham has covered UVA athletics since 1995. A 1994 graduate of the University of Virginia, he is also the coauthor of Mad About U: Four Decades of Basketball at University Hall, a historical review of the famed former home of UVA basketball, published in 2006. Graham is the editor of AugustaFreePress.com, which launched in 2002, and a play-by-play broadcaster covering college baseball and college football for ESPN3 and ESPN+.